This is what happened when muddy footballers visited this renovated home
Imagine this, you have just completely remodelled your home. Freshly painted inside and out, brand-new expensive furniture, new designer drapes, new kitchen, and bedrooms restyled to top notch. Everything is brand-new and fresh. It cost you a lot, and it was worth it. It felt like a brand-new house.
Then one Saturday afternoon, your son or daughter comes home straight after a football game, and with them is the whole team. They are in their full, muddied uniform with boots still on their feet. They are covered in mud from head to toe, and they have a field day in your beautifully remodelled house. The ball gets thrown around, which is also covered in mud, and the mud goes everywhere; the furniture, the drapes, on the new carpet, the freshly painted walls and ceiling. It smashes the mirror above the mantel piece, and the hanging chandeliers are scattered across the floor. They run up and down the newly carpeted stairs, into the rooms. Not one bit of space was spared from the flinging mud. The house is now a hundred times worse than before the remodelling.
So you arrive home and follow the mud trail toward the front door. You open the door, and the trail of mud continues into the house, only its now going in multiple directions. Very quickly, you realise that what was in pristine condition before you left the house, is no longer. Broken glass, dented walls, furniture turned upside down, damaged, and the mud, its everywhere.
Whilst that story may not be true in real life, it mirrors in some ways what happened in the garden of Eden. The Father created Adam in His perfect image, to tend the garden, and to have harmonious relationship with Him. But Adam defiled it all, by inviting upon himself and creation the vilest thing possible to the Holiest of Holy. Adam’s sin brought spiritual death upon himself, and it broke the harmonious relationship he had with the Father.
"God’s love and grace are not tickets to accept sin."
The Father’s love for Adam was unconditional even when he was disobedient. He covered Adam’s nakedness – a prophetic act of redemption to be fulfilled triumphantly by the “seed” of the woman, the son of God. (Genesis 3:15). His unconditional love was not a ticket of acceptance for Adam’s sin. His grace did not excuse Adam’s sin but kept him in God’s love, and because of His love and grace, Adam’s descendants would be given the opportunity once again to come into perfect union with the loving Father.
You and I have the Father’s unconditional love. We have been saved by grace through faith; “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Should we then keep defiling what the Father has gifted us? Should we continue to allow the ‘filth’ of the world into His temple, and into His family – the church? Let us pause, take a moment to ponder on His unfailing love, and His amazing grace, that we get to enjoy what the first Adam lost.
The question for us is; what have we allowed into our lives that would defile our union with the Living God, and our Loving Father?
In His richest blessings
Frank Po Ching