Mud UNDER My Jeep

A few days ago, Peyton and I took my jeep into a new neighborhood that has just been cleared for what will be roads. It had just rained and the cleared area was completely muddy just asking for a jeep to have some fun.

Living in the suburbs of Charlotte does not afford Jeep owners as many "fun" 4-wheel adventures as we would like. However, on this day we were slopping through the mud and having a great time. When our tour was complete my Jeep was completely covered in mud! It was a great time!

Then came the clean up......

I had already planned to take our muddy Jeep to a nearby self-cleaning power car wash. The kind where you have to actually get out and manually clean your car. A "touch-free" car wash at the gas station was not going to get this mud off. We pulled up to the car wash and I jumped out to begin plunking quarters in the machine. However, right before I did, a man came up to me and said that he worked at this car wash and that I could not use the car wash because my Jeep was to dirty. Excuse me..I laughed, thinking he was kidding.

He was not. He said that "they" no longer allowed muddy trucks and jeeps into the car wash because it took too much time later for all the mud to go down the drain. I asked him, "So, this is a car wash, but my jeep is not accepted because it is to dirty? I did not know that you have degrees of dirtiness that you accept? How about I go get my wife's clean van and come here and pay to make it wet and even cleaner????

Needless to say I left determined never to return. I ended up having to drive down I485 looking like "pig-pen" from Charlie Brown as mud flung into the air as I drove to another car wash that allowed dirty cars.

People ask me all the time about God's grace, acceptance and forgiveness. They don't understand that there is nothing they can do to make God love them even more. They also don't understand that God does not have a "degree of dirtiness" that determines who He will accept and forgive. The Bible says that anyone can come to God at anytime with a life full of wretched and sinful mud all over themselves....and God gracefully accepts you and "cleans you up" if you ask for it. So many people recognize that they have some "mud" in their lives and think that they first must clean themselves up and then come to God or church. The opposite is true at CSF and especially with God. We can come to God and church very dirty....expecting to be cleaned up.

That is a hallmark value at CSF. All are accepted and will find grace upon asking for it. How dirty are you today? You can ask God for a good washing and he will do it!

Today's Bible Reading: Acts 19: In the last few chapters we see that God is doing amazing things through Paul and the others. They are a part of miracles that people had never seen before. They were beginning to change their world!

Have you ever wanted to be used by God in incredible ways? You can be if you so desire to expand in your faith toward God. Expand in your desire to be a person of influence in your world and then choose to be a part of a Fellowship that's main purpose is to be used of God in mighty ways!