Jesus, a magic eraser and the toaster…

We have a chrome toaster.  Very pretty when we got it, so shiny!  I love shiny!  The thing is though, as it’s been used, it’s gotten not so shiny.  In fact, I discovered today that it has gotten just downright gross.  The chrome was coated in that greasy residue that somehow collects on things in the kitchen.  It’s filled with crumbs and gunk.  Just nasty.  I started to clean it first with a sponge, and that didn’t work very well.  I was all ready to just chunk it in the garbage, how on earth can something so nasty ever be clean again?  It’s been a good toaster, but maybe it’s time to move on, perhaps it’s just too dirty.  I decided to try a magic eraser as a last ditch effort to clean the toaster.  WOW!  I knew those things were good, but man!  The grease just came right off.  Didn’t take hardly any elbow grease.  I was amazed!  It’s like new!  So shiny again!  

As I was wiping the toaster dry, it hit me, that’s what Jesus does for us!  He wipes us clean!  He is like the ultimate magic eraser!  Then, something else hit me, I’m like this toaster!  Dirty, worn out, seemingly past it’s usefulness, then, along comes Christ!  I opened my heart to Him, and BAM!  He wiped all the gunk and dirt away!  That’s what He does for us!  He cleans us, making us good as new!  But, not really.  He does even more than that!  While the magic eraser cleaned the outside of the toaster great, I can’t get the inside with it.  It’s still full of crumbs.  Jesus even gets the insides of us clean!  He comes in and washes us pure, really, makes us better than we ever were, because He took our dirt and grime and grease and gunk on Himself at Calvary!  While the magic eraser is a great tool, it’s nothing compared to Jesus!  The toaster will get dirty again, and I’ll have to attack it with yet another magic eraser.  Jesus washes us clean once and for all times!  Our salvation through Him at the cross is complete.  We don’t have to go back to Him over and over for the same thing, it’s done.  When He said, “It is finished” He meant it.  It is finished, clean, never to be undone.  Once we make that transaction, accepting what He did for us, we are clean, in a way that is unimaginable!  What we must do is accept that.  The toaster doesn’t have a brain, it doesn’t know that it was once dirty.  We do.  We remember our failures, our dirt, our grime and grease.  He cleans us, wipes us shiny again, so to speak, outside and in, but we have to accept it.  The toaster does not have to accept it’s cleanliness or dirtiness, it just is.  We on the other hand, being capable of intelligent thought, sometimes anyway, remember it all.  We have to accept His washing away of our sludge and dirt.  Once we fully accept that, we can shine!

One last note, I noticed these markings on the side of the toaster as I was wiping it dry…

The ICTHUS on the side of the toaster...

What an amazing God we serve that He would use a toaster and a magic eraser to reinforce His amazing love for us!