So glad you can join me for today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading title, Jesus Removes the Stain, was written by Adam R. Holes.

Are you kidding?

I yelled, digging through our dryer looking for my shirt.

I found it and something else.

My white shirt had an ink spot on it. In fact, it looked like a jaguar pelt. Ink splotches

coated everything. I clearly hadn't checked my pockets, and a leaky pen had stained the entire load.

Scripture often uses the word stain to describe sin.

A stain permeates the fabric of something, ruining it.

And that's how God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, described sin,

reminding his people that its stain was beyond their ability to cleanse. He said,

although you wash yourself with soap and use an abundance of cleansing powder, the stain of

your guilt is still before me. Thankfully, sin doesn't get the last word. In Isaiah 118, we hear

God's promise that he can cleanse us from sin stain.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

I couldn't get the ink stain out of my shirt.

Neither can I undo the stain of my sin.

Thankfully, God cleanses us in Christ, just as 1st John 1.9 promises.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

The scripture reading for today's devotional is from Jeremiah chapter 2, verses 1 through 5,

and then verses 21 and 22.

...