God Makes Clean – Words of Grace Blog – March 13, 2026

“What God has made clean, no longer call unclean.”
Acts 10:15

Sometimes the gospel is presented as God helping us overcome a negative view of ourselves. But the good news is really that God cleanses us from the defilement of our sin and makes us something new for himself.

Children are great teachers, not because they possess great wisdom, but because they so freely express the foolishness that adults have learned to hide.

Take, for example, the child who really does not belong on the baseball field. The game being played is ten levels above his ability. He is sad because he feels left out. But then his parents hand him a jersey from the gift shop. As soon as he puts it on, he feels like he belongs. His negative view of himself has been overcome. He is happy. But nothing changed. He is still not fit to play ball with the big boys.

Children are not embarrassed by this kind of thing. They are perfectly fine to live in a fantasy world and are unaware that everyone else knows what’s going on. They are also unaware that they are showing us ourselves as we are on the inside. Sure, we’ve learned the adult skill of going along as a happy spectator, but deep down we still struggle with our deficiencies in areas other than baseball.

And so, we’ve come to see and speak of God as someone who helps us feel better about ourselves. The gospel is like a jersey from the gift shop. It’s a positive mindset we take off the rack and put on to pretend we’re not so bad and that we really are capable people. We carry on in this world of make-believe, but nothing has changed.

The gospel is real, not pretend. So, let’s be honest about our real sin. We really are rebels against our creator who is the one living and true God. We have spurned his love and gone our own way. We have indeed set our foolish desires above his perfect will and dethroned him from our lives. No amount of dressing up will change the fact that we need to be cleansed of our sin. No amount of pretending to be good will make up for our self-motivated deeds. Positive thoughts will not change our sinful nature.

And let’s be honest about God’s grace, too. Real grace abounds for real sinners. Christ died for sinners. Forgiveness is for sinners. When the God of grace cleanses a sinner based on Christ’s atonement for sin on the cross, the cleansing is real, not pretend. The sinner is so clean before God that God will no longer consider that person unclean. Nor will God allow us to consider ourselves or others unclean when we have been made clean by him.

We have a choice. We can put on the pretend clothes, positive thinking, good works, crowd pleasing, and group belonging, while remaining guilty before God. Or, we can get real and honest about our hearts, see our need for a Savior outside ourselves, call out for mercy from Christ with no pretense, repent, believe, and be made clean. We can then walk in the reality of God’s grace to become who he made us to be without having to pretend. What will you choose?

This Sunday at Grace Community Church we will hear this gospel from Acts 10-11. Read these chapters this weekend and be encouraged. I look forward to worshipping Christ with you.

-Scott