Celebrating Christmas mold

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Sin is everywhere…and so is our Savior

by Connie Faber

In late October, a clogged sewer pipe created several miniature shallow ponds in the Faber basement. We quickly cleaned up the dirty water, hired a plumber to clear the pipe and assumed we had solved the problem.

But looks can be deceiving. Dirty water had crept into the unused bedroom and seeped underneath the bathroom flooring, creating the perfect environment for growing mold. We quickly learned that you don’t mess around with this fungus. Before we fully comprehended the need for speed, the basement became a destruction zone thanks to a largely unseen destructive enemy: paneling and dry wall gone, sections of the carpet cut out and the bathroom floor tiles gone.

Which got me thinking about what’s underneath my own exterior. Most days, I clean up pretty good. I put forth the effort to look nice and to reflect a Christ-like spirit in my interactions with others. I think of myself as a “clean” person, when in fact that isn’t the truth. When God looks at me, he sees the ugly, stinky sin that is gleefully growing. Call it soul mold.

Just as it is impossible to get rid of all mold and mold spores in our homes, it is impossible to rid our world of sin. My life is impacted by my own sin and the sin in the lives of those I love and in those of anyone and everyone I encounter. Sin, like mold, is here to stay.

But sin does not have to take root in my life. Just like mold spores will not grow unless moisture is present, sin will not flourish when I create an environment that inhibits it’s growth. When it comes to sin, I must purposefully cultivate a rocky soil that discourages attitudes and actions that are contrary to God’s Word. Jesus says in Matt. 12:34b-35: “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

This month we celebrate the birth of Christ, who came to save us from stinky, moldy sin. God’s wonderful love for us compelled him to send his Son to live for just over three decades on a planet riddled with sin. The baby Jesus grew into the man who died with the sins of the entire world crushing him. This year, thanks to mold, I am rejoicing in the knowledge that God’s perfect and holy Son waded into the mess of our lives to clean things up.

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