When washing dishes, the best results come when we use clean water. The same principle applies to washing hands and clothes. But with what “water” are we “washing” our thinking about those around us—for instance, the body of worshipers who make up our church?
If discord arises in our church, we have a choice to make about the water, or type of thinking, we bring to our efforts to prayerfully wash clean our thoughts regarding the church body. One option is to bring dirty water—old perceptions about the past, angry thoughts about the people involved, fears that the problem will never be resolved—but that isn’t going to accomplish any cleaning. In fact, it can often muddy the waters of thought.
The other option is to do as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews instructs: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). Washing the church body with pure thinking doesn’t mean watching indifferently as events transpire; rather, it demands us to “draw near with a true heart.”
