Here in Seattle we have been hit with a heavy snow fall this week. It resulted in a snow-day for my five kids. They love it.

As we struggled to dig a path for our cars to leave the driveway it struck me that trying to get rid of snow is like trying to get rid of our moral shortcomings. You can put a lot of effort into shoveling, blowing or plowing. But at the end of the day you actually are not REMOVING the snow at all you are just REPOSITIONING it.

Your efforts do not achieve elimination, just relocation.

One of our favorite places to visit in the winter is Snoqualmie, WA, nestled in the Cascade mountains just an hour outside of Seattle. The roads there are often piled over six feet high with “relocated” snow.

Now to be sure, new fallen snow is beautiful, pure and quiet but our moral shortcoming are the opposite; ugly, twisted, blaring. To get rid of them we try self-improvement regimens; a new diet, visiting a gym, seeing a counselor, joining a church.

For me this January the shortcoming I was fighting was pride. So I have been trying hard to be humble. In the end though, all my trying is just like me in my driveway with my shovel. It does not actually get rid of the shortcomings in my character. It just shuffles them around to other areas.

What I really need, and what you really need, is something more powerful, something that will actually melt that snow. Do you know what I’m talking about? Yeah you guessed it- the SUN.

A warm sunny day can do more than a thousand hours shoveling.
The Bible teaches that the miracle cure for our moral shortcomings is not more shoveling. It is not more effort and work on our part.

The miracle cure is the warm radiating heat that comes from the love and grace of God. That love and grace was on full display when the SON of God came and died and rose again. His love is the warmth we all need to remove our moral shortcomings. It is warmer than the 4th of July in Miami.

When we bask in the warmth of God’s grace extended to us in Christ our moral shortcomings are not just moved around to new places, they are literally dissolved, transformed, evaporated. As John said about Jesus – “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” That is Jesus’ glorious gift to you and to me. To take away our sin the way the sun takes away the snow.

Are you anxious? Go to Jesus. Are you self-sufficient and proud? Go to Jesus. Are you purposeless and bored? Go to Jesus.

His love is a heat lamp warm enough to thaw even the most frozen heart.

In the book of Revelation we get a glimpse of the New Jerusalem where God’s forgiven people will live with him forever. Revelation 21:23 say “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.”

Let’s stop striving to improve ourselves or to remove our imperfections. Instead let’s bask in the hot love of God until he transforms us from the inside out. We don’t have to wait til eternity we can start today.