JUNE 19, 1 John 1:9

Dave carefully felt the funny little hole with his tongue. “My mouth feels better,” he told his mother, “but my tongue won’t stay away from the empty spot. What did you say was wrong with my tooth? I want to tell Grandma when she comes this afternoon.”

“There was an abscess at the root of your tooth – that’s kind of like an infected sore,” explained Mother. “It cleared up after you had those antibiotic pills, but the dentist figured it might come back. He extracted it since it was just a baby tooth.”

When Grandma came that afternoon, Dave told her all about his tooth. Then he felt the empty spaces in the front of his mouth where other teeth were missing. “Pretty soon I won’t have many more teeth than Baby Sue does,” he said, watching his baby sister bounce in her high chair.

Grandma laughed. “You’ll soon have new teeth,” she assured him. “Your permanent teeth are almost through. It’s good that the dentist pulled the bad tooth. If he hadn’t taken care of it, it might have gotten worse again. The poison from the abscess could have made you sick.” She patted Dave’s hand. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I think I’ll use your tooth as an illustration for my Sunday school class, okay?”

“Okay,” agreed Dave readily.

“You see,” continued Grandma, “sin – such as disobeying or lying – is like an abscessed tooth. We need someone to clean it out and replace our bad thoughts with good ones – just like your bad tooth will be replaced with a new, good one.”

“Jesus takes our sin away, doesn’t He?” asked Dave.

“He surely does,” replied Grandma. “We can’t do it ourselves.”

“He took my sin away, but I still told a lie the other day,” Dave added solemnly.

“Then you need to confess that to God and ask Him to forgive you,” said Grandma. “Ask Him to get rid of it for you and to help you do better. He wants to hear from you.”

Thought: Is there sin in your life that needs to be cleaned away? Take care of it right now.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I confess I have lied, cheated, been unkind, gossiped. Please forgive, and please help me to control my tongue so that I will be better able to live a life that pleases You. This I humbly ask in Jesus’ name – amen.