I will admit that I do not know how dry-cleaning works or why some clothes need it but not others.

I know that people smarter than I am understand it, but for me, it is a mystery that will remain to be solved some future day.

When I look at the tag inside of my suit and it says “dry clean only,” I just take it to the dry cleaners and let them do their thing.

Every time I take my suit in, I have the same interaction with the person behind the counter.

I say, “My suit is dirty and I would like to have it cleaned please.” The person behind the counter replies, “Sure, we can do that for you! It will cost X dollars and you can pick it up on this day.”

Sure enough, they make my suit as clean as the day I bought it.

Have you ever taken a dirty piece of “dry clean only” clothing to the dry cleaners only to have them tell you that they can’t clean it for you until you clean it yourself? I should hope not, because it would make no sense!

If you could clean your dirty piece of clothing yourself, you would have done that in the first place and never have taken the time to bring it to the cleaner. You took it to the dry cleaner out of necessity because it was the only way that your clothing could be made clean.

Sometimes people will tell me that they would really like to start coming to church but they need to deal with a particular sin first. They think that God wants people who have fixed up their lives and have everything going well. What we have to understand is that we are like that “dry clean only” piece of clothing you have.

We too are dirty, blemished and stained by our sin. We too can do nothing to make ourselves clean. We come to Christ and we ask to be made clean. In doing so, Christ will never tell us that we are too dirty or stained to be made clean and He will never tell us we need to cleanse the sin from our lives before we can come to Him!

Jesus is the only one who can wash us whiter than snow. There is no way for any of us to clean up our lives outside of Him. We are “Jesus Clean Only,” and the cost to be cleaned was already paid by Jesus on the cross!

I want to encourage you to not delay one minute, one second longer. We are all broken, sin-filled people who excel at making mistakes and a mess out of anything we get our hands on. Jesus isn’t calling the perfect and the righteous to come to Him. They don’t exist! He is calling all of us sinners to come to Him and to be cleaned. He desires to remove our sins from us as far as the east is from the west and to have His perfect life and righteousness be credited to us.

Run, limp, crawl or drag yourself to Jesus. Put your faith and trust in Him and accept the gift of eternal life. He is waiting with open arms and a love greater than we can possibly understand!

People’s EC Church is located at 216 Wagner St., Lehighton.