Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani

Perhaps you have noticed the "Imprisoned for Christ" heading to the left of this post. Here is what that is all about:

Approximately 96% of people live outside of the United States. Outside of the abundant religious freedoms we enjoy in the United States.

In Islamic countries, it is illegal to evangelize to Islamic people (which means pretty much anybody in the country). This man (pictured below) did evangelize and is in jail for it:

His name is Youcef Nadarkhani.
He is a Christian pastor in Iran.

Pastor Youcef has been in jail since 2009.

He was arrested for protesting Islam being taught as absolute truth to his children in their schools.
His charge was later changed to evangelizing Muslims...
Which is what a pastor does: evangelize.

So I guess you could say it is illegal to be a pastor in Iran.

Pastor Youcef is not the only pastor in jail in Iran. His story is more well known because he was sentenced to be executed for his faith. His sentence was appealed several times. Now the Iranian government is postponing sentencing him. All the while, he waits in prison.

There are now several pastors in jail in Iran; but let us not forget about Christians who are being persecuted in other countries around the world! Iran is just one example.

The link under  "Imprisoned for Christ" to the left leads to a website that allows you view the names and locations of those imprisoned, pray for them, and even write emails to them and those in charge of their release!

We must not forget our brothers and sisters who are obeying God and being put in jail for it!

dear God Who sets the captives free,
thank You for all the amazing people You have made. thank You especially for those people whom You have set apart to draw to Yourself. thank You for those who obey You even when it costs them their freedom. thank You for the opportunity they have been given to suffer for Your Name. and thank You that in everything they overwhelmingly conquer! thank You that You will cause them to overcome because of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. You are the God of all comfort: please comfort these special people You have made. comfort them and give them endurance and patience. glorify Your amazingness through them.

Dirty

I hate using sponges.
They are so unsanitary!
My parents always use sponges to clean the pots and pans.
The horrid thing about them is that they pick up the dirtiness of the first pot and carry that dirtiness on itself to the next pot! Eeuuww.

Same thing with hand towels. Lots of other people have used the same towel to dry their hands, so all the germs from all those people's hands get passed on to the next person who dries their hands.

In preparation for a visitor, my brother agreed to clean his bathroom. Because my brother's cleaning skills are not trusted in our house, my father instructed him when cleaning the toilet. From down the hall, I hear my father tell his son to wipe the outside base of the toilet with a Clorox wipe held in the hand. My brother's response: "But that just seems unsanitary."

One of the first rules of cleaning is that the cleaner gets dirty as he/she cleans the house/pot/insert-dirty-item-here. After I finish cleaning, the cleanliness of the house is directly proportional to how sweaty and yucky I have become.

Dr. Seuss understood this phenomenon and exemplified it in The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.
The cat just shows up at these kids' house one day, invites himself in, and proceeds to take a bath while eating a pink cake. The real problem starts when the cat drains the tub, revealing a huge pink cat stain.
The cat determines to solve the problem by cleaning the tub -- with the kids' mother's dress.

Problem solved, right?

But now the mother's dress is dirty!

So the cat and the kids get the pink stain off the dress by putting it on something else that they then have to get it off of. They go through several items covered in and subsequently cleaned of pink stain but are at a loss as to how to get rid of the stain entirely. 

To get something clean, something else must become dirty.

God illustrated this principle to the Israelites when he gave them the Old Testament law:

In order for their sins to be taken away, they must place their hands on a lamb as a symbol of identification with the animal and slaughter it. In other words, the sin and impurities of the person have been transferred to the lamb's account; the lamb is now guilty and the person is now innocent. The guilty lamb must now be punished for its sin.

But this slaughtering of animals was only an illustration of how atonement works.

The lamb couldn't really take away sin.

Then along comes Jesus.

He cleaned us, Himself becoming dirty in the process. 

All of ours sins and impurities were transferred to his account; and we became innocent while Christ became guilty.

He was punished for our guiltiness by dying on the cross.

The cool thing about how Jesus cleaned us, however, is that He didn't stay dirty. None of the animal sacrifices came back to life; Jesus became alive again after he beat the problem. He eradicated the sin completely. That is the power of God: humans can only transfer the dirtiness from one place to another. (We can only move the pink stain from the bathtub to the dress.)

 God can destroy the dirtiness entirely.

God makes us clean, and He is clean Himself.