I don’t recall many of the details about what day it was or what time, but I was a newly married youth pastor at home  by myself; perhaps home for lunch when there was a knock at my front door.  I hadn’t learned the “pretend I’m not home” trick yet, so I opened to the door to an early-twenty, eager, bright-faced young man.  He had a small duffel bag over his shoulder and a squirt bottle in his hand.  With a proud smile and before any greetings could be exchanged, he blurted out: “Take me to your worst stain!”

I think I responded, “Hi.” and then a few seconds later, “Okay.”

I led him down into the basement where our laundry room was.  It never occured to me that in his duffel bag could be rope, or a gun, a candlestick. or a lead pipe.  Looking back, I could have been walking to my death.  Turns out,  I wasn’t.  Turns out, he really did want to know where my worst stain was.

We had copper pipes that ran along the wall of our laundry room.  They had become corroded and nasty with a nice green fuzzy funk on them.  I turned to him and said, “There it is.”  With a few quick squirts of his bottle ‘o magic whateveritwas, those copper pipes were shining like a new penny.  He turned to me and said, “This cleaner will clean absolutely anything…and watch this!” He then proceeded to unscrew the trigger nozzle top, pulled the straw out that extended to the bottom of the bottle, wrapped his mouth around one end, and wiped the straw through between his lips.  “It’s completely safe and non-toxic!”

I deliberately stalled with some chit-chat for a few minutes to see if he’d drop dead in my laundry room but no such luck.  We walked back upstairs, I bought a bottle of the concentrate that allowed me to make a billion bottles of the stuff, and he walked out the door and out of my life.

While I don’t have the faintest clue where the “worst stain” is in your life, I can absolutely guarantee that Jesus knocks at your door with the power to take it away.  He’s done everything necessary to wash away the worst mess you can possibly make.  Let Him in, give it a shot, and see if I’m not right.