Snatched from Fire, Clothed in God's Mercy
Daily Scripture
Zechariah 3:1-7
1 Then the LORD showed me the high priest Joshua, standing before the messenger from the LORD,
and the Adversary [Hebrew hassatan; cf Job 1:6] was standing by his right side to accuse him.
2 And the LORD said to the Adversary:
“The LORD rebukes you, Adversary.
The LORD, the one choosing Jerusalem, rebukes you.
Is this one not a log snatched from the fire?”
3 Joshua was wearing filthy clothes and standing before the messenger.
4 He responded to those standing before him,
“Take off his filthy clothes.”
And he said to Joshua,
“Look, I have removed your guilt from you.
Put on priestly robes.”
5 He said, “Put a clean turban upon his head.”
So they put the clean turban upon his head,
and they dressed him in garments while the LORD’s messenger stood by.
6 Then the LORD’s messenger admonished Joshua:
7 “The LORD of heavenly forces proclaims:
If you will walk in my paths,
if you will keep my charge,
then you will lead my house and guard my courts,
and I will allow you to walk among those standing here.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The vision of Joshua the high priest standing before God’s messenger is a powerful picture of transformation and grace. “In addition to Joshua and God, another character enters the picture, namely, the Adversary, who plays the role of the prosecuting attorney. God defends Joshua.” * Notice what happens: God doesn’t debate Joshua’s guilt (or ours) or defend the record of bad actions. Instead, God simply commands, “Take off his filthy clothes.”
- Joshua stood before God in filthy clothes, yet God chose to clothe him in clean garments instead of condemning him. This scene anticipated the way Jesus treated people who struggled with shame and failure (cf. John 8:1-11). What “filthy clothes” of guilt, shame, or failure do you sometimes feel you’re wearing when you come before God? How does this vision of God’s grace speak to those feelings?
- When John Wesley was six, someone set fire to his family’s home. John was sleeping on the third floor. “Someone looked up and saw six-year-old John standing in the window. One man from the village got atop the shoulders of another and rescued the boy just as the roof collapsed.” ** God gave Joshua (“a log snatched from the fire”) privileges and responsibilities. Wesley’s mother saw Zechariah 3:2 as fitting her son’s mission, too. How has God’s providence “snatched you from the fire”?
Prayer
Dear Jesus, I sometimes come before you feeling clothed in my failures and shortcomings. Thank you for not focusing on my guilt but offering me the clean garments of your grace. Help me to walk faithfully in the paths you’ve set before me. Amen.
GPS Insights
Denise Mersmann
Denise Mersmann, who serves as the Care Coordination Director for the church wide Care Central department at Church of the Resurrection, wrote today's Insights.
Have you ever gone out and gotten really dirty? Just straight up grubby. You know, the kind of scummy that comes from doing serious yard work, hiking through muddy streams, or mucking and cleaning up after a storm.
Think about that high-level grossness for a minute. We have all experienced it at some point. In many cases, I have ended up at my messy worst from doing things that I truly enjoyed. But when I am done making a mess of myself and working up a real sticky sweat, there is nothing that feels better than getting out of my icky clothes and taking a really good long shower. That clean after the mess feels like a completely fresh start.
As different as it is, I get much the same feeling when I stand in all my gross moral and spiritual messiness and confess my sins to God. Sometimes, I am just owning up to a little infraction–I wasn’t at my best, but I wasn’t anywhere near my worst. But other times, I stand there as filthy as I get.
And there is only one way to truly feel clean again: In much the same way as I have to stand under the flowing water and scrub away the dirt from my physical messes, I must stand and own up to messes that have come from my poor decisions or bad behavior.
It is in those moments of “coming clean” to God where I feel a fresh start. As much as I know the shower will get me spiffy clean on the outside, I also know that God will always wash me clean on the inside.
I would love to tell you that I don’t go back and get messy again, that I learn my lesson the first time. But that’s not true. Just like I return to muddy trails or sign up for another disaster relief and get myself covered in mess, I tend to repeat my mistakes and make the same bad decisions over and over, making my heart pretty messy as well. And just like the shower drain takes away my actual dirt over and over, God’s grace makes my spiritual dirt disappear time and again.
So, I encourage you, go out, get dirty and then take that amazing shower. Then take a few minutes to come clean to God. You will be amazed at how it feels to be truly clean, inside and out!
© 2025 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* “Adversary: This character in Hebrew is hassatan (cf. Job 1:6-12) and means ‘the accuser.’ The term doesn’t refer to ‘the devil’ mentioned in later Jewish and Christian literature.” –Carol J. Dempsey, study notes on Zechariah 3:1-10 and 3:2 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 1528-1529 OT.
** Adam Hamilton, sermon manuscript for August 17, 2025 sermon.
