Is there a cover-up?

Shoveling snow in March...and not just a little. Services cancelled...and instead of preaching, I am shoveling. When taking a breather, I thought of all that the white snow had covered up. There were the dormant bushes waiting to pop out green again when spring finally comes. Then there is my less than perfect grass hiding under the blanket of white [with all the dormant weeds waiting to attack us again]. Snow is deceptive...because it gives the impression all is serene with the landscape...but underneath is the bare ugliness of winter's work. Sometimes that is like our hearts. Outside we throw a drape across the landscape of our lives, and pretend all is serene. But the Creator God looks at our hearts and sees the winter ugliness that sin has etched there. After all the Bible says: Man looks on the outward appearance, but GOD looks on the heart [I Sam. 16:7]. Yet there is a cure. Remember what the prophet Isaiah said in chapter 1 of his writing? He quotes God as saying to sinful people like Israel: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow...though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." God can make the inside clean, so there need be no more pretense on the outside. It is when a person repents of sin & surrenders to Christ that real heart cleansing occurs. Snow is pretty white...especially when the sun [son] shines on it. Think about it