All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

~Isaiah 64:6 NIV

As I watch television, my hands are often busy crocheting baby blankets. Over the years, some of these blankets have gone to individuals, while others have gone to groups and churches. The ones I remember best, however, went to an orphanage in Guatemala. Each child needed a blanket of grace.

Filthy Blankets

Missionary friends had let me know that newborns in the poorest sections of the country were sent home from the hospital wrapped in newspapers to keep them warm. Having delivered newspapers for many years, I remember how black my clothes would get from touching the newsprint. They looked like filthy rags. Surely the babies of Guatemala deserved something better. Eventually, through our missionary friends, handmade blankets made their way to those hospitals. Many newborns were no longer wrapped in the equivalent of filthy rags.

Isaiah says all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. How, though, can the right things, the good and lovely things which people do, be classified as filthy? In fact, they are not. When we seek to wrap ourselves in the blanket of them, however, with the hope and belief that they will make us acceptable to God, they become as pitiful and useless as filthy rags.

Our good deeds mean nothing to God when it comes to preparing us to stand before Him. They all fall short. No amount of them can ever cover our sins or make us righteous before Him. So what are we to do if our good deeds are not enough to gain us entrance into heaven and fellowship with God forever?

Grace Blankets

The apostle Paul shows us the way.

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

~Romans 3:22 NIV

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by God’s grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Blanketing ourselves in God’s grace, through belief in Christ and the work He did when He shed His blood on the cross for humanity, is the only way we can stand before a holy God. The righteousness is not our righteousness through good deeds, but the righteousness of Christ and only Christ.

Therefore, let each of us examine ourselves to see what blanket we are wrapped in. The saving blanket of Christ’s grace or our own good deeds. If ours, they can no more save us from our sin than filthy rags.

Think of ways to thank God for His blanket of grace. 

Father God, thank You that it is by grace that we are saved, through faith—and this not from ourselves but Your gift to us—not by works, so that no one can boast.  In Christ’s name. Amen.

 

Genre: Non-fiction

Copyright 2026: Blanket of Grace: Lynne Phipps: All Rights Reserved.