A Clean Shirt

This is not as long as it looks. Please read.

I had a dream the other night that still burns inside me. It was the night before speaking with Aaron for the first time about his need to construct the website and begin what Tanner inspired. Aaron had to get started on the project; he just had to do GetitGODitGood even though it was a work in process. It was a burning desire, a consuming fire within him to do it NOW. Not surprisingly, he too is a work in process. Tanner’s inspiration was about being a work in process. I had to tell Aaron about my dream, which as you will see compliments Tanner’s vision which begins with shirts.

I dreamt that my mother had sent my brother and I to go make some friends in the world. We started walking through many ethnic groups, sometimes it looked like china town for example. (I love china town, with the shops and the ducks hanging in the windows). There were no doors on any of the houses, just large openings like shop doors where people lived ordinary lives. We went straight to a Jewish home and stepped inside.

Several men were in the home, all seated at tables. The oldest man was in the back, seated in a place of honor at his own table. We told them that we came there to make friends. Nobody got up or spoke to us; they just turned and casually looked. We then said something that stirred the old man, we spoke two things that pricked him inside and made him look intently at us. He then spoke a little of their history and where they migrated from. I told him that I knew a business man from there whom he knew well, and he immediately picked up the phone to verify that before he would commit anything to us. We left and went home while he was still on his cell phone.

Two hours later he stepped into our home. He, the reverenced one who does not come to you – you approach him if invited. He stepped into our living room carrying two white shirts on hangers. I had a burning deep in my spirit as I looked at him. You could see splattered blood on his face, like he splashed it on as naturally as after-shave. It looked natural on him. It was obvious that he and all his people had sacrificed everything for these shirts. That all their bloody lives were spent on our behalf for these white shirts. He did not have to say anything; I understood it all in an instant. All the cost, the pain, the complete sacrifice of it all. He was bringing a free gift; he went through great angst which words could not express to give it. He brought more than friendship, he offered a place at his table always – we would be one hundred percent family at his table. He held out the free gift of right-standing that previously separated us. My mom wondered what it was all about, and what we could give in exchange. Mom had nothing of equal value and was not prepared for a gift exchange. I found my brother in bed with a stomach ache and I brought him his shirt.

Doubtless that you Get it! We got it. The white shirt is a free gift. It was bought with a great sacrifice. You have nothing to give in exchange. We are debtors, not creditors. Do you want that shirt? Tanner wanted to give us a shirt that we all could wear.

Get it... GOD it... Good!

TITUS 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.


Tanner was inspired. Now Get this, with all the getting that you have: He was not inspired that we should be better Christians. We have a better promise than that. It has been said that “being a better Christian” is like someone already with child who is trying to be more pregnant. The inspiration is that we should all awake to righteousness, that we should both awake and sing. That the eyes of our understanding would be open for us to awake to what has already been given to us, that we should struggle together to possess it and that our lives should sing by reason of it.

Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest.

Tanner’s bible tells us in a certain place that: “Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

I am humbled beyond words that The Daily Statement blog is allowed to share in Tanner’s inspiration. I will try not to add to it, or take away from it. Tanner wanted to give us a shirt that we can all wear.



TITUS 3:4 But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 3:6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 3:7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.