You're wearing one of your favorite shirts, and with all the WILD things in the world (BBQ sauce, dirt, makeup...), your shirt gets a stain on it. You stress about the stain until you're in the position to tend to it with whatever stain remover you've got. After scrubbing it yourself and then sending it through the wash, you inspect to see if it's completely gone. With relief to see the original color of the shirt again, you sigh, and because you can, you wear that shirt again the next day. As a consequence of the work that's gone into keeping your shirt so clean and beautiful, it feels even more special to wear it.
Why did you fight so hard to get rid of the stain? Because you value the shirt.
Why does Christ invite us to repent and cleanse ourselves of the stains of the world? Because he knows our value.
So why should we repent and cleanse ourselves of the world? Because WE know our value.
Clarification: Was the shirt just drop dead ugly while it had the stain on it? NO! It simply had a mark of the world on it that didn't belong there.
Therefore, are you drop dead ugly when you've made mistakes? NO. Those are marks of the world that can be wiped away.
The action of repenting or letting go of things in the world is the action of cleansing ourselves of things that aren't meant to be a part of us. However, the experiences of doing so are VALUED because they enable us to see the contrast: us before being stained, us when we're stained, and the glory of having been able to wipe that stain away. Yes, when you make a mistake, you....have made a mistake. But if you choose to use Christ's Atonement to cleanse you, you can feel even more valuable because you realize what you're worth without the tainting of the world. You can feel stronger because you conquered the stain!
