“wash away your sins” [Acts 22:16(RAV)]

“wash away your sins”. Ananias encouraged Saul of Tarsus to be baptised and declare publicly what had happened to him.
You begin by trusting in the secret of your own heart, but what you have done must be evidenced. Not to ‘nail your colours to the mast’ makes it easier to fall away when temptation, apathy and fear come upon you.
Saul experienced this washing by repenting and trusting Christ on the Damascus Road. He completed the step by testifying to the world in baptism. It was not his religious zeal, or his being a Pharisee or his scholarship, considerable though these were. It was allowing the blood of Jesus to avail for his soul that cleansed him.
As the refrain says – ‘Happy day when Jesus washed my sins away’.