This is also the secret to personal ministry and service. The Lord not only washed His disciples feet to show part of the real meaning as to why He came….to seek, to serve and to save all those that would come….but He does this for all those that belong to Him. Every time we sin, He says come, sit down let me minister to you and wipe off that old in you and love on you a while. You will feel better once you are clean.
Recall with me when Jesus was about to wash Peter’s feet and remember how he responded to Jesus….the God of the universe bending down to wash his old dirty stinky, calloused feet.
NO!…you shall never wash my feet, Peter said… in verse 8 of John 13! Jesus responded to Peter by saying….”Unless I wash you, you have no part of me.” Then Peter said….uh….Lord, not only my feet but my hands and my head as well.
Jesus went on to tell Peter that “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean, though not every one of you…”… in verse 10…and of course he was replying to the one who would betray Him as he ended that statement….so I’m sure Judas heard that part as well….
In verse 12 after Jesus had completed washing all the disciples feet He said to them…”Do you understand what I have done for you?...He said in verse 15 “I have set you an example and that you should do for others as I have done for you”…..going on to say in verse 16 that “no servant is greater than his master.
You see what Jesus was saying to the disciples, Paul himself learned through his own walk with Christ “……all the things that I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant….I’ve dumped it all in the trash….I gave up all that inferior stuff, so that I could know Christ…” Phil.3:7-10
We must all reach the same place that Peter and Paul reached….to know Christ on that level. Yet many will never know Him, for they unlike Paul will not be willing to dump it all in order to know the high privilege of knowing Christ and serving Him at that level.
We all must be willing to serve no matter where, no matter the cost, no matter who it may be. We are not called to help everybody, but we are called to help somebody. Jesus is asking us... what are we willing to lay aside to serve Him….for Peter, he laid aside his pride….many times to serve….he allowed God’s love to break through in those areas needed to take him to the places that he thought he could not go….to feed God’s sheep….to win the lost...to wash some dirty old stinky feet!
When it says that Jesus laid aside His garment to take up a (lowly) towel…that my friend is some powerful stuff right there….He laid aside a Heavenly and Royal Garment that heaven revered as costly, to pick up that little towel, bend down lower than the person he was serving to do one of the dirtiest jobs there was in those days….to wash the feet of another.
Let’s think about what we may need to lay aside to go and love on somebody today!
I love you and am praying that your joy may be full as you serve the Master of Servants!
Bren
1 comment:
All to Jesus I surrender, all to Jesus I freely give! Thanks!
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