JOHN 13:12-17 – When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
THEME OF THE DAY: IT’S NOT JUST A HUMBLING STORY. Today’s scripture is one of those sacred portions that feel like a burning bush encounter – Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground (Acts 7:33). How so? Well, a couple of reasons.
First, this isn’t just a servant or mere man doing the humbling act of washing dirty feet. I know we know this, but let’s pause right now and really know this; the Creator is washing the feet of His creatures, and creatures that have rebelled against Him by birth and by choice in life. The Creator washing created beings. Speechless. That is the only response we may offer.
Another reason this is holy ground is because the Creator shows no partiality in whose feet got washed. Peter, John, Matthew, we see that but next in line is Judas. Yes, the betrayer received the same humble service as the others. The response here is also one of being speechless especially when we see how easily we show partiality in loving and serving people. And what about our handling of people in action and attitude who hurt, betray, and sin against it? How easily we respond unlike the impartial, foot-washing Savior! But this isn’t just a humbling story of Jesus.
Today’s scripture points us to observation of Jesus’s humble act of service that is to lead to following the example of Jesus’s humble act of serving. He makes the staggering statement at the end, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” The Christian life is not the knowing life. It is the knowing AND doing life. Knowledge gained is to be knowledge applied. James would instruct us of this practical aspect of the Christian life – But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25).
The question before us becomes, “Are we learning the Word to do the Word?” Jesus makes it clear the Christian who knows the most happiness in their walk with Him is the one who is walking in obedience to Him; an obedience measured by actively putting His commands into our lives.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to see that happiness comes from active obedience not passive knowledge.”
QUOTE: “Jesus doesn’t just give an example to observe but one to actively follow.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim