Tag Archives: feet

PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD – 5

Christian Life,

Ephesians 6:15 NLT
[15] “For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.”

A soldier can only stand firm on two feet. To use his weapons effectively, he must be able to balance with both feet firmly on the ground. So, God has provided us with equipment to stay in balance, and to help us recognise when one foot is not firmly planted.

Despite some interpretations of this Scripture, based on the King James Version…

Ephesians 6:15 KJV
[15]”and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;”

…this verse in context is not about the “going” of evangelism, but about “standing” against the enemy.

We need sturdy shoes on both feet to stand steady against the enemy’s attacks. What are the shoes of peace we wear to give us sure footing in our stand against Satan?

Romans 5:1 NIV
[1] “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have PEACE WITH GOD through our Lord Jesus Christ…”

“Peace with God” refers to our standing in grace. We are no longer at odds with the Father because Jesus has paid our debt of sin and reconciled us to the Father. There is peace between us and God since His anger at our sin has been removed.

This peace takes care of our guilty conscience. We are free to approach the Father without fear because we have a standing in righteousness and an Advocate, Jesus, who speaks for us if we sin. One foot is secure in our shoe of peace with God.

However, without the other shoe, we will easily be overcome when Satan launches His missiles at us. Yes, we are free from guilt but what of the day-to-day situations we face? How can we be sure of God’s love and goodness when stuff happens? How do we know who is responsible for our hardships and who we can trust?

Satan’s favourite ploy is to blame God, citing our troubles as punishment for whatever we might have done wrong. This tactic immediately sows doubt in our minds about our salvation. “Am I really saved because…?” Guilt, not peace, grips our hearts. How can we have the peace we need to stand on both feet?

Paul provides the perfect solution.

Philippians 4:6-7 NIV
[6] “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. [7] And THE PEACE OF GOD, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

God’s peace in our hearts and minds only comes when we turn our anxieties over to Him. I call it “spilling our guts to God.” God knows everything we think, including our doubts and fears, and the lies Satan tells us that can throw us off balance.

When we come clean with God about everything and choose instead to thank Him for His love and faithfulness IN OUR TROUBLES, something amazing happens! PEACE!!!

The other shoe provides the secure footing we need so that we are not pushed over by the devil’s lies. Peace with God and the peace of God keep us steady against the onslaught.

Paul completes his prescription for sure-footedness by revealing the source of our peace. Once again, when we fill our minds with truth, i.e., all the good things God is and dones for us, God Himself with be with us to stand guard over us and to hold us steady in times of testing.

Philippians 4:8-9 NIV
[8] “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. [9] Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the GOD OF PEACE will be with you.”

Paul has one more piece of information about this peace that helps us “play the game of life” with peace as our “referee”.

Colossians 3:15 NLT
[15]”And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.”

The peace of God is a very important part of our equipment. It’s like the referee’s whistle when we break a rule in the game of life.
The referee blows the whistle to alert us to a “foul”. God’s peace is disturbed. The Holy Spirit warns us to stop the game and go back to where we went wrong.

The devil will try to derail us with condemnation. God’s Word tells us to put the matter right with confession and forgiveness.

1 John 1:8 NLT
[8] “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.”

Hiding our sin from God will not restore our peace.

1 John 1:9 NLT
[9] “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

Our standing in righteousness remains intact. The peace of God, when we come clean with Him, is back in place to guard our hearts AND minds through Jesus.

1 John 3:21 NLT
[21]”Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence.”

The Holy Spirit does not make us feel guilty. It’s the work of our conscience to alert us when we have gone wrong. The Holy Spirit calls us to repentance and confession and restores our peace when we follow God’s instructions.
Without our shoes of peace, our feet are vulnerable. We must ensure that both feet always wear God’s protection of peace.

SYMBOL OR RITUAL? – 17

Christian Life, ,

John 13:3-5 NLT‬
[3] “Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. [4] So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, [5] and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.”

‭John 13:12-17 NLT‬
[12]”After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? [13] You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. [14] And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. [15] I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. [16] I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. [17] Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.”

It amazes me how often God’s people turn spiritual truth into a religious ceremony! Jesus used ordinary human activities to illustrate profound spiritual truth but, instead of applying the truth, we like to major on the activity and turn it into a ritual.

John 13 is a case in point. Why did Jesus wash His disciples’ feet?

In the culture of His day, it was the host’s responsibility to assign a slave to wash the feet of his guests. Sandaled feet picked up dust and dirt as they walked, on paths covered with animal dung. Since they usually ate a meal reclining on cushions at a low table, dirty feet would soil one another’s clothes.

The smelly task of washing feet caked with animal dung was assigned to the lowliest of slaves. So, no one in Jesus’ group of disciples considered himself responsible to do the job, least of all Jesus, their rabbi.

However, imagine the disciples’ shock when Jesus Himself took on the role of a slave. Peter, as usual, resisted! He saw only the action, not the profound truth in what Jesus was doing.

However, Peter’s resistence brought the real meaning of Jesus’ action to the surface.

‭John 13:8-10 NLT‬
[8] “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.” [9] Simon Peter exclaimed, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!” [10] Jesus replied, “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you.”

How does Jesus cleanse His people? Not literally by washing their feet but spiritually, by cleansing away the pollution of sin

‭John 15:3 NIV
[3] “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”

‭Ephesians 5:25-26 NLT‬
[25] “For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her [26] to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.”

Without God’s Word, we would never know what God did through His Son to cleanse us from our sin. His Word is the instrument by which we learn all the truths about Him that quicken our faith and bring us into union with Jesus. So, the Word teaches us that

‭1 John 1:7 NLT‬
[7] “But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”

As disciples of Jesus and children of God, we are to love one another, then, as Jesus loves us. One of the practical ways in which we show that love is to build one another up in our faith.

‭1 Thessalonians 5:11 NLT‬
[11] “So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”

‭Galatians 6:1 NLT‬
[1] “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.”

“Walking” in a filthy world soils our feet. Loving each other means washing one another’s feet. We use God’s Word, which tells us of God’s solution for sin, gently to bring a fallen brother or sister back to the path that takes us to the Father.

This loving action takes courage and humility since people’s pride often deters them from acknowledging their sin. Jesus’ actions shows us that, to wash another’s “feet” means to step down into selflessness that is willing to take the consequences even to resistance and hostility, to bring another, who is walking the wrong way, back into the light.

So, literally washing another’s feet has no meaning apart from restoring one to fellowship with the Father and His children who has walked in the dung of this world.

Go ahead, then, and wash one another’s feet. We do it only as a reminder that, as members of the Jrsus’ body, we are to be as concerned about clean souls as we are about clean feet.

The Long Look

Bible Study, , , ,

THE LONG LOOK

I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us (Hab. 3:16).

What a difference in the prophet’s attitude now! Gone were the accusations that God was seemingly indifferent; gone was the frustration with his own people for their unrestrained wickedness; gone was the confusion about God’s ways. God had taken him step by step through a process from fear to faith. He was now on God’s side, watching the unfolding of history and recognising the purposes of God in the rise and fall of empires because God had given him understanding.

This did not lessen his fear of the immediate future. His description of his physical reaction is realistic and vivid. He did not underestimate the terrible suffering the Babylonians would inflict on his people.

But, at the same time, his perspective had changed. He was no longer angry and frustrated because his people had forsaken the Lord and were as wicked as their neighbours and God was doing nothing about it. He now knew that God was not indifferent and that He had planned a strategy which would shake them out of their stubborn rebellion and disobedience and bring them back to faith in Him as their covenant God.

Not only did Habakkuk express his fear of what was soon to fall on his people, he also expressed his willingness to look beyond the devastation to the day when just retribution would fall on the evil nation that God would use to whip His people. God’s promise of perfect justice brought him comfort and reassured him that God was still in charge, no matter how bad things appeared to be. No one would get away with wickedness because God rules in justice and truth over all the earth.

This reassurance caused him to break out in a song of praise and an expression of confidence in God that rose above earthly events to the realm of God’s everlasting nature – compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. Yes, He would punish His people by confirming to them the consequences of their waywardness. Yes, He would deal justly with all parties, even those who inflicted punishment on them but, in the end, God was still their God and a shelter for those who trust Him even in the midst of the worst that could happen.

And so Habakkuk concluded his dialogue with God with a song that anyone can sing with confidence even when it seems that the sky has fallen on their heads!

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there be no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to tread on the heights (Hab. 3: 17-19).

This is the expression of the highest level of trust that anyone can have in God. It’s not about whether everything is going well for me. It’s not about how much He has done for me or what He can do for me.  It’s not about whether He has answered my prayers or not. It’s not about how blessed I am or not. It’s about Him. In the end, everything that happens about me and to me is God painting His bigger picture, writing His bigger story.

Instead of my being the centre of the universe and everything revolving around me, God is the centre of it all and everything is designed to work out His universal plan – the one He started at the beginning and the one He will complete when Jesus returns to bring it all together.

On the strength of that, Habakkuk could sing. No matter how rough the terrain he had to climb, God had equipped him with enough grace to climb the heights. He had given him “the feet of a deer”. Like a mountain goat he had the confidence to navigate the precipices and not fall because he was sustained by the promise that God was working to all out for His glory and the good of His people.

Can you sing, like the prophet, on the highest cliffs and the most dangerous places, when everything in your life has fallen apart and you are, as it were, staring down the barrel of a gun – physically, economically, relationally, whatever – “yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour”? 

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

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Someone Has To Wash Feet

Bible Study, , ,

SOMEONE HAS TO WASH FEET

“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

“The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God; so He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing and wrapped a towel around His waist. After that He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.” John 13:1-5 NIV.

This is such a familiar story that we can almost recite it from memory. But we don’t only know the story; we also know the ceremony. Hasn’t someone at some time washed your feet? Some churches even incorporate it into their Easter services as a ritual.

So what is it all about? Since the roads were dusty and the people wore sandals, it was the householder’s responsibility to provide water to wash their feet. They either washed their own feet or it was done by a slave.

The disciples had just been arguing about who would be the greatest in Jesus’ new government (Luke 22:24). There was no slave in the house to do the job. They were certainly not about to wash each other’s feet! Jesus’ feet, perhaps, but that was all. No one made a move before supper, and still no one made a move after supper. Was Jesus waiting for one of them to get up and do the job or did He know them well enough not to expect any of them to do the courteous thing? Not one of them was willing to be humiliated by doing a slave’s work.

These guys needed to be taught something. What was His intention? To set up a new ritual for the church to follow? Not likely since He wasn’t interested in adding to the burden the Pharisees had already put on the people. Whatever Jesus did had to fit His nature — “gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29), and the nature of His yoke which was “light”.

How could Jesus, who was the Son of God, stoop down and do so menial a task? He could have left their feet dirty rather than do a slaves’ work. What Jesus did the disciples could not do for two reasons:

Firstly, He was secure in His identity. Had not He lived His entire public life out of the knowledge that He was the beloved Son of the Father? The Father had publicly affirmed Him at His baptism and given Him the mandate to represent Him in His life and work because Jesus had His unqualified approval. By washing His disciples’ feet He showed that He had nothing to prove and nothing to lose.

Secondly, He did it because He loved them. It did not matter as much to Him that He was the Son of the Most High God as that their feet were dirty and needed washing. That’s what love does — love meets someone else’s need at its own expense. Two simple reasons why it cost Him nothing to wash their feet! He did not have to swallow His pride, humiliate Himself or make a show of what He was doing. It was an act of hospitality any host would extend to his dinner guests except that, this time it was the host Himself who did the honours!

This was completely in line with the disposition of Messiah we see so clearly in Isaiah’s prophecies. He gives us glimpses of the “Ebed Yahweh” — the Servant of Jehovah — across the 66 chapters of his magnificent writing. He was the one upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rested (ch 11); He would bring justice without raising His voice or trampling the weak (ch42); He would be a polished arrow hidden in the Lord’s quiver (ch 49); He would be beaten, rejected and punished for the sins of His people (ch 52, 53) and He would bring freedom and healing to His people through the power of the Spirit (ch 61).

What was Jesus doing? He was showing them the heart of a true servant; not a ceremony to be performed but the disposition of a disciple that flowed out in loving service to whoever needed it. Simple but not easy! It depends on whether that disciple has anything to defend or to prove. If we, like Jesus, are secure in our identity in God and our love for His people, we can humbly “wash” one another’s feet as Jesus did without shame or embarrassment.

Transformed – By Death

Bible Study, , , ,

TRANSFORMED – BY DEATH 

“Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honour. Martha served while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with Him.” John 12:1, 2a NIV.

I find it strange that, for the first time the name of Lazarus, Martha and Mary’s brother was mentioned apart from his sickness and death in John 11. Although Jesus visited their home in Bethany many times, Lazarus did not feature until after he was raised from the dead. There is no indication that the two sisters even had a brother until now.

Is it possible that Lazarus was unsympathetic, even hostile to Jesus before he died? The sisters called him, “The one whom you love,” but that does not mean than he had any sort of relationship with Jesus. Jesus loved the rich young ruler and yet he chose not to follow Him and walked away.

Did Jesus allow Lazarus to die so that he could go to the grave an unbeliever; to awaken him to the truth that there is an afterlife and that there is only one way to the Father, after all, and that is through Jesus?

For the first time, at the dinner given in Jesus’ honour in his home, Lazarus was among those reclining at the table. John makes sure that his readers understand that it was in Jesus’ honour, not Lazarus’, that Martha arranged this function. The fact that Lazarus was one of the dinner guests meant that Jesus and he were reconciled. Did he refuse to eat with Jesus until now because he did not believe in Him?

Although this is conjecture, if it is the truth, Jesus might deliberately have allowed Lazarus to experience death and then bring him back to life again so that he would know what it was like to be separated from God and then be given another opportunity to believe in Jesus.

“…with Him.” Is that a loaded statement? It almost sounds as though John wanted to emphasize Lazarus’ new intimacy with Jesus. Jesus would have occupied the place of honour at the table, but where was Lazarus seated? “With Him,” right beside Him; perhaps reclining on Him as John had done at the Passover meal.

I think it was more than gratitude that brought Lazarus to faith in Jesus. He was probably one of those men who was too proud or too stubborn to acknowledge that he was wrong. He needed a wake-up call (pardon the pun) far stronger than the teaching, or even the healing miracles of Jesus. Was he one like Thomas who demanded to poke his finger into Jesus’ wounds before he would believe?

Whatever Lazarus needed to shake him out of his unbelief, Jesus met him and he became a convinced and devoted follower. He had tasted death and returned. The Pharisees could argue that the man born blind was not blind or not healed or whatever else they wanted to believe but they could never argue away the truth that Lazarus was decaying in the tomb and Jesus called him back to life.

“Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” John 12:3 NIV.

This verse completes the picture and gives one a feeling of satisfaction. Each member of the Bethany family is in his or her place; Martha in the kitchen, serving; Lazarus at Jesus’ side, reclining; and Mary at Jesus’ feet, adoring; each one worshipping Jesus in the appropriate way! Finally, Lazarus has come home. He has become a member of God’s family and has taken his rightful place in his human family.

It was a long and difficult road for him. He had to endure the suffering of his mortality to gain an understanding of his immortality. In His love for Lazarus, Jesus allowed him to walk right into physical and spiritual death to feel the magnitude of God’s grace and to receive the gift of everlasting life that was wrapped up in His own death and resurrection. In the course of a few days Jesus would be where Lazarus had been so that Lazarus could be where He was.

He did that for him and for us too…!