December 13, 2018
"Ye also ought to wash one another's feet" ...John 13:14
The washing of the feet alluded to here is for refreshment; it does not relate to sin. Unlike sin, the dust and dirt that gather on our feet are inevitable. To roll in the mud would be sin, certainly, but if we touch the world at all, our feet will be dusty. A brother working long hours in an office comes back home at the end of the day, tired and spiritually out of tune with things. He finds it difficult to recover the refreshment of communion and fellowship with His Lord and the brethren that he had in the morning before work. There is a coating of something heavy and sticky upon him which makes him unable to rise up to the Lord at once.
But a friend meets him, and quite spontaneously, praises the Lord. At once he feels a lifting power. It is as though someone had taken a duster and wiped the film away. His feet are clean once more. To "wash one another's feet" is to return things to their former freshness in this way. It is possible to be largely unaware of the fact that we are doing it, and constantly to be used thus to refresh our brethren in Christ. I tell you, it is one of the greatest ministries there is!
In the Church today, this is a 'ministry of helps' that is rarely recognised, yet the Lord Jesus Himself inaugurated it and advises us to do it. The problem is basically one of not realising deeply enough that we carry almighty God around inside us. We don't have to look around for an answer to our brother's problem, because we have brought the living Answer of Christ to him in ourselves with the anointing. As you minister life to others, the gunge of this world that is clinging to them just slides off, like dirt and filth that comes off our bodies in the shower.
