SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/19/2016 9:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 The Shocking Revelation of Christ’s
Love
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 13:3-11
Message of the verses: “3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given
all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going
back to God, 4 got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a
towel, He girded Himself. 5 Then He poured water into the basin, and began to
wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was
girded. 6 So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, "Lord, do You wash my
feet?" 7 Jesus answered and said to
him, "What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand
hereafter." 8 Peter said to Him, "Never shall You wash my feet!"
Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."
9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my
hands and my head." 10 Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed needs
only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all
of you." 11 For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He
said, "Not all of you are clean.’”
Now we come
in verse six to what Peter has to say about Jesus washing his feet, knowing
that at times we are all a bit like peter, opening our mouth and sticking our
foot into it. Look, however how Jesus
handles this as He does not jump all over Peter, but shows grace and love to
Peter. I believe that it is in the 16th
chapter of Matthew, and other gospels show the same thing when Peter said for
the first time that Jesus was the Messiah who had been sent by God into the
world, but a few moments later He opens his mouth telling his Lord and God that
He was not going to go to the cross to which Jesus did get on Peter by actually
telling him “get behind me Satan,” a very stiff rebuke, but not now when Peter
protests about having his feet washed.
Now
remember that just before this meal the disciples were discussing who would be
the greatest in the kingdom, as they were expecting the kingdom of God to come
in right away. Let us look at Acts 1:6 a
verse that takes place some forty days after the resurrection of Jesus
Christ: “So when they had come together,
they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring
the kingdom to Israel?’” We can see from
this verse that the disciples still did not get it, and to tell you the truth we
are still looking for that to happen, but after the rapture of the church as
God will once again begin to deal with Israel.
Jesus’
answer to Peter was to tell him that what He was doing he will not understand
at this point but in the future he will understand. Now Acts 1:6 happened before the Spirit of
God was given to the disciples at Pentecost and once Pentecost came Peter would
understand what Jesus was doing since the promised Holy Spirit had come as
promised by Jesus.
As seen by
actions of the disciples they did not realize when the kingdom of God was
coming and did not realize that Jesus had to die on the cross for their sins,
but later as evidenced by Peters writing in 1 Peter 1:19-19 Peter and the rest
of the disciples did understand this “18
knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or
gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with
precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” Later in 2:24 we read “and He Himself bore
our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to
righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” And once again in 3:18 we read “For Christ
also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might
bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
spirit.”
So Peter
tells the Lord “Never shall You wash my feet!”
I wonder how many times I have done similar things try to tell the Lord
something that He should do. Martha did
this and so did Peter as mentioned in Matthew 16 and he does it again
here. Some may first look at this and
think that it may appear praiseworthy, however we read in 1 Samuel 15:22 “Samuel
said, "Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As
in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of
rams.” So after Peter’s statement
Jesus tells him that if He is not allowed to wash his feet that Peter will not
have any part of Him, something we know that Peter truly wanted. MacArthur writes “Jesus’ reply served two
purposes. First, it corrected Peter’s
(and the rest of the Twelve’s) misunderstanding of His messianic mission. In His first advent, Jesus did not come as
the conquering King but as the selfless sacrifice for the sins of His people
(Isa. 53:4-6, 10-12; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 9:26; 10:12); to humble ‘Himself by
becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross’ (Phil.
2:8). Peter needed to accept the reality
of the Lord’s humiliation.
“But the
Lord’s words also mean that only those cleansed by Him have a relationship to
Him. Washing is a common biblical
metaphor for spiritual cleansing, and only those who place their faith in Jesus
Christ as Lord and confess their sins are cleansed by Him (John 15:3, 1 John
1:7-9) and are united to Him in eternal life.”
We will try
and conclude this section in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Think before I speak is something that, like
Peter I need to do a better job at.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Trust the Lord to cause me to
learn to love as He loves as seen in this section of John’s gospel as in other
sections of Scripture.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:14): “For sin shall not
be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Every weight and the sin…” (Heb. 12:1).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who did God send to prepare the way for Jesus?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/19/2016 10:09 AM
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