October 17

Lowly Service

If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. — John 13:14

Are we to take this literally? Some have understood it in this way. No, say others; He would teach us to do lowly service for one another. Yes; but what kind of service? What did Christ’s washing of the feet of His disciples mean? It was more than a little lowly act of service; He taught them that He would thus cleanse their souls of remaining faults and blemishes of character, and of the stains gotten in the world as they pass through.

Our service to one another is to be of the same kind. We are to come to each other with basin and towel. We are to help each other to be clean Christians. We are to seek the sanctification, purification, and upbilding in character of all our fellow-disciples. Of course we cannot wash away sins, — Christ alone can do that; but we can do something toward making others purer and holier. We can try to bring to Christ for salvation those who are not yet saved; then we can admonish others in love, and tell them of their faults, seeking the removal of the faults and blemishes.

This requires much grace and great wisdom; we need lowliness of heart and tenderness of affection to discharge a duty so delicate. Especially must we be cleansed ourselves if we would seek the cleansing of others. What if our own hands, with which we would wash the feet of other disciples, are not clean, but are themselves covered with sin? Instead of cleansing the lives we touch, we shall then leave stains upon them. So we must see that our own hands have been washed in the blood of Christ before we undertake to wash the feet of others. Then we must be willing to yield over our own feet to the water. The washing is to go all around; we are to wash one another’s feet. The secret of all must be genuine love for others.