Our lives at church seem to be a world of their own. This is what we do at work , this is what we do at home, this is what we do at church. Each a world with specific social skills expected. Each a system of their own. Unless you are a 24 hr Christian. Then the system at work, the system at home, the system at church become integrated. How you are at work , how you are at home, how you are at church become more of how you are, all the time. It is interesting how many people would like to advise you on this when they see this is what you are aiming for.
I say aiming for as in , "running a race," something like that.
I once was paid with a check that bounced. Now this was not the only check this individual had written that bounced. There had been so many checks bounce before mine that the bank handed it back to me and said, to try again in a few days to see if this person would make it good. Desperate for my money I went back to the bank several times before it became clear this person was not going to take care of this account. So I decided that my money was just as good as gone. Just like it had been stolen. Now to me when I read the Bible it said that when a thief takes your coat , you should run after them and give them your cloak also.
Well, I desperately needed that money. I had three little children who were expecting me to supply their needs with that money. I was to have been given that money for a service I performed, so I decided rather than give that person an extra helping of my money, actually I do not think I had that amount of money to give, I decided to go and perform this service again, for free. It was odd , I had never seen or heard of any of my Christian friends handling a thief in this way but I reasoned, that it said this in the Bible , surely they all did it this way.
To make a long story shorter, the individual would not hear of me doing this service for free and went to her purse and pulled out the exact amount of the bounced check in cash and sent me on my way.
A year later she called me and asked me to work for her again and over paid me extravagantly. It had been around Thanksgiving time that time that the check had bounced and because it also was the end of my working for her I could not afford to buy a turkey that year for my children. We went to one of those free things that churches do, we still had a nice Thanksgiving. One of the things I will never forget is that day I went back to work for her, when I was ready to go home, she pulled out of her freezer a turkey and gave it to me. I knew then I had been right all along.
His word is a lamp unto our feet . We will never go wrong by following it.
I don't usually do long blogs . I wanted to sit down here and tell you about footwashing. I guess you need to know first, this is for only the serious minded Christian. If the before hand story doesn't sound like anything you would do, you might as well go on to another blog now.
Jesus said to Peter, unless I can wash your feet ,you shall have no part of me. As important as that sentence is, I am so surprised that I do not see Christians practice this. Just like I was surprised that Christians were surprised to hear about my testimony before hand. Also , when similar things happened to them ,and I reminded them of what the Bible says about giving your cloak also ,they laughed at me. Very few of them ever thought there was any reason to handle a thief the way I did.
A few years ago I needed to know how to handle a "Christian relationship" in which I was fairly certain any admittance of guilt and remorse would be only talk. How could I get through to where there would really be any action ? It came to me as I studied again the sacrament of footwashing and with confidence I knew, if the answer from this individual was ,"no, you can not wash my feet," I could confidently say, "depart from me, I want nothing to do with you."
I've heard some teaching on footwashing and it is so off the wall I won't go into that with you now. I would just ask you to put aside what ever you have thought you knew before about footwashing.
Look again , in context, about the scriptures that encourage us to acknowledge our sins one to another. Before any one runs off, I would like to point out that I think , in context, it is mainly referring to those sins we commit that have affected or would affect that individual.
So if you are thinking that you need to acknowledge all your sins to someone, look again , in the Bible. Just where did you come up with that ?
Now our sins or trespasses that have directly or could indirectly violate a person because you did them, and they are believers of the same unearned righteousness as you, it might be that you should tell them.
When should it be ? When you remember someone has ought against you . That is what I read.
So now you go to them and you say, "I have remembered you have ought against me, because I did this and this to you. I am here to tell you I am convicted by the Holy Spirit for doing this. I would like you to know that I have asked our Father in heaven to forgive me and I would like to also ask that you forgive me." Now they are going to respond in some way obviously. If you truly were convicted of the Holy Spirit and you have done your part, if they don't do their part don't worry about it.
If they say, "Yes, I forgive you," my thought is that you might want to ask them to partake of the Lord's supper with you. Because in this way they would recognize the seriousness of the situtation and because also you probably have come to make things right before you partake.
Once you get that far, if you have, it would be right for you to ask them if they would wash your feet. No, wait a minute, it would be right if they asked if they can wash your feet.
I know this is rough.
Let's go at it the other way.
Someone comes to you and says, "I have been convicted by the Holy Spirit for doing this and this to you. I have asked our Father in heaven to forgive me and I would like to ask that you forgive me to." Here you go, you know your part, "Yes, I forgive you because I know Jesus forgives you."
"I belong to Him, I want to do things His way, I want to forgive you the way He would. Would you let me wash your feet ?"
If they say "no," it could be that they just do not understand the sacrament of footwashing. I have been praying for a long time now. Our people perish for lack of knowledge, I have been entreating the Father to have mercy upon us.
Maybe you better go back to asking if they would have the Lord's supper with you. If they say yes to that , it is some action that shows this was not just a convenient thing to do. I thought I better do this in case Jesus thinks I'm a bad guy or something. (I know how a lot of people think, I use to think like that.) Yet, I think you should let them know your desire is to wash their feet . So that you can show them with an action that "yes,you really do forgive them." Now, I am going to go ahead and tell you a little about this teaching I heard, for this part , the actual washing of the feet.
This part is a visual display only. It can be done without the removal of shoes. I just thought of some social skill that I assume all Christians would take for granted, just in case I am wrong, you would not suggest this to the opposite sex. It would be totally improper to hold another person's foot that was of another sex than your own. Jesus was a man and I guess it could be safely argued that it is only a man's sacrament. Except that we are neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female to God.
Beside the way of just holding the foot and washing with an imaginary pouring of water, there has been suggested that the washing of the feet could be some act of kindness , like washing their car or cutting their grass. This might be possible , but I think there should be an acknowledgement that they receive it as a display of your forgiveness.
If they are never willing to let you forgive them , I doubt they ever wanted to be forgiven. I would give it time and I would pray for them to be able to receive. I think there would probably come a day when you would know, no more. This person needs to depart from me.
posted by Diane B at
1:00 PM
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