24 Series Devotionals - Day 9

Understanding Cleansing and Humility

In the thirteenth chapter of John, Jesus teaches a profound spiritual truth using the cleansing imagery.

One who is going out to a meal might have a bath before leaving, but along the way picks up dirt and defilement on the dusty road.  But if that person has his “feet cleaned” when he arrives, he will be, as verse 10 puts it, "completely clean."

So it is with the Christian life.  Christ’s death cleanses us from our sin….like a spiritual bath….but life is hard and messy.  Along the way, we pick up defilement from a filthy world, and we need to come back from time to time for cleansing.

Some time later, the same author writes in a touching letter (1 John 1:9), “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  We can be completely clean!

Returning to the Gospel of John, 13:14, we see Jesus applying the same example He has set before them:  “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Loving one another requires humility; lowly service.

In this era, we rarely have to literally “walk on dusty roads” in order to be fed.  Figuratively, though, we experience dusty roads from the moment we awake until we fall asleep at night.

Every day, myriad things demand our attention and detract us.  Many of those things threaten to add “dust” to our spiritual lives. Thankfully, cleansing is available!