A man comes to your front door. He looks terrible and smells even worse than he looks. You can tell he’s a door-to-door salesman and business looks a little slow, so you begrudgingly let him in. You figure if what he’s selling is something remotely useful to you, you’ll place an order to help the guy out.
He opens his briefcase on your kitchen table, and you rub your eyes to see if they’re playing tricks on you.
They aren’t.
He’s got a briefcase chock full of personal hygiene products. What???
He says, “I’m hoping I can convince you to purchase some of my soap, minimally. My family and I make it ourselves in our garage. Here’s a picture of my family from this Thanksgiving.” The picture shows the salesman with his arm around his wife, who is equally unkempt, and a little boy who’s filthy, also. You’re just grateful it’s a picture (minus the odor). Even your dog has left the room to escape the stench – you suddenly wish you were the dog.
Are you going to buy some of this guy’s soap? No.
Why not?
What are you thinking as this salesman makes his pitch?
Well, probably something like, “Dude, you need to wash up if you wish to increase your sales!”
Hold that thought…
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”
Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”
Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.”
-John 13:3-10
Jesus taught His disciples a very important lesson that day. The bathing here refers to salvation, justification, and positional sanctification; whereas the washing of the feet refers to experiential/progressive sanctification. Jesus was teaching that believers do not need to be saved a second time; however, they must wash their feet of the sewage they pick up from the world as they walk through it each day. The Word is like the soap and the Spirit is the scrubber.
This is why we are encouraged to read our Bibles daily. It’s tantamount to Jesus’ words in v10. We need to be washed by the cleansing Word of God each and every day, lest the filth collect on us and we smell worse than the salesman in our fictitious story (figuratively speaking).
Personal “hygiene”, as it pertains to the spiritual life, is fundamental to our sanctification. After all, it’s the Word and the Spirit which cause growth in us.
And don’t forget about our dealings with others, both inside and outside of the faith. How influential will our testimony for Christ be if we “wreak”? How likely are others to listen to what we have to say if the apparent effects of said doctrines we espouse have left us in disarray? Why was our salesman so unsuccessful?
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.
-Philippians 1:27a
And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.
-Colossians 1:9-12
For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
-2 Thessalonians 2:11-13
Wash daily. You and anyone you come into contact with will be blessed for it.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
-Philippians 3:12-14
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins