We’ve been looking at the time when Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. This daily devotional looks at Jesus’ response when Peter adamantly refused to have that happen.
Nuggets
- Salvation has to be Jesus’ way, not our own.
- Salvation is confirmed through sanctification.
Devotions in the Living Life Connected to Christ series
When Jesus got around to washing Peter’s feet, Peter said, “No way!”;
Let’s see what comes next in the story.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Christian humility is our yielding our dependence to Christ to serve Him and others.
Peter Still Rejects Humility
“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’” (Jn. 13: 8 ESV)
Salvation has to be Jesus’ way, not our own.
Good ol’ Pete. He was adamant that Jesus was not going to wash his feet.
But Jesus stopped Peter in his tracks with the next statement. I don’t wash you, you aren’t Mine.
We can’t have salvation if we don’t follow Jesus’ way to the letter. Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
Peter wasn’t ready to surrender everything to Jesus. Maybe he wasn’t ready to surrender until he understood everything.
Not. Going. To. Happen. We aren’t ever going to understand everything.
Maybe Peter was beginning to kind of get the scope of what God was calling him to do and be. And it scared the wadding out of him because he felt unworthy.
Then, here comes Jesus, with this common chore. Mr. Worthy washing the feet of Mr. Unworthy.
Jesus was looking at this as a spiritual cleansing. No, it wasn’t baptism. It was still a cleansing.
Don’t we continue to need cleansing after salvation? We continue to sin. We continue to need to be washed and made clean in order to enter into God’s presence.
But I think it was more than that. There are times in our walk when Jesus says, “Jump,” we have to jump. We can’t even ask, “How high?”
We just have to do it.
If we have to ask questions or waffle around with our answer, we really aren’t submitted to Him and have no part with Him.
So many times, people think of submission as having a negative connotation. It doesn’t always.
Did you get what Jesus was really saying at the end of verse 8? We have to be washed — cleansed — by Jesus Himself if we are going to have a share with Him.
We have to go through conversion so that we are regenerated if we are going to have any part of the rewards in eternity.
Works can’t gain us entrance to Heaven. Peter had an enthusiasm for Jesus and His ministry.
That didn’t gain Peter entrance into Heaven.
Peter had three years of instruction at the feet of the Master. If anyone had knowledge of Jesus, he did.
That didn’t gain Peter entrance into Heaven.
Only faith in and confession of Jesus as Savior and Redeemer can.
Just think how it must have cut Peter to hear, “If you don’t let me wash your feet, you have no part in me.” All because he was hanging onto what he wanted rather than what Jesus wanted.
How many times do we do that? We hang onto jobs, friends, family — whatever we put a greater value on than what Christ wants us to do.
There are times that we need a wake-up call saying, “If you don’t submit, you won’t be a part of me.”
Peter Accepts Humility
“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’” (Jn. 13: 6-10 ESV)
Salvation is confirmed through sanctification.
Peter finally got what Jesus was after. When he saw that, he was all in.
We have to be all in. That is what sanctification is all about. It shows the sincerity of our profession of salvation.
Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Glossary
Every part of us needs sanctified.
Thomas reminds us that we have been regenerated, but we are not perfected.
Resource
Verse 10 is interesting. Let’s see if we can figure it out.
We recently talked about how we need to get a new heart. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36: 26 ESV).
Our hearts must be made new because our hearts are diseased by sin. “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you” (Ezek. 36: 25 ESV).
Only Jesus can cleanse our diseased hearts.
Once Jesus has cleansed us, we need to sing God’s praises. Boston said there are two areas in our hearts that are cleansed.
- An infinite value and dignity
- An infinite energy and efficacy.
Resource
But let’s look at it this way. If we have been cleansed through salvation, every part of us is clean.
Ooo, baby. I can see the worldview people jumping up and down, screaming, “But disciples aren’t clean. They continue to sin.”
Milne explained that. He wrote, “… that after we have got this complete, abiding forgiveness, we still require, while we remain on earth, daily, hourly forgiveness; we still need to wash our feet.”
Resource
Thomas had an interesting take. He said, by Peter’s denial to have his feet washed, he was saying the feet washing had no meaning. It was either that, or he put the wrong meaning on the act.
Resource
It isn’t a wonder that Jesus didn’t just smack Peter down!
Everything Jesus did had a purpose. We’ve got to discern His holy and righteous purpose
Making the Connections
Boston had a really interesting take on what is done in justification and sanctification. Justification is the act through the merits of Christ that makes us free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Justification, according to Boston, is “the loosing of the filth of sin sticking to the soul …” Sanctification, on the other hand, is sin’s “… removal from the soul …”
Resource
Two verse were used to support this.
- “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (I Cor. 15:56 ESV).
- “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Heb. 9: 14 NIV)
Hmmm. I can see how the Hebrews verse talks about sanctification. Do I see the I Corinthians verse supporting that concept for justification? Not so much.
(But that is what I do here. See what others have to say and figure out if I think it is valid.)
When we really think about it, though, is justification only washing away the surface sin? I get that sanctification is the process of cutting sin out of us.
I think justification is more than a surface clean.
How Do We Apply This?
- Humility shouldn’t be a roadblock between us and believing in Jesus.
- No feelings should be a roadblock between us and believing in Jesus.
- We can’t delude ourselves into think Jesus will give us a pass if we are not navigating the Sanctification Road.
Resources
Father God. We can only be cleansed of our sin when we accept that belief in Jesus is the only way in which we can be justified. We believe. Help us as we navigate the Sanctification Road. May we always keep our focus on You. Amen.
What do you think?
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