The Person Who Prays – Approach of God

Introduction

In an earlier Bible study called Prayer part 1: What, Why, and How, we learned from the Bible we are to approach God recognizing His existence, mercy, power, faithfulness, and righteousness. Because of these, we are to approach Him with reverence, pray to Him only, and ensure our prayers give testimony of God. The question this current part of our study considers concerns the physical/spiritual action required. Yet approaching God cannot easily be separated as just physical and spiritual. Each facet of a person’s approach of God involves more than one part of the person’s self. How do we approach God and be with Him? Eleven verses in the New Testament teach about this.

Prayer – Communing with God through the His Spirit

Before His death and resurrection, Jesus told His disciples what was to come. He explained He would be arrested and crucified. When the disciples expressed fear and unbelief, He comforted them. Jesus told them He would ask the Father and the Father would give them another helper to be with them forever (John 14:16-17). This Helper, He said, would be the Spirit of truth that only believers can receive because they know God and He abides in them just as God abides in the Son.

 “Helper” comes from the Greek word parakletos and means one who pleads another person’s case, who is an advocate and intercessor for, and who leads the person to a deeper knowledge of God and the gospel. This Helper is the Spirit of God who abides continually in the heart of the believer and intercedes for the believer with the Father in heaven, just as Jesus did for His disciples while he lived on earth. The Spirit, Jesus stated in verse twenty-six, will teach believers all things and bring to remembrance all Jesus said. He will encourage, remind, and make strong believers as they live on earth after Jesus’ resurrection and before His return.

Paul spoke of the Spirit of God regarding prayer. In Romans 8:26, Paul said, “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” He stated the Spirit is our intercessor to God. Earlier Jesus said the Spirit would be our teacher, encourager, and would abide as the presence of God within us. Now Paul teaches that the Spirit can speak for us to our Father when we are communing with Him and do not know how to put into words our heart, mind, and spirit. God’s Spirit joins with our spirit and conveys to the Father the depth of our appeal and emotion. This joining of our spirit with the Father through the Holy Spirit is the ultimate expression of communing with God. Truth, pure love for God and humankind, adoration and worship, and petition combine to flow between the Father and His child, the believer, through Holy Spirit.

Paul taught the Ephesians in his writing of Ephesians 6:18 that prayer and petition at all times should occur in the Spirit. As we commune with God, prayer should occur through the Holy Spirit that abides with each believer when he or she becomes a child of God. In this passage that Paul wrote the Ephesian believers, he expressly taught as they put on each piece of the armor of God, they  should pray in the Spirit for God’s guidance, protection, and glory, not only to protect one’s self. The fight for each armor bearer is not for life and death – flesh and blood, but for eternal salvation for all people and righteousness. It was a fight to stand firm against the schemes of the devil…against “the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly place.” (Ephesians 6:11-12) Victory requires God’s full strength which requires continual prayer/communing with God that comes through the Spirit, our intercessor.

Prayer – Communing with God with Your Mind and Spirit

That section title sounds like an elementary and trite statement. It sounds so fundamental that one wonders why it needs consideration. Yet, Paul spoke on it and the writer of Daniel regarded it in Daniel’s life. What is necessary beyond bended knee, bowed head, and folded hands like children are taught by their parents and Sunday School teachers?

Paul wrote to the Corinthians speaking to them concerning spiritual gifts and speaking in tongues. His basic point was if a person’s speaking in tongues is not followed with an interpretation of what was said, then it is not of the Spirit since it does not edify a person in the church. This word spoken in a strange tongue does not enlighten or improve anyone’s understanding of God and His truth when no interpretation is given. Since the Holy Spirit is given to each believer to teach, instruct, admonish, and encourage, then the word spoken in a strange tongue could not be said to have come from the Spirit. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 14:14-15 when he said, “If I pray in a tongue my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.”

Paul brought this lesson to a personal level. He did not intend it only to teach the whole church body. Paul recognized for a person to pray to God that person must connect with Him in both body and spirit. Because God is spirit, we speak with and worship Him in spirit. Yet we must remember we are more than spirit. God made us with minds, hearts, and bodies. For a person to be taught that person’s mind must be engaged. When Moses spent the forty years in the desert with the Israelites, he continued to teach them who God was and what He was doing so the Israelites would see, perceive, recognize, know, and relate to Him. In the same way, when a person prays to God, the spirit of the person should be one part of the person to commune with God.

Paul said if his spirit spoke in tongues to God and his mind did not, what he said to God did not edify his mind. He did not grow in his relationship with God because more than his spirit is involved in his relationship with God. That was what Paul meant with his rhetorical question in verse fifteen. Paul realized praying to God involved more than the spirit for him to know God better and grow his relationship with Him. That is why he stated after this question, “I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.” Praying to and communing with God requires more than one part of our being. Here Paul taught our mind and our spirit must join in communion with God. A person who wants to commune with God must approach Him with his or her whole being – heart, mind, body, and soul.

The life of Daniel teaches this same lesson. The messenger from God who spoke to Daniel expressed Daniel set his heart on understanding God and His vision. He humbled himself before God and sought understanding. In Daniel 10:12, the writer records the messenger saying, “Then he said to me, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.’”

The messenger spoke of a “heart understanding” by Daniel. Daniel sought knowledge for his mind that would affect his heart and the way he lived. He desired to know God’s mind and understanding on what was happening to him and the Israelites of the time. His earnest desire to know God’s will and understanding shows how the heart and mind often cannot be separated when considering a person and what is important to him or her. Daniel communed with God through prayer seeking His knowledge. He humbled himself before God. His communing with God involved his head, heart, and spirit. With the messenger’s next words, we realize Daniel’s commune with God involved him physically, through his mouth. Daniel spoke to God, and the messenger arrived to speak to him because of his words to God.

Daniel’s prayers to God, his communing and seeking God, involved his whole being. He sought God and His understanding while approaching him with humility and genuine care. Daniel approached God with his physical being by speaking his heart to God with his mouth. Most probably, in his humility, he bowed before God in his seeking for heart understanding and God’s wisdom. Daniel was an effective prayer. He communed with God, and God heard and answered him.

Prayer – Communing with God with Your Body

Communing with God involves all parts of a person’s being – heart, soul, mind, and strength (physical body). Just as Daniel did not pray with some of the parts of his being, most people, when truly communing with God, commune with Him through their whole being. Daniel used each part of his being when praying with God in Daniel 10. David recognized the need to commune with God in multiple ways, too.

In Psalm 19:14, David said, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.” This verse shows us David recognized his commune/prayer time with God came not just from his heart, but form his mouth. He recognized praying involved his body – his mouth to speak – and his mind and spirit through meditation. David recognized a physical side to communing with God. From one’s mouth most often comes what is in the heart; however, that is not always the case. Sometimes the mouth speaks from the mind only to flatter the hearer and gain something for self. This type of prayer is self-motivated and not motivated on wanting to commune with and know God more. Self-motivated prayer comes from a person’s desire to get something out of the prayer he or she says.

Jesus recognized these types of prayer when he explained a parable to Peter and the other disciples. He said what comes from the heart that determines if a person’s actions, words, and attitudes are God-glorifying. If a person’s heart is not right and truly seeking God, then the words the person utters do not bring them to a closer relationship with God.  Jesus expressed this in Matthew 15:18 when He said, “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and those defile the man.” (Consider also Mark 7:20 and Matthew 12:34). The heart (intentions and motivations) matters and the words reflect the heart’s condition.

What does this say concerning the rote prayers we learned as children or “baby” Christians? Are they deficient or self-serving? The rote prayers we learned as children and seekers or new believers in Jesus Christ are good prayers. They teach us how to pray to God. Yet, if those prayers are said as an appeasement to us that we have said our prayers today so we are okay with God, then

·         We have not grown in our relationship with Him since we were children or baby Christians,

·         We are not truly communing with our Father,

·         We are not becoming more Christlike, and

·         We are stagnating.

 Jesus told His disciples not to be like the Gentiles who use meaningless repetition (Matthew 6:7-8). Jesus said,

“But when you pray, go to your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentile do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.”

Some of the rote prayers we learned that you may still use and that could be “meaningless repetition” could be these –

Ø  “Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Ø  “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we have received from Thy bounty through Christ, our Lord. Amen.” or

Ø  “God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food.”

Each of these prayers is a worthy prayer. They teach us to seek God for protection and to realize God is the protector of our souls. These prayers teach us to recognize the blessings we have come from God and to thank Him. These are good prayers. Yet if all you say to God is this and you pray only when you awake, lie down, or eat, you must ask yourself if you are truly praying/communing with God? Are you growing in your relationship with God? Have you truly asked Christ to be your Lord and Savior?

Prayer – Communing with God as Jesus Taught

In the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus calls God Father. He teaches believers to recognize God as Creator and the Provider of all things. Jesus helps believers understand and address God as the Father of our selves who are born again through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. Giving God the title of Father was an honor reserved for those who taught and led the Israelites from their wisdom and experience. This title applied to God means approaching Him with the understanding and acknowledgement of His superior wisdom and understanding.

Within the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to recognize God’s greatness. He is greater than them and anything they can see or imagine. He created all they see. God lives and reigns in heaven. Recognizing this requires a heart acknowledgement of one’s smallness and God’s greatness.

Jesus taught His disciples to recognize God the Father is their Provider. He gives everything people need for sustenance and survival. His children can go to Him with their physical needs. They can know His power reaches to all nature to provide food for His children. People can approach Him physically with their words and their physical needs.

Jesus further taught God is greater than our spiritual selves. He is holy and almighty. God has power over sin and death and can forgive sin. He will forgive the sins of the people who confess and seek His forgiveness. We approach God with our spiritual selves and are taught to practice the mercy God gives us by forgiving people who have harmed us.

We further recognize and approach God with our spiritual selves when we recognize because God is holy, He has the power to keep us from sinning, from falling to temptation. He can deliver us from evil. God wants us to seek Him to avoid temptation and sin. By doing this we do not sin and can be in His presence. This means approaching God with our heart, soul, and mind. We must choose to let God be our Lord so we walk in His ways.

Prayer – Loving God with Our Whole Being

When we are in a growing and loving relationship with God, we learn to love Him with all our being – our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus taught this in Luke 10:27 and God taught this to the Israelites through Moses in Deuteronomy 6:5. Communing with God – praying to God, reading His Word, listening to Him from His Word and from His shepherds, and meditating on what He is saying – requires the desire a love relationship gives. Just as our love for our spouse, children, or parents makes us want to listen to, speak with, and help them, our love for God should lead us to do the same with Him. Active communing with someone involves our heart, mind, and strength. Active communing with God requires these, too, as well as involving our spirit. Our spirit is joined with His Spirit, our intercessor, when we become His children upon our profession of faith in Jesus Christ and our confession and repentance of sins. Communing/praying to Him without our spirit would be like have hot cocoa without the cocoa powder. It’s just not communing.

Relevance and Conclusion

John 4:24 tells us, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” To truly love God and be in a growing relationship with Him, we must love Him as Jesus taught, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. To approach God as a person of effective prayer requires we approach Him with our whole being – with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

v  We must pray in the Spirit, the Helper, who came from Jesus when He ascended into heaven – our spirit speaking through His Spirit.

v  We must pray with our minds, recognizing God for who He is – Father, Creator, Provider, Savior, and Redeemer.

v  We must pray with our hearts recognizing God’s greatness and our smallness, bowing ourselves in humility before Him.

v  We must pray with our physical beings speaking with our lips and bowing with our knees and heads recognizing almighty God.

Loving the Lord God with all of who we are is communing/praying with God. Without love of God, we would have no desire to truly, genuinely commune with God. Communing with God is praying. It is speaking and listening to and for Him.

When did you last seek to be with God?

When did you last pray to Him, genuinely pray to Him?

It’s not too late to seek Him now, to reach out to Him with your whole self. God promises He will forgive you. Yes, anything you put in your life above God means you have sinned against God. Yet John said in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Come to God.

Seek Him.

“When you seek Him, you will find Him when you search for Him with all your heart, soul, and mind.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

Receive Forgiveness.

Commune with God.

We Are Them

We know children.

We see them in our minds eye –

bubbling with giggles,

erupting with laughter,

glowing with life,

showing the imp in their eyes,

itching to move, and

energizing all around.

We see children as hope for the future and joy for the present.

We count ourselves blessed to have them in our lives.

We pray over them, watch them grow, beam at their success, and bask in their joy.

This is how the heavenly Father thought of them and created them. He created them to bring joy and hope. The Father created them to be loved, nurtured, taught, and enjoyed.

Each person is a child. It does not matter how old a person is, he or she is a child of someone. Whether the person is 6 or 86, he or she is a child still. Father God created each of us for relationship with Him and others. He created us with joy, laughter, and love.

We are the created children of the Creator. 

Look at another picture -

Some children are not bubbling with giggles or erupting with laughter.

Their smiles are muzzled and their laughter is muffled.

Their faces are strained and stained by tears.

The imp in their eyes is hooded.

Their bellies grumble from ceaseless hunger.

Their shoulders are slumped and the life within them is hiding.

They walk with meager possessions wrapped in scrap cloth –

a book, a picture, a pan –

not knowing where they will sleep, what they will eat, or where they will find safety.

Their hope is snuffed out. 

This is the picture we see of so many millions of “children” of all ages in this world.

·         The holes in their lives are bigger than ones left by military rockets in their homes.

·         They are mere ashes of their former selves before political violence burned their villages.

·         Greed, politics, coups, and natural disasters left them as detritus.

Dirty bodies.

Torn clothes.

Shoeless and bleeding feet.

 Heads bowed.

Shoulders slumped.

The light in their lives a vague spark.

Do we acknowledge these, our brothers and sisters? Do we recognize their humanity as ours? Do we allow the Father to stir the spark of our compassion to a fire? Are we willing to breathe life into the flames with the Father to stir ourselves to action?

Geography separates us from these other children, but for that, we would be them.

Are we so self-contained we do not feel, look from our lives and selves, or make ourselves known so we can assist our other siblings?

·         Father God told us to allow the children to come to Him (Matthew 19:14).  

·         God said, after He created humanity, it is very good (Genesis 1:31).  

·         Jesus commanded us to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27).  

·         Apostle Paul told us explicitly to love our neighbors as ourselves (Galatians 5:14).  

All “children” God created are our neighbors.

All the children are us, our siblings.

Will we acknowledge them - their need and their pain - and allow God to fan the flames in our hearts to radiantly love them and kindle life, hope, and joy in their lives again?

Can we sit and see them with unseeing eyes and hear of them with unlistening ears?

Can we be so un-human that we deny the love the Father felt when He created us and put in our hearts?

We can choose to slam the door on our humanity.

·         We can become less human and then, of our own choice, dampen the love, joy, and hope He put in us.

·         Or, we can join the Father and fan into brilliant flame these essences of God within us.

We can stand for the tired, fearful, and hopeless millions upon millions who have been made Refugees. 

Will you close your eyes, shut the door of your heart, and not acknowledge these desolate siblings?

Or, will you become completely human with the heart Father God gave you? 

We are them

Are You Listening?

On April 16^th this year, I wrote an article called “FIRE: It’s a Relationship.” Since then, people have asked me more about FIRE and the basis for it. This article is an expansion on that article.

            John, in his gospel, writes many things. His whole book is written with the sole purpose being “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31 [NASB]). John showed throughout his book ways that we as hearers and readers could know Jesus as the Son of God. He told us his personal testimony. He told of the testimony through Jesus’ signs and miracles, through the Spirit, and through the Word (God’s inspired Word). Yet, there is something we must do. Paul in Romans 10:14-15a states it this way, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent” [NASB]? Unless we who know God personally tell others about Jesus, the salvation of the world, most will not know Jesus.

            In John 13:15, Jesus used the word “example” only once to His disciples. After being with the disciples for almost 3 years teaching them by word and action, before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. He took His tunic off and wrapped a towel around Himself as a servant would. This is the example Jesus gave His disciples; they are to be servants to each other. Jesus reinforced this "example" He showed and spoke. Later in chapter 13, Jesus told the disciples in verse 34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35, [NASB]). Previously, Jesus said He was the fulfillment of the Law but stated that they must follow the Shema. The Shema is a Jewish Law combining Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF” (Luke 10:27 [NASB]). This Jesus called the greatest commandment. At the end of His time with His disciples, He added another, John 13:34-35, they were to love each other so that all people will know they are His disciples. These two commands cover love of God, love of others (outside the faith), and love among disciples.

            How are people to know Jesus? They are to come to know Jesus by us coming to know them. In the gospel of John, John states many times that Jesus knew what people were thinking, what their past was, that they were grumbling or complaining, and that certain persons needed a miracle or sign so they could believe. Jesus knew and knows all people. Jesus spoke into their lives at the point of their need. Consider Mary and Martha. Jesus could have gone to their home in Bethany before Lazarus died, but He knew them and He wanted God to receive glory. Mary and Martha believed Jesus is God’s Son and believed there would be a resurrection on the last day. They did not know that Jesus had power over life and death. By waiting until Lazarus was truly dead (4 days after his death), Jesus’ power over life and death would not be doubted, God would be given the glory, and Mary and Martha’s faith will have grown. You can look at other miracles in John and see this same thing occur – Jesus’ power over that part of life would be revealed, God would receive glory, and the faith of people would increase or occur for the first time. Jesus knows people and what they need. He meets people at the point of their need, when they are at the end of their understanding and knowledge, so that any good/miracle that occurs can only be explained as being from God. The question remains: how are people to know Jesus?

            More often than not, people come to know Jesus through His disciples speaking truth into their lives. Let me say it again; people come to meet and know Jesus through us getting to know them. By getting to know them, we hear them tell us about themselves, their families, their interests, and their religious experiences. We listen intently and we hear where they are hurting. We hear they are human, too. We hear with our ears and with the heart that Jesus regenerated in us through His love. We hear their physical and spiritual needs. In the process of listening, we earn that person’s trust. In the process of listening to them, we remember where Jesus met our need, physically and spiritually. We remember where Jesus came to us, met us, healed us, and forgave us, and where we gave our lives to Him. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:26 that the birds of the air wear beautiful plumage, have their food requirements met, and are sheltered in God’s beautiful trees and bushes. The birds did nothing; God provided for their needs. God will provide more so for the needs of His created people. Jesus stated that in Matthew 6. God provides for spiritual needs as well as temporal needs. Jesus built relationships or strengthened them at the point of a person’s need. He wants to be the provider of everything humankind needs. We must also build relationships and through building these new relationships and listening, we are given the opportunity by the other person to speak about Jesus and show how He has changed our lives, how He has met our needs, temporal and spiritual, and how He can be the fulfillment of all their own needs now and for eternity.

            Consider the I AM statements in John’s gospel. Jesus said seven things that John recorded. Jesus said, I AM the Bread of Life; I AM the Light of the world; I AM the gate for the sheep; I AM the good Shepherd; I AM the resurrection and the Life; and I AM the True Vine. Each of these has a temporal and spiritual element to it. Jesus came to be everything a human being ever needs –bread, light, shelter, guidance, life and hope, and eternal sustenance/salvation. Jesus is the fulfillment of all our needs before we ever know we have the need for them. God provided manna in the wilderness for the Israelites to feed them for a day. Jesus became the Bread that would feed our spiritual need forever. God gave a light of fire before the troops of Israelites as they found their way to the Promised Land. Jesus is the Light to lead us to eternal life in God’s Kingdom. God provided a gate by which to keep out the wolves. Jesus is the gate that keeps the devil and his demons out when we have given our lives to Him. God provides shepherds for the sheep who protect them, such as David was for the actual sheep of his father and for God’s people Israel. Jesus is the Shepherd who will not run away but will fight the wolves to keep us protected in His hands. He protects those who are His own. No one before Jesus had ever beaten death and come back to life. Jesus died to be victorious over death so His children would be resurrected from the grave at the end of the time. Death does not have any hold on those who call themselves His disciples. Jesus gives eternal life to His disciples. God provides sustenance and guidance now to His children. He also provides eternal life forever. God provides the eternal guidance and remembrance of all He has taught us through our lives and the ones who have gone before us through His indwelling Holy Spirit. He gives us hope and guidance as the True Vine. We are His, adopted by Him, and grafted into His vine so that nothing can separate us from Him. This is what Jesus gives us for now and eternity and what He stated in the seven I AM statements.

            We must get to know people as Jesus knows people. We must hear them express themselves, their life, and their beliefs. Only be listening will we gain their trust to speak into their lives. Only by listening will we be able to contextualize the message of Jesus’ salvation for that particular person at that specific moment in their lives. This is relationship and our telling the gospel to them after hearing is contextualizing the Gospel for them. That is how FIRE helps us. FIRE is Family, Interests, Religious experiences, and Evangelism. FIRE makes us intentional in getting to know Jesus better each day, to have a growing relationship with Him. We must have a daily relationship with Jesus where we are learning more through His Word and through prayer with Him. Without this daily relationship, we may not know a passage of Scripture a person needs to hear as they are speaking to us. FIRE lets us know a person’s thoughts on their needs so we can show them how Jesus can fill their needs here and eternally. FIRE is how Jesus met us through others and it is how He will meet other people more often than not.

            The questions now to consider include the following. How is your relationship with God? Are you close or has it been a while since you read His Word or prayed to Him? How are your listening skills? Are you a keen listener and often hear a word from God? Are you a listener of other people or do you hear some of what they say and then begin thinking about what you will say also? We must be in an active vertical relationship with God. We must also know how to have a horizontal relationship with other people. This is what Jesus did well. He was very relational and showed us by example how to be in a relationship with God ( vertical relationship) and with one another (horizontal relationship). (These two relationship beams make a cross.) Jesus died on the cross because of these relationships, obedience to the Father and love for us created human beings.

Each of us has to make a decision: are we willing to get to know people like Jesus knows each of us so we can tell them the great news of Jesus Christ?

Servant to Friend

John 13:14-17 14 "If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet for I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them” [NASB]. 

Notice first off, Jesus calls Himself by two titles, Lord and Teacher. He signifies Himself by the titles the disciples call Him. The title of Lord means the disciples recognized Him as One who has power and is the owner of something or someone. In this instance, they recognized Jesus as the Son of God and the owner of themselves as servants to His command and as owner of the created world. The title of Teacher signifies the disciples acknowledged His proficiency in Hebrew Law and the Prophets and put themselves as His to teach in the ways of the Father, from the past as Creator and Provider to the near future as Savior. By calling Himself the Lord and Teacher, titles the disciples also used, they said they learned from Jesus and obeyed Jesus. The disciples were Jesus’ students and servants.

            Many teachers and preachers have taught this passage about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. This passage has been used as a passage to remind us that we are to serve each other. Yet, something more is there than just that. Jesus stated explicitly, “For I gave you an example… (vs. 15).” Nowhere else in the New Testament did Jesus tell them He was giving them an example. He showed them what to do but never told them explicitly, “This is how you are to be: servants.”

            Let us consider a few things Jesus said about servants. From John 12:26, just a day or two before Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, Jesus said, “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me [NASB].” Jesus reminded the disciples that service to Him means following Him. Jesus added a positive, a promise if you will, that where He is His servant will be. The servants/disciples will be in the kingdom of God with Him. Another passage to consider about servants is Mark 10:42-45,

Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But, it is not this way among you, but whomever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” [NASB]

Jesus told the disciples the way to be first for Jesus and the Father was to serve others, “be slave of all.” He offered Himself as an example by telling them that He, too, did not come to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28 [NASB]). Though not explicitly stating the word “example,” Jesus implied servanthood in this passage.

          Jesus set before the disciples in what manner they were to consider themselves and how they were to conduct their lives. The disciples were to be servants. Because Jesus was calling Himself the Son of God and breaking the Sabbath rule by working/healing on that day, the Jews wanted to kill Him. Jesus confronted the Jews and explained for all to hear, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner (John 5:19 [NASB]). Jesus explained that He could only do what He has seen the Father do. Since Jesus is the example to His disciples then and down through the ages, then He is our example today. We can only do what we have seen Him and the Father do.

          So what is Jesus trying to say to us? Since He was a servant to them by washing their feet and plainly told the disciples that He was an example to them and since He said that if we want to be considered first and enter His kingdom, we must be servants and slaves to all, including to Jesus. That is really what this passage is about. Our actions toward others may appear as if we are being servants to them; however, we are serving Christ by serving others. It is a new attitude that is to be considered. Because we serve Christ, we will be like Him, as He showed us in His life and death. When we are servants of Christ, we realize and take upon ourselves the mind of Christ; we humble ourselves. See Philippians 2:3-8,

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [NASB]

          Jesus humbled Himself and became human because of the Father’s love for us, the love the triune God has for us. His humbling of Himself, His servant life, and His sacrificial death, bring us to reverential awe for Him. As we stand before God, we are speechless and can only bow in love and servitude to Him. Jesus told them, as He had just a little time left with them, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another (John 13:34 [NASB]). Jesus left them with a final commandment that goes along with the greatest commandment (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27 [NASB]). How would the disciples be known to be Jesus disciples? They were to love everyone. Jesus, in John 14:15, reminded them of this commandment when He said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments [NASB].

            Jesus has given His disciples for the last 2000 years an example. We are to be servants. We are to have an attitude of humility because He is God – Creator, Provider, and Savior. Jesus did not come down in human form because we are loveable. We are each darkened with sin. He came down because of His love for who we were created to be – His friends. Jesus spoke of this to His disciples in John 15:15, "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you [NASB]. Because Jesus came to earth in human form, taught and loved us up to and through His death, we see true servanthood. It is not being subservient and submissive to the person to whom we serve, though that can happen. It is being submissive and servant to our Father and Savior because of their great love for us. Because if this great love for us and our surrendering/yielding our lives to Him, Jesus can say we are not just servants, but we are His friends.

We are to serve because we reverence and love God. We are to serve because Jesus gave us the example, His great love enacted through His life and death. We are to serve because it is the commandment He gave to His disciples. Mostly, we are to serve, because He calls us His friend. We must decide for ourselves whether we will serve Jesus. This service requires following His example, surrendering our whole selves to His purpose, that all may know (as John said in John 20:31). Will you love God with your life?