Jesus cares about the ordinary

A Christian woman complained about an on-going minor medical issue. I suggested that she ask God to heal her or at least give her comfort. She surprised me with, “Oh this is not spiritual. It is a physical thing.”
 

The life of Jesus Christ shows that God is interested in both. He forgave sinners, but He also healed sickness and infirmities. Today’s verses add even more; Jesus cared about and took care of ordinary issues too.

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. (John 13:5)

Dusty feet were normal. A good host always directed a servant to wash the feet of his guests. This was an ordinary task, but if anyone has ever had sweaty, dust covered feet, it is not difficult to imagine the refreshment and blessing of this lowly service. 

Jesus used this ministry to those with ordinary needs to show His disciples the importance of loving service. However, this action also shows His heart. The Lord God of the universe cares about ordinary problems. He also cares about minor medical issues, and those more severe, but He takes note of all that bothers us and stands ready to serve those needs.

Today’s devotional reading says this:

We forget that Jesus Christ is the same today when He is sitting on the throne, as He was yesterday when He trod the pathway of our world. And in this forgetfulness how much we miss! What He was, that He is. What He said, that He says. The Gospels are simply specimens of the life that He is ever living; they are leaves torn out of the diary of His unchangeable Being.

As I look at the life of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, I see a man who is powerful, wise and good, yet He is also tender, loving and practical. If He healed people in the past, He can heal people today. How much that woman missed by putting Him into a box.

As for me, I have struggled with my attitude and with minor aches and pains. Some days I have little ambition, even with lots to do. In all this ordinary stuff of life, Jesus cares. Yes, He cures major ailments. Yes, He brings hope and healing to those who have gigantic problems. But because He also washes feet, I know He cares about my minute struggles. This one I call Master and Lord still girds Himself and comes forth to serve. 

His unchanging care also covers spiritual matters. I need continual cleansing to keep me upright. It is not enough to look back to that day when I first asked the Son of God to pardon my sin. He says, “Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven” (Luke 7:47), yet He knows and cares that I need daily, hourly cleansing — from daily, hourly sin. 

My Savior ever lives, always cares and constantly makes intercession for me, but He also washes my feet.

Daily washed

Yesterday’s Sunday Bible study was about death to our selfish nature. No one argued that this was an easy issue. Every Christian knows that unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we have “me, myself and I” to contend with. In our sinfulness, we wanting to run things, even manage our Christian lives. This is impossible.

Jesus knew that, so He provided for even the daily struggle it causes. In a great act of His eternal love, He died once for all our sin, put us into the family of God and made us new creatures. However, what patience and love are demonstrated each day, even each hour, as He takes our self-centered follies and disobedience to the throne of grace and washes them away. We have been made clean, yet He continues to make us clean. He pointed forward to this eternal grace and mercy as He took aside His disciples to show them how to love one another. 

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. (John 13:5)

Jesus loves His people so much that every day He continues to do that which is illustrated in washing soiled feet. He took the role of a servant with this basin and towel. As our servant, He does what is needed, but also feels our sorrows, hears our desires, and forgives our acts of sin and selfishness. He is both our King and our Friend, our Master as He stands to intercede for us and our Servant as He goes among us with a basin and a towel.

Each day I confess my selfish attitudes and actions. So much of what I do is not worthy of my calling. Each day I experience His great patience when I ask to be forgiven and cleansed, hearing Him say, “I will, be thou clean.” He takes away my guilt and purifies my heart, washing me, changing me — a marvel of His incredible goodness.

To know eternal redemption is a great wonder. To know Christ’s daily patience and continual forgiveness of repeated sin and selfishness is perhaps a greater wonder. How many times have I said, “Oh no, I did it again” only to hear Him say that His blood is sufficient for every sin, or even to reply, “I died for that!”

He even says that I died with Him. In the act of redemption, I was crucified to sin, to the world, even to my selfishness. Yet that self-life (not my personality but my selfishness) remains. I am to consider it dead, treating it as a dead thing, but when it rears up to dismay me, I turn to the eternal patience of my Savior who still carries a basin and a towel.

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Lord, Your great patience is a motivation for me. While I am grateful that You wash me clean again and again, I would be far better to obey You continually, not giving my selfishness any opportunity to usurp Your place on the throne of my heart. Yet I realize this battle will continue until my feet are on the threshold of eternity. I will need washing and cleansing until that one last time before all sin is gone. Thank You for your incredible grace in forgiving the lump sum of all my sin, and for even more, that daily You forgive and wash my repeated offenses. What a wonder! What a Savior!