| Devotional Hours with the Bible |
Chapter 21 |
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The story of Christ’s act of humility is told in very beautiful words. Jesus did not consider His holy hands too fine for the washing of the feet of the twelve men who sat around the table. Some of us think we are too great or too high in rank among men to stoop to any lowly service like this. Our thought of our greatness and our dignity oppresses us and prevents us from doing the beautiful things of love. That was the way the disciples thought of themselves. Christ’s act of humility is an answer to all such pride and pretension. Never was there any other being of such glorious personality as Jesus; yet He did not hesitate to perform this lowliest of all service. Some us like to do all our serving by proxy. We will pay a deaconess or a city missionary for relieving the poor or ministering to the sick, but will not do the work with our own hands. We do not know what blessing we miss in declining to accept such blessed service, nor how much more the service means when we do it with our own hands. “The gift without the giver is bare.”
Peter shrank from having his Master perform such menial service for him. It was natural for him to feel thus. It was his deep sense of personal unworthiness that led him to exclaim as he saw his master about to perform the lowly service, “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” The answer Jesus gave bade him submit, though he could not understand what was being done. Someday it would all be clear to him.
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