IDOK DEVOTION FOR WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2010

Nail Gunk

I hope you all do not tire of me bringing our devotion time together from my journaling in my 90 Days with Jesus the One and Only.  In 2003 these IDOK Devotions were born as I one morning quickly shared a nugget from my quiet time study with a few close girlfriends – it seems good that I not stray from that practice too much.

So this morning I read this: I can’t get away from the picture of You bowing before Your disciples and washing their feet.  But help me also not be able to get away from Your following statement to them: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  And then I read: Show me those who need their feet washed today, and help me follow through.

And yes I added my own Amen to that, saying yes this is the prayer to pray.  Who in my world needs their feet washed by me?  And am I willing to do it? And does it make a difference to me who? Would I wash some feet happily and some not? 

I know the answer to that.  I knew it when I asked.  And in the course of the conversational prayer this helpful revelation came in the form of another question: And is that because I would be focusing on the wrong feet?  Is it that I should see any feet as YOUR FEET?  And we know the answer to that.  And no doubt it will work – if we will practice. Matthew 25: (New King James Version) 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ [source]

And that being written I am thinking, FEET.  Of all parts of the body to wash – the feet — the part in that time that got SO dirty with all the crude of those dirt paths they walked.  And in sandals, for crying out loud!  Oh my goodness the gunk under the nails must have been — yuck!  The LORD sure knew what He was saying.  We may not be asked to literally wash the feet of others but I dare say we know some folks whose conduct is ‘nail gunk’ for sure!  And so as we encounter their ‘nail gunk’, shall we remember that humbling ourselves to forgive them and minister to them according to the direction of the Holy Spirit is as washing the Feet of Jesus? ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ [source]  Truthfully, would not you consider it an honor and a privilege to kneel and wash His feet?  Luke 7 (NKJV):36 Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. 37 And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, 38 and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil.  [source]

Should it be any less a privilege and an honor to in His Name wash the feet of our Sisters and Brothers?  Something to ponder, I think.

ABBA, I am glad to be here again with our IDOKs and Readers.  This lesson I think is not the easiest to digest; so I pray You will help us be willing to chew on it long enough to get the nourishment from it that You desire for us to have. We want You to be glorified and magnified in the lives of each One whose name we speak here today.  And we pray too for our IDOK Troops for their safety and protection in spirit, soul and body.  Thank You for the plans You have for us; Thank You that You make Your Will for us known to us and I pray we will exercise the courage You have placed in us to do Your Will. I pray for our IDOKs and our Readers, for rest and refreshing.  I pray for our local churches that a desire for individual and cooperate prayer will be renewed and revival will come and Jesus will be exalted.  Amen and amen.

Kathie