Jesus, Foot Washing, and Servant Leadership: A Devotional

by Elizabeth | Mar 26, 2019 | Devotional, Leadership, Lent

Jesus, Foot Washing, and Servant Leadership: A Devotional

“Lord, do you wash my feet?” John 13:6

Our elder son will never forget the words Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, Inc., addressed to him after his job interview there. Touring the facility with the vice-president who interviewed him, they arrived at the “treehouse,” the then ninety-one-year-old’s office. After a brief conversation, Mr. Cathy looked at our son and said, “I look forward to serving with you.” Our son had two (inward) responses:

Does that mean I got the job?! and
Wait, don’t you mean, “You look forward to me serving you?”

With his words, Mr. Cathy had demonstrated the principle of servant leadership that derives from Chick-fil-A, Inc.’s mission statement.

That story always reminds me of Peter’s response when Jesus approached him to wash his feet (John 13). Peter objects, not wanting Jesus to stoop so low as to serve him in such a menial way. Jesus gently rebukes Peter, instructing his followers about servant leadership in the kingdom of God. Let’s revisit the story.

Jesus: The Ultimate Servant Leader

The time, Jesus knows, has now come, for him to depart this world. Even as he is enjoying his feast with his beloved disciples, he is eager to prepare them for their new life of service. He rises from his place at the table, removes his outer garment, and wraps a towel around his waist. Now dressed as a servant, he begins doing what only a servant, or a wife, or a child, the lowliest in the hierarchy of that culture would do—washing feet. At this point, Peter raises his objection. As we continue the story, we learn five realities about Christ’s servant leaders:

Five Characteristics of Servant Leaders:

Servant leaders must be willing to be weak, even despicably so. In removing his outer garment (John 13:4), kneeling before his friends, and taking their dirty feet into his hands, Jesus performs the role of the weakest and most despised in his culture—a servant. Jesus’ menial act is the basis of Peter’s objection, just as it was the basis of my son’s objection to Mr. Cathy.
Servant leaders serve even in times of travail and turmoil. Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, knowing that he is facing the torment of the Cross and separation from his Father, not to mention separation from his beloved friends. Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, knowing that some will betray him in coming days. Trials do not excuse us from servant leadership.
Servant leaders open themselves to the care of Jesus and others. When Peter objects to Jesus’ washing of him, Jesus responds, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8, ESV). It is Jesus who empowers us to serve others. Without receiving his care and love, we have no love to share.
Servant leaders serve because Jesus first served us, just as we love because Jesus first loved us (1 John 4:7-8). Jesus washes his disciples’ feet to illustrate a spiritual point—he alone can cleanse them from their sin. Then he instructs them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). Jesus’ foot washing is more than an example to the servant leader; it is the empowerment for servant leadership. Because we have the riches of his grace, we pour them out on others.
Servant leaders will get down and dirty, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. Jesus calls his disciples to go into all the world, even the uncomfortable and unfamiliar world. To wash another’s feet may mean sitting on the sidewalk next to the homeless man while he eats the chicken sandwich we brought him; or it may mean enduring the stench of urine in the nursing home as we visit residents there. It may mean entering messy conversations or not exiting miry conflicts.

As you ponder Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, do not miss meditating on his sacrificial service to his disciples. Let us serve because he first served us, just as we love because he first loved us!

A Prayer about Servant Leadership

Prayer: Lord Jesus, you not only showed us the way to servant leadership, you dug the path for us by your death on the Cross. Thank you for lowering yourself that we might be raised to new life. Help us to follow you into the down and dirty places you call us to lead. In your saving name we ask. Amen.

Further Encouragement: John 13:1-17; Philippians 2:1-11.

For Reflection:

How do you feel about having your feet washed, literally or spiritually? What encouragement or conviction does this passage bring you?
In which of the five areas of servant leadership would you like to grow? Ask God to help you in this area.

Listen: Take My Life and Let It Be, written by Frances Havergal

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash

What the World Needs Now: Forgiveness

by Elizabeth | Feb 5, 2019 | Caregiving, Devotional, Suffering

What the World Needs Now: Forgiveness

Scarlet red and pastel pink candy hearts are popping up in stores everywhere; Pinterest is loaded with 1001 creative and crafty ways to tell someone “I love you.” It seems like a good time to focus on love. What ignites love, and what sustains love? My husband and I both have the same answer to those questions, or the question of how our marriage has not only survived, but thrived for over 36 years:

Forgiveness. Today I share a short little story about forgiveness and the waiting room, excerpted from my new devotional. It’s called:

You Are Forgiven

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. Ephesians 1:7, NIV

One day, in the waiting room of my Dad’s oncologist, I happened to sit next to an (annoying) angel. The very word angel in the Greek indicates a messenger, and this unlikely angel had a message from God for me and my dad. My dad, who was now immobilized by tumors in his hips, was sitting in a wheelchair facing me. He chose this particular time and place to reveal a crucial piece of information he had previously withheld: his oral chemo pill was no longer defeating the cancer from the prostate, and he had stopped all treatment.

In that moment, I felt undone by rage at my powerlessness to help my dad, so I left my chair and walked to the edge of the crowded waiting room in an effort to calm myself. When I returned, I said quietly to my dad, “You did not tell me the truth when I asked. You told me you were ‘tiptop.’” He began to make excuses, to explain that he was only thinking of me and the burden I was carrying. I cut him off: “You should have told me.”

At this point, the angel entered the story. A sturdy, middle-aged woman, she sat stuffed in the pleather chair connected to mine. Suddenly I felt a pat on my shoulder and heard her speak in a rough, country voice, “It’ll be okay.”

She continued, “Just so long as you know where you’re going, it’s all okay.”

I nodded and looked pointedly at my dad, who frequently fought me on this point. I still wasn’t sure if he was a Christian. She repeated her message, “Just so long as you know you’re saved. Jesus makes it all okay.”

My dad turned back to me and repeated his apology. “I’m sorry.” No excuses this time.

I still couldn’t look him in the eye. I said, “It’s okay. You’re forgiven. I just wish you had told me.”

The angel in the waiting room was right, even if I wasn’t eager at first to hear her message. That day, both my dad and I needed the comforting knowledge of Ephesians 1:7, the knowledge that Jesus shed actual blood so that we might be forgiven. I needed forgiveness for my unkindness to my dad. Dad needed a Savior to take the burden of guilt he had carried over a lifetime of unconfessed sin. As the angel had assured us, it would all be “okay” if we believed Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice for us.

Prayer

Precious Lord Jesus, thank you for shedding your blood for us, for bearing God’s wrath on my behalf. Thank you for lifting the burden of our guilt from us. Help us to live and love in the freedom of your forgiveness. Amen.

Further Encouragement

Read 1 Peter 1:18; 1 John 1:7; 2:2.

Listen to “Forgiveness” by Matthew West.

For Reflection: In what ways do you and/or your loved one need to know forgiveness in this season?

Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

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Counting Our Blessings When Life Is Hard

by Elizabeth | Nov 27, 2018 | Devotional, Suffering

Counting Our Blessings When Life Is Hard

A note about this devotional

In 2017, our family was suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into many waiting rooms at doctor’s offices and hospitals. This meditation on gratitude is excerpted from the devotional I wrote about that season. To learn more about The Waiting Room: 60 Meditations for Finding Peace and Hope in a Health Crisis, subscribe to Living Story or check back at www.elizabethturnage.com for announcements in the near future.

For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4:15, ESV

At times during our season in the waiting room, I was far better at counting losses than I was at counting blessings. When things went so far wrong and our son had had three surgeries in four weeks time, I did not feel very grateful. But I knew the apostle Paul’s insistence that God’s grace grows a heart of gratitude.

Our sin nature bends our heart away from gratitude in the best of times; during hard seasons, gratitude may take more effort than ever. Author Ann Voskamp, in her pivotal work on gratitude, One Thousand Gifts, emphasizes the effort involved when she asks, “How do I see grace, give thanks, find joy in this sin-stinking place?” Indeed, when my 83-year-old father was wearing a diaper and moaning in pain, I had to work to see grace, to give thanks.

Gratitude does not deny the painful reality of living in a fallen world; after all, the apostle Paul wrote, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9, NLT). And yet, Paul thanked God in the midst of his suffering because more people were discovering God’s grace; therefore, more people were thanking God for his gift of forgiveness, and more people were glorifying God (2 Corinthians 4:15).

Gratitude does not deny the painful reality of living in a fallen world. #gratitude #countyourblessings #countyourlosses Share on X

With Paul’s logic in mind, I began to “recount” (re-count) all of the “wonderful deeds of the Lord” (Psalm 9:1b, ESV). I brought to mind his blessings, naming them one by one, as the old song suggests:

Sweet friends paid us a visit today just after the doctor gave us a hard report. Thank you.
The doctor gave us a good report today. Thank you.
A smiling stranger on the elevator held the door for me. Thank you.
A lovely handwritten card arrived in the mail. Thank you.
Our son knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Thank you!

As I listed the many kindnesses of God in the midst of this tumultuous season, guess what happened? My heart settled. It seems the apostle Paul, who had been in prison when he wrote the words, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice,” (Philippians 4:4), knew exactly what he was talking about. He knew that we are made to thank and glorify God; that is the essence of life for a follower of Christ. As we remember the redemption God has worked in our lives, we trust God to work wonders again.

A Prayer about Counting Our Blessings

Lord, thank you for your grace, thank you for your Holy Spirit who jogs our memory to “forget not all your benefits.” Thank you most of all your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.