Washing my feet

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalms 119:105

A lamp unto my feet: It illuminates my feet-shows where I am now in my fallen, degenerate state. It shows me that I am nowhere near the person God would have me to be. It shows just how far I am from being like His Son.

A lamp pointed at my feet when I am standing still shows my location- far from God, off the path AGAIN and bogged down by guilt and shame. They stick like mud to my feet, making them dirty-showing me where I am and where I've been. But the Word of God is not exposing my shamefulness to leave me there!

The verse goes on.

The Word of God is a light unto my path. It stretches out in front of me illuminating the way I ought to go. I can't see the whole journey- just a short distance, but as I walk in the path set before me, the light moves further on, drawing me ever closer to the God of the Word.

As I move along the path, His Word continues to be a lamp unto my feet- no longer illuminating my failures- but instead, helping me to see the things that could cause me to stumble and fall. This lamp shows me where to place my feet so I have sure footing on solid ground.

A friend of mine wrote this quote by Moody in the front of her Bible:
"This book will keep me from sin, or sin will keep me from this book."

The Word of God has the power to bring our sins to light, but it then shows us the way the Lord would have us to go and says, "This is the way, walk ye in it." (Isaiah 30:21)

In John 13, the Lord Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Simon Peter initially refused to take part in what he perceived as degradation of his Lord, but Jesus said, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me" (John 13:8). Christ was not saying that Peter would not be saved. He was saying that He could not have full fellowship with Peter until the defilement of the world He'd passed through had been washed from His feet.

This mirrors the believer's experience of Jesus as Lord. When we are saved, we are cleansed from our sins through His precious blood, and we can never lose that salvation. Positionally, we are His for eternity.

But as we travel through life the defilement of sin gathers on our feet, hindering our ability to commune with God. We need to have our feet washed with water.

Dr. C. I. Scofield in his reference notes on this subject says, "Christ cannot have communion with a defiled saint, but He can and will cleanse him."

Isn't that wonderful?! The perfect, spotless Son of God will cleanse carnal, deceitful me to bring me into His presence. I'm not worthy of the least of His attention, but He stoops and takes my feet in His hands- hands that for my sake were pierced through by Roman nails. Those hands are holding my disgusting feet- feet covered in the defilement of a wicked world, and He doesn't judge or try to make me feel guiltier. He just washes them- lovingly- like it's the first time- even though we both know I've come crawling back before. And though we both know it won't be the last time, there's no mention of that now. He washes them so totally clean that they look new, and it's hard to imagine the state they were in before.

Cleansed, I can have communion with Him. And that's what He wanted all along.