Daily Devotional for August 25, 2016

John 13:34-35    
“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson.  Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO.  All rights reserved.

I met a friend in the grocery store today whose husband has just come home from an extended hospital stay.  She said that yesterday, he took his first “real” shower in roughly 38 days.  She said he told her that “spit baths” were just not the same – that “we Baptists need more water!” I had to agree.  Several years ago, I broke my ankle.  While I was in a cast, I could not shower.  I told my friend that I still remember the first day I was free of my plaster cast. Greg put a step-stool in the shower, and I sat on it while he turned on the water and let it pour over me.  A shower never felt so good before or since!

My friend and I agreed that far too often, we take something as basic as a shower for granted.  Yes, you can take a “bath” with a washcloth and a basin of water…but there is nothing like the cleansing power of a shower to make you feel truly clean.  As we talked, we laughed that this was a great analogy for another, more profound “cleansing power”…the blood of Jesus and His love for us.

A lot of the time, Christians tend to operate in “spit bath” mode.  We pick and choose who to love – and how to love them. I recently read a response that Amy Dickinson, whose syndicated column is called “Ask Amy,” gave to a “church-going” woman who wanted to know how to nicely exclude a family member from her social , because this person didn’t quite fit in.  Amy let the woman have it with both barrels for her unkindness and her unloving attitude.  She finished with the admonition that maybe this woman should think about these things while sitting in her church pew, because for all of her time spent in church, she didn’t seem to have learned a whole lot!

Many of us have not gotten much out of our “church attendance,”, either!  We certainly have not learned how to love ALL others as Jesus loves us…and to demonstrate this in our daily living.  We haven’t learned how to think of someone besides ourselves first…to hold our tongue…to readily forgive wrongs and move forward…to encourage others and build them up in hope and faith.  We haven’t accepted that God created ALL of us…not just white people…or Methodists, Baptist and Catholics…or heterosexuals...or Americans!  We fail to believe that God could love drug addicts, alcoholics, sexual predators and other criminals, terrorists, people on welfare, the elderly, and those who do not agree with our politics…much less expect US to love them!  And it shows in our demeanor - and our daily “discipleship.”

We’ve taken “Christian spit baths” long enough.  It’s time for us to sit under the “shower” of the love of Christ and let His blood truly cleanse us from head to toe.  We need to “wash” in His sacrifice until every speck of our sin is removed…and then we need to towel off and move ahead with the full force of His redeeming power.  We need to love others as Christ loves them...and as He loves us!

We need to demonstrate at every turn that we are new creatures because of Christ Jesus…that there is nothing halfway about our walk with Him.  Others need to see that we never cut corners…or make exceptions. And if we do…maybe WE need to spend a little time on a pew…or in a quiet corner where we can listen for the voice of God.  Maybe we need to ask the Holy Spirit to wash over us like the refreshing waters of a hot shower…and give us new eyes for Christ’s mission.

How “clean” are you today?  What – and WHO – do other see in your words and actions?  Is your love for Jesus – and others – readily recognizable?  Don’t you think it’s time it was?


©2016 Debbie Robus

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