Week Two: He Calls Us To ItJohn 13:15- For I have given you this as an example, so that you should do [in your own turn] what I have done to you. (Amplified Version)
It is Jesus Christ, the Beloved Redeemer of our souls, who spoke this. He had just, humbling Himself to do the work of a slave, washed His disciples’ feet. In doing so His Love had rendered to the body the service of which it stood in need at the supper table. At that same time He had shown in a striking symbol, what He had done for their souls in cleansing them from sin. In this twofold work of love He had set before them, just before parting, in one significant act, the whole work of His life as a ministry of blessing to body and to soul. And as He sits down He says, “I have given you an example that you also should do, even as I have done to you.” All that they had seen in Him, and experienced from Him, is made the rule of their life: “Even as I have done, do you also.”
The Word of Jesus to His disciples is for us too. To each one who knows that the Lord has washed away their sin, the command comes with all the touching force of one of the last words of Him who is going out to die for us: “Even as I have done to you, so do you also.” Jesus Christ does indeed ask everyone of us in everything to act just as we have seen Him do. What He has done to ourselves, and still does each day, we are to do over again to others. He is our example, each of us is to be the copy and image of the Master.
The power of an example depends mainly on two things:
1) The attractiveness of what it gives us to see.
2) The personal relation and influence of him in whom it is seen.
In both aspects, what power there is in our Lord’s example!
We know who the Lord Jesus is. He is the Son of the Living God! One with the Father in nature and perfection! In Him we see God. In Him we see how God would act were He here in our place on earth. In Him all is beautiful and lovely and perfect. If we want o see what is really Divine, we have only to look at Jesus, in all He does the glory of God is revealed.
But the blindness of some of God’s children is this: The heavenly beauty isn’t attractive to them, they have no desire for it.
The manners and way of living in the count of an earthly king exercise influence throughout the empire. The example it gives is imitated by all who belong to he nobility or the higher classes. But the example of the King of Heaven, Who came and dwelt in the flesh, that we might see how we might here on earth live a God-like life with how few of His followers does it really find imitation.
The power of an example consist not only in its own excellence, but also in the personal relation to him who gives it. Jesus had not washed the feet of others in the presence of His disciples; it was when He had washed their feet that He said, “Even as I have done to you, you should also do.” It is the consciousness of a personal relationship to Christ that enforces the command: Do as I have done. It is the experience of what Jesus has done to me that is the strength in which I can go and do the same to others. He doesn’t ask us to do more that has been done to us. But not less either. Even and as I have done to you. He doesn’t ask that I should humble myself as a servant deeper than He has done. Just as He has done.
He humbled Himself as low as humiliation could go, to love and bless me---and you. He counted this His highest honor and blessedness. He counted it joy…
Hebrews 12:2- Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He for the joy [obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Amp)
He counted it as joy to go to the cross for us! How many of us could say that? How many of us can say when we go through a storm, a hard trial that we count it as joy? Well we are supposed to!
James 1:2- Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. (Amp)
There is one thing we must never forget. It is not the remembrance of what Jesus has once done to us, but the living experience of what He is now to us, that will give us the power to act Like Christ. His Love must be a present reality, the inflowing of a life and a power in which we can love Like Christ. It is only by the Holy Spirit we realize what Jesus is doing for us,and how He does it, and that it is He who does it, that it is possible for us to do to others what He is doing to us.
“Even as I have done to you, you also do.” Jesus is going to show forth in us the Divine Power of His Love, that we may show it forth to others. He blesses us, that we may bless others. He loves us, that we may love others. He becomes a servant to us, that we may become a servant to others. He saves and cleanses us, that we may save and cleanse others. He gives Himself wholly for and to us, that we may wholly give ourselves for and to others. We are to be doing only others what He is doing to us--nothing more, nothing less. We can do it just because He is doing it to us. What we are to do is nothing but the repeating, the showing forth of what we are receiving from Him.
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