Barefoot in the Church - Part 4

 continued from yesterday...the conclusion

I have a friend who gave a deposition in a legal case.  In depositions lawyers often spend the first hour asking you questions about your life, where you were born, where you went to school, the various jobs you held…they go on and on.  After he’d received a printed copy of the deposition – which was quite thick, my friend pointed to it and said to me, “Read this and you’ll know all about me, all about my life.”  And I thought, “I already know all about your life, it’s stamped with “Paid in Full, by the Blood of Jesus.”

            What did I mean?  I meant that I choose to see people in Christ.  I meant that I choose, as much as possible by God’s grace, to view people in their Upper Rooms, in their new rooms in Jesus Christ.  I know everyone has a lower room, so I’m not usually surprised when I see someone living out of that particular room…sure it can hurt me, but seldom surprise me…I choose to see people in their Upper Rooms and to affirm who they are in Christ, not who they are in the lower room of self-centeredness.

            Next week is communion, and communion is not just about a vertical relationship with Jesus Christ, it is also about a horizontal relationship with our brothers and sisters – and frankly the two cannot be separated.

            The saddest relationships – if you can call them that – are the ones where people would rather die than have reconciliation, they would rather die than admit their attitudes are wrong, they’d rather live in a straight – jacket of unforgiveness and isolation than open up their hearts to others.  They will keep their shoes on at all costs, shoe strings knotted tight, double and triple knotted…before they’ll allow their hearts and spirits to be loosed in the love of Jesus and the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

The freest people I know are the ones who can say, “I am sorry, please forgive me.”  The best marriages I know are the ones where husbands and wives say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”  The best parents I know are the ones who say to their children, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”  The best friendships I’ve ever seen are the ones where friends say, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”  And without a doubt the best and healthiest churches on this planet are the ones where the family of God has learned to say on a regular basis to each other, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”

Are we learning what it means to live with each other with our shoes off, are we learning what it means to wash the feet of our brother and sister, are we learning what it means to allow our feet to be washed…are we learning what it means to go barefoot in the church?

Whose feet are you being called to wash this week?

Who will wash your feet?

“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”