Primary Scripture: John 13:1-17
Primary Topic: “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will” is how Jesus responds to Peter’s question. Jesus alone understood fully what He was doing. He knew the ultimate authority and power that He had as God and creator. The perfect relationship that He had with the Father and the Holy
Spirit. He alone knew the level of betrayal that He was about to experience, and He knew the ultimate punishment He would suffer for sin that was not His. Jesus’ love outweighed all of this. Every part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit was present in Jesus as He humbled Himself and washed their feet. He substituted Himself for us. He became the servant that none of us could be so that we could be made clean and love others, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
We can only show true selfless love toward others by first receiving it completely by grace. We are blessed to look from the other side and understand what Jesus was doing. He is the context for, and the power to, love others.
In the same way that Jesus is inviting His disciples to grow in spiritual maturity, He is inviting us to look at what he has done through the gospel and be transformed. Genuine faith and spiritual maturity cannot be manufactured. They are not works we do. They are products of what He has done. Jesus invites us to look so deeply at what He has done for us and the love He showed us while we were his betrayers that we would be irreversibly changed. We would grow in our love for Him and others, both inside and outside God’s family. Real spiritual maturity is selfless love toward others that points them to dependence on Jesus.
Prompting Questions:
What is the significance of 1-3, and how does that give context to Jesus’ actions? Why is the idea of being washed by Jesus hard to accept? What does it mean to be made clean? How does Jesus’ example and invitation to humility lead us today?
Cross References: John 2:4, Luke 7:38, 1 Peter 5:1-5, John 1:12-13, Romans 8:15-17
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