Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Playing by the Rules”
Our Bible verse for today: “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you.” John 13:14-15 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “We are to do for others what Jesus has done for us.”
I read a statement the other day which I found disturbing. The writer said, “For many people God is more of a legend and a myth than He is a real person.”
If we’re honest I think we have to admit that statement is true. As a matter of faith, people acknowledge that God is real, but experientially He doesn’t seem real. Experientially He is more like a legend or a myth than a real person.
But Jesus came to take care of that problem for us. Jesus came to show us God in a way we could relate to, as a flesh and bones person. In John 14:9 Jesus said, “The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
But that was then, this is now. To have God with them in the person of Jesus was nice for those people of that day, in that little corner of the world, but what about the rest of us? Jesus isn’t here on earth in that same way anymore.
That’s where you and I and the Holy Spirit come in. When Jesus left earth to return to heaven He sent the Holy Spirit in His place to live in the hearts of His followers. From that point forward, until the Second Coming of Christ, the way the people of the world get to physically interact with God is primarily by means of the Holy Spirit working through the lives of the followers of Jesus.
This is what Jesus was talking about in John 13:14-15. In that passage the primary lesson was that Jesus came to serve the people of the world, to minister to their needs, and to let them see the love of the Father through their physical interactions with Him. Now, from this point forward, the world should have that same kind of interaction with God by means of the Holy Spirit working through the lives of the followers of Jesus.
As a follower of Christ you are to be the hands and feet of Jesus. People should experience the blessings of God coming to them through you. They should get to experience the reality of God, in a physical flesh and blood way, as a result of their interactions with you and me.
Obviously you are not Jesus and neither am I. But if you are a follower of His then you do have His Holy Spirit in your heart, and the Spirit is working in you and through you to pour out God’s blessings upon a hurting and dying world. If you are willing, God will reach out and touch the world through you. I encourage you to be willing.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 