Faithful Fridays ~ Servant.

Good afternoon, and happy Friday!  :)



Faithful Fridays is a weekly linky party hosted on my blog. I made it so that Christians could have one special day out of the week (Friday) to share something from their walk with Jesus on their blog. If you'd like to participate, write your post, grab the button from the Faithful Fridays page on my blog (so that it will link back here), and come link up at the bottom of this post! :)

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"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." -Mark 10:45


Have you ever stopped and thought about that?  Really thought about it?  It's dawned on me afresh lately just how humble Jesus was, just how much of a servant He made Himself in love.  Can you imagine?  God, coming down to the lowness of earth--the very lowest--and living out a very average human life--up until the last three years--in preparation for a horrible death.  And for what?  A world full of people who had turned from Him and would ignore, insult, deny, betray, bash, doubt, ridicule, scorn, beat, and eventually kill Him.  
And yet somehow, He loved them.  Marvelously.  Ferociously.  Sacrificially.  Genuinely.  His love is the kind of love you can take to the bank.  

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Jesus Christ:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death--even death on a cross!  
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." -Philippians 2:5-11



The Bible says that Jesus is basically the glue of everything in the world.  He is sustaining all things by his powerful word (Heberews 1:3).  He is the image of the inviible God, the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15).  In Him and for Him, all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible.  He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17).  Not to mention that He's the head of the church, the glorious groom that's coming for His bride, the church, with a major celebration to follow (Colossians 1:18).  To put it plainly, in everything, He has supremacy (Colossians 1:18).  

So Jesus is a pretty big deal, right?  

And yet at the supper table he takes on the position and the appearance of a servant, a common slave.  He kneels at the feet of every disciple and washes their dirty, dusty [man] feet.  

And here's the clincher: Jesus washed Judas' feet.  

Wham.  

I'm not sure why that never dawned on me before.  Perhaps I've heard the story so much that I've become numb to it.  But He knew.  He knew Judas.  The Bible tells us that God knows the heart, or "always knows a person's thoughts" (Acts 15:8).  Jesus knew full well that Judas had been sneaking money out of the money bag (John 12:6).  And He knew full well that Judas would be the one of His close group of followers that would betray Him with a kiss--a kiss that would lead to His death.

And yet He got down on His knees and washed Judas' feet, the perfect picture of humility, kneeling at the feet of, and loving, the man who was technically His enemy.  

"'A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another." -John 13:34

We all have enemies.  Not in the sense of them betraying us to death, of course.  But they're the ones that are always bringing us down.  Dragging us into the dirt.  Always making us feel insecure.  Always one-upping us.  Always getting under our skin.  Always ruining our days.  Always bringing out our worst sides.  
Thing is, Jesus loved those people.  He bled and died for them.  The lips that gave His kiss of betrayal were created by Jesus Himself.  The hands that arrested Him, dragged Him into interrogation, flogged Him, and nailed Him onto a cross were created and sustained and powered by Him.  He could have stopped it all at any time; called down armies of angels to slay all His attackers (Matthew 26:53).  But instead, He allowed it all to happen for a greater cause, because He. Loved. Them.  And He calls us to come follow Him and love the same kind of people in the same way--truly, genuinely, humbly, with the kind of love you can bank on.  
It's rough.  It's not the natural response to that kind of person, nor is it the easiest.  But that's what Jesus did, and if we're choosing to follow Him, we have no choice than to do otherwise.  
So today I dare you--no, to clarify, I dare myself--to try it, to have Jesus' mindset in our relationships with others.  You know the person (or people) I'm talking about, the one that makes you want to turn your head and walk away, or maybe on the flip side, walk over and smack them in the face; or maybe they just make you want to throw a fit and go hide in your bedroom.  We're humans; we do that.  But Jesus was a man, too, and He chose to love those kinds of people.  I want to have that same mindset in my relationships with others.  I want to follow His lead.