Washed by the Word of God!

 

       Washed by the Word of God! 

Then from the past, I hear Mother’s voice, “Wash your hands, it is time to set the table for supper.” No matter what I am doing or trying to accomplish, I obeyed.  Before I could set the table, I had to be clean.

         We wash our hands when they become stained with dirt. This is a symbol of becoming clean before serving.

         And Moses said to the congregation, 

“This is the thing that the Lord has commanded to be done.” And Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water.  Leviticus 8:5-6.  Aaron and his sons became priests serving the Lord.

         Our Lord God used water to cleanse the earth of evil in the days of Noah. He lives righteously in that day. Noah, at six hundred years, built an ark with his sons.  Why?  God redeems the righteous ones who obey His commands and live righteously. 

         John the Baptist came to tell about the coming of Jesus and explains, “I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:8. This baptism is for the repentance of sins. 

         Jesus came to John to be baptized. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  Matthew 3:16-17.

         At the last supper Jesus washed the feet of his disciples saying, If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.  John 13: 8b.  Again, washing of feet is a way of serving one another.  And why serve one another?

         And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3:14-15, 17.

            Yes, we serve others, because we love Jesus, and everything we do is in His Name. But what if there is a drought?  No water!  How can we be clean?  Again, I return to the worst kind of famine.  When the Word of God is not available to wash the sin from our lives or give us Hope, we find it difficult to praise God.

         Listening to missionaries who were imprisoned without the Word of God or enough to eat, what did they do? One man saved enough bread from one meal to celebrate the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day with a sip of water. Another group shared how to make their favorite dishes to enjoy ‘when they were released’.

         When Paul and Silas were imprisoned and had their feet in stocks, what did they do?  About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 

         During a famine of the Word of God, the more we have memorized and the more hymns we know, we can still testify about our Lord and rejoice in Him.  Someone is always listening and watching how we respond to each upset in our lives.

         Being washed with the Word is reading, meditating, and obeying God’s commands.  Why?  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body. I Corinthians 6:9-20.

         What verses in the Bible will wash us clean when we obey them?  What verses will transform us?

         I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Romans 12:1-3.

         Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.  2 Corinthians 3:4-6.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18.

         Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14.

         But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3: 20-21.

         How do we have the strength to do live His Way?   “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.”  John 14: 15-17a.