March 25
Bible Reading: John 13:1-11
John 13:1, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
Foot washing was a common practice in Jesus’ day. The pathways were dirty. People wore sandals. Upon entry into a home, the lowest ranking servant would wash the feet of the guests. When Jesus and his disciples arrived in the upper room, there was no servant to wash their feet. Any of the disciples could have taken on the task, or they could have washed each other’s feet, but they took no initiative. So, Jesus, the Master, set aside His outer garments, tied a simple towel around His waist and set about as a servant to wash their feet. His primary concern? To show His personal love to the twelve so they would rest secure in it. So, he washed their feet. One of them would soon betray Him. The others would all abandon Him. But “he loved them to the end.”
“He loved them to the end.” The word translated “end” means literally, He loved them to perfection! He never failed in His love for them. Later, in His prayer to the Father, He would said, “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12).
Charles Spurgeon has commented on this, “From Gethsemane to Golgotha, along the blood sprinkled road, you see proof that having loved his own, he loved them to the end. Not all the pains of death could shake his firm affection to his own. They may bind his hands, but his heart is not restrained from love; they may scourge him, but they cannot drive out of him his affection to his beloved; they may slanderously revile him, but they cannot compel him to say a word against his people; they may nail him to the accursed tree, and they may bid him come down from the cross, and they will believe on him, but they cannot tempt him to forsake his work of love; he must press forward for his people’s sake until he can say, ‘It is finished.’… The cross of Jesus reveals love to the utmost end and is a grand display of the immutability and invincibility of the love of the heart of Jesus.”
Charles Spurgeon
Take courage, Brothers and Sisters! Jesus chose them and “loved them to the end!” As a believer, it is the same with you! Amidst your hardships and failures, rest assured in the truth that He “will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)! Nothing can work to “separate (you) from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39)! What a blessing it is to be loved by Jesus with a love that cannot fail!
“He knew all about the frailty and failures of His disciples, yet He loved them to the end. And He loves us clean through to the end, to the uttermost.” – John G. Mitchell
O LOVE THAT WILL NOT LET ME GO
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee.
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be.
O Light that follows all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee.
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
that in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
may brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee.
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain,
that morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee.
I lay in dust, life’s glory dead,
and from the ground there blossoms red,
life that shall endless be.
LookingtoJesus 