# THE HIDDEN POWER OF A HUMBLE ACT Feet The Blessing Corner Language: en Author: by James Cunningham Original issue: The Heartbeat of The Remnant, March/April 2001, Number 2 Source pages: 19–21 Read article: Original PDF: 2001\-03\-remnant\.pdf [The Heartbeat of The Remnant, March/April 2001]() ![A person kneeling to wash another person’s feet\.]() *Welcome to the Blessing Corner\. In this Issue of the Remnant, we have chosen to feature one of the principles from God’s Word that may be a bit controversial\. We have no desire to contend with anyone, but only to inform and give testimony\. This is the purpose for* The Blessing Corner\. *If you have discovered a beautiful blessing hidden in one of God’s many precepts, we would love to hear from you\. Write to us and share your testimony so we can pass it on to others\. We all need to grow in our understanding of the Bible\.* *The text where this principle is found is John 13:1\-17\. The scene of the text is the upper room where the Passover supper was eaten, and where the first communion service was held\. Sometime during this deeply intimate time with the disciples, our Lord took a towel, girded himself, and began to wash their feet\. This came as such a surprise to them that Peter said, “Dost thou wash my feet?” In other words, “I should be washing your feet\.” After Jesus finished, He sat down and began to teach them in His usual manner\. He taught them the principles of servanthood and humility, and finished by telling them that He has given them an example, and that they should “do as I have done to you\.” For those believers who take the practice literally, His last words are very meaningful\. He said to them, “happy are ye if you do them\.” In our local fellowship, we practice the ordinance of feetwashing at the same time that we partake of the Lord’s Supper\. Some of my fondest memories of brotherhood fellowship are those sweet times when we all bowed down and washed one another’s feet\.* I was not brought up in a church setting where feet washing was practiced as an ordinance\. Because of this, when the Spirit of God began to deal with me, it was life changing\. My first thoughts were typical thoughts of unbelief\. I reasoned, “Surely it couldn’t mean that for real\.” My only experience with feet washing was at a Bible School fun night\. The wives of all the professors were made to wash their husbands’ feet in front of the entire crowd\. It was a time of tremendous laughter, jesting, and applause\. I tremble at the thought of it now\. With this background, I continued to reason, surely, this ancient practice has passed away due to major cultural change\. I thought that to spiritualize the passage is the proper approach for our day\. Jesus is teaching us to be humble and that is what we should be\. To serve others would be today’s equivalent of what Jesus did\. These were my initial thoughts when I first faced this truth\. As time went on, I began to take a more serious look at the subject\. I had been taught a deep respect for the Word of God, and I knew I must address this issue with a responsible heart\. I cannot just pass over it and say it is not for our day\. God wrote it in His holy Word, and I must accept this without question\. After I came to this firm conviction in my heart, God surprised me with the way He made it a blessing to me\. At the time of my ponderings, we were meeting with a few brothers of similar background and some problems had arisen\. I was leading out in the fellowship, and my first reaction was to be swift and decisive and “take care” of the issue before the assembly\. I had studied up on my duties as they related to the assembly and had complete confidence that I would be acting in accordance with Scripture\. A few short minutes before we were to meet, I mentioned to my wife the action that I felt was to be taken\. Cautious, but supporting, she encouraged me to do what God was telling me to do\. I bowed my head one final time, and the Lord clearly spoke, “Wash his feet”\! Wow, I just knew the Lord was mistaken, and I began to reason with Him that the problem had to be taken care of, and what would this accomplish? “Wash his feet”\! I knew I was wrong to argue, so I filled a bucket with water, and grabbed a towel\. That evening, unknown to me, there were some visiting brothers among us\. \(Can you imagine the example I would have been, if I were left to my own ways?\) We opened in song and greeted each other, then the Lord said, “Now\.” I began to weep as I asked all in attendance to take off their shoes and socks, and explained that I was told of the Lord to wash their feet\. The fear I had of being rejected was immense, but I knew God had spoken to me\. They all began removing their shoes \(to my relief\), and I began\. The place was silent until one of the other brothers whom I had only met recently spoke up\. He said that it wouldn’t be right for him to have his feet washed, and not be able to wash someone else’s feet\. So he began, then another followed, and then another followed\. Heaven opened up over us\. Someone sang Isaiah 52, and we had a sweet victorious meeting\. I have often wondered what would have been the outcome of that meeting, had the Lord not intervened\. Through the years in my ministry, I have come across testimonies similar to this one where someone simply stumbled on this blessing\. It began as a simple prompting from the Lord and ended in an overwhelming experience\. I know of a husband who was led to wash his dear wife’s feet at the height of feelings of gratitude\. They were both touched deeply through obeying this principle\. Some time ago, I was reading a missions periodical, *Asia Harvest,* an outreach to the unreached in Asia\. There was a testimony of a young sister on a short term missions trip to some of these hidden unreached people groups\. She found herself among these searching, hungry people\. All of a sudden, she was prompted to wash their feet\. Now this was a people who wore sandals, so they knew what feet washing was all about, and they knew it was the lowest of tasks\. Mind you, she did not speak their language, but in her act of humility and love, she spoke the language that touched their hearts\. Revival broke out, and the Spirit of God swept into the meeting\. Several souls were converted that day, many others were touched by the practical expression of the Gospel, and the sound of her humble act was spread abroad to many others\. If I remember the story rightly, there is a church there because of this beautiful encounter\. A few years ago, I had the privilege of witnessing a most treasured blessing in a feet washing service\. A small fellowship of believers had been led together, out of a sincere desire to follow the Bible in every way they could\. Most of the families were in a Methodist Sunday school class together, and had stumbled on the principle of obeying what the Bible said\. “Let’s do it,” they said, “and see where it takes us\.” Well, that choice led them into starting a small assembly, and this was their first communion service\. One of the brothers said, “We should wash each other’s feet while we are together; it is in the Bible\.” So they determined to try it and put their whole heart into it\. I was there, and I will never forget what happened in that meeting\. Men were weeping on each others’ necks, and many words of love and humility were flowing from heart to heart as they washed one another’s feet\. There was no ritual in this little meeting of the saints, but love and sincerity flowed\. The sisters also had a deep meaningful time together\. One sister who had ought with another was arrested by God\. As the sisters paired off to begin, God put the two of them together\. When the one sister who was struggling stood before the other, she broke and began to weep tears of repentance\. They literally washed each other’s feet with their tears\. This meeting was heavenly, and I thought to myself while I was there, “There is power in this ordinance if it is done with sincere hearts\.” Some would say that feetwashing is only to be done in spirit\. We are to serve our brothers and sisters in Christ, and this is all Jesus was teaching\. It is true that Jesus was teaching them to serve one another, but is that all He was teaching? I think not; there are some sweet exercises in humility hidden in the act of literally washing my brother’s feet\. The act of feetwashing encourages the spirit of servanthood that should prevail among us continually\. It is the same when we partake of communion\. We are to be living in fellowship with God and with our brother, yet from time to time we eat the elements together as a remembrance to the Lord\. Historically, there have been whole denominations who take the verses literally, and whole ones who feel it is to be done only in spirit\. The early church practiced feetwashing on a regular basis, as they always had dirty feet from walking\. What a joy it would be to see the African Christians practice this ordinance, as they also have dirty feet from sandals and walking\. Some of the Protestant influence in missions has obscured it from their eyes\. There are many churches in Russia who keep this ordinance and Orthodox and Catholic also have it in some small form in their rituals\. The Anabaptist brethren have practiced it for nearly five hundred years, and several other denominations who came from them\. The primitive Baptist and Missionary Baptist also have regular times where they wash one another’s feet\. I’m sure there are other groups that I am not aware of, but this list is sufficient to help you to see that it may not be as weird as you thought it was\. In conclusion, we want to remember, that God is way more concerned that His people learn to humbly serve one another as they walk through life together\. Micah 6:8 comes to my mind, *“He hath shewed thee, oh man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”* *\-Bro\. Denny*