Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

73 - Washing Feet

On that final evening in the upper room, Jesus did something that turned our world upside down. Normally, humans think that the more important a person is the more that person should be served and honored. We think important people are too dignified to do lowly tasks. We look for ways to give them special care. We give them the best seat, the best portion, the best of everything. They become the focus of our attention and adulation. So it’s no wonder humans strive to become important. In countless ways, in countless areas of life, people everywhere maneuver, compete, and even battle for position. They want to become important and enjoy the rewards that come with it.

But on that final evening, in the upper room, Jesus did something that turned all of that upside down. He, the Lord and Teacher, picked up a towel and washbasin, and washed His disciples’ feet. The most important person in the room, the most important person in the world, did the lowliest act of service. He did what a household servant would normally have done in most homes: He washed their dusty feet. His humility was shocking; it felt inappropriate; it made everyone uncomfortable; it was awkward. The man many in Israel believed was the promised Messiah, the man with such power He could still a storm and raise dead people to life, the man so skilled in His knowledge of the Scriptures He could silence the nation’s most senior religious leaders, the man who couldn’t step into a public place without thousands rushing to hear Him and trying to touch His cloak, knelt down and, one by one, with His hands washed the dust and sweat off His disciples’ feet.

There can be little doubt that they watched Him in stunned silence. Each disciple must have glanced at the other with that questioning look which asks, “What’s He doing?” Peter, of course, broke the silence and tried to resist, but was quickly corrected. Then, when He had finished, Jesus returned to His place at the table and said this: 
“Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for [so] I am. If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example (a pattern to be copied) that you should also do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor [is] one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.” (Jn 13:12-17)

On that final evening, in the upper room, He modeled the attitude which must be in every true disciple: a love for God and others that is so strong it causes us to cast aside our desire for honor and gladly take up the lowliest place of service. He said if He could do such humble service, then surely we, His disciples, could do the same. Since we love Him and desire to obey Him, let’s try to discover what it means to wash one another’s feet.

72 - Christ’s Victory

On Sunday, five days before He was crucified, Jesus said this: “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (Jn 12:31).

This world is under God’s judgment because of sin, and the “ruler of this world” is the devil. So on that day Jesus was announcing that His death on the cross and His resurrection would potentially release all humans from these two forms of bondage: the judgment of God and the control of the devil. He was announcing that He had come, like a warrior, to set us free from condemnation and bondage.

On this “resurrection day,” as we celebrate Jesus’ victory over death, we need to realize that His victory means our victory. Through His cross and resurrection a great spiritual transaction took place: The barrier of sin that prevented God from helping us was removed, so that He could be merciful to us and give us an entirely new dimension of God’s Spirit so that the devil’s control over us would be broken. The cross removed our condemnation, and the resurrection released God’s power. When we put our full trust in Jesus Christ; when we completely surrender our will to Him and let Him become our Lord; when we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit whom the Father has freely given to us in Christ, everything changes. The forces that tried to ruin us in the past don’t cease to exist, but they have been defeated. As we learn to lay hold of Christ’s victory we discover that we are, at least, able to begin walking on the path God planned for us before we were born. We discover who we really are. An entirely new person emerges who makes very different choices and pursues very different goals. Finally we are able to act like the son or daughter whom God saw when He fearfully and wonderfully formed us in our mother’s womb (Ps 139:13-16). Until a person has been set free from the condemnation that their sin has brought upon them; until a person has been set free from the deception and oppression hurled at us by “the ruler of this world”; until a person has been set free from the cravings, passions and confused thinking that arise from these dying bodies we live in; and until a person has been set free from the anxiety and depression that haunts us because of our fear of death (Heb 2:15), a person is unable to experience what it means to be “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). But once Christ’s victory is released in that person’s life, once those forces that held us have lost their grip, God immediately goes to work healing, restoring, guiding, training, correcting, disciplining, teaching, comforting and strengthening until we become who we were meant to become.

There are no exceptions to this process of restoration. No one is too old or too young. No one has sinned so badly that God cannot rescue the design He placed in that heart. Yes, we might end up being who we were called to be in jail, or in the midst of a family that our past behavior devastated, or in a body that’s been damaged by neglect or terrible choices, but the gifts and calling of God are not changed by our circumstances (Ro 11:29). Like seed planted in good soil they instinctively begin to emerge, and we learn to express them in whatever opportunities we have left, that is until we ourselves are resurrected into the new bodies that Christ’s victory has made possible. Then someday we will step into a whole new season of ministry as His representatives in the new kingdom of God (Rev 20:6).

71 - Unchangeable Truth

Truth doesn’t change, especially spiritual truth. The spiritual world is not a myth. There are lots of myths and fairy tales, invented stories about gods, goddesses and how the world was created. But that doesn’t change spiritual truth; it only makes it harder to find. The fact that there are people who say wrong things doesn’t mean right things don’t exist. And the truth is: There is a God who made us; He’s holy, and He’s going to hold us accountable for our words, thoughts and actions, unless we choose His path to salvation, whether we believe those facts or not.

What took place between Jesus and the crowd on that Palm Sunday afternoon was a battle of wills. Most of them were willing to believe in Him so long as He let them decide what kind of Savior He would be. They wanted to mold Him like clay into the person they felt they needed. If He would let them do that, then they would follow Him passionately, but if He continued to talk about sin and insist that He was going to die violently, they would move on and find someone else. And in time, they did and the result was catastrophic.

Yet in spite of the pressure, Jesus refused to change His message. Every time they argued with Him He simply repeated the same truths. Why? Why didn’t He compromise with them? Why didn’t He, at least, emphasize those truths they like and de-emphasize the ones they didn’t? Any skilled communicator understands the mood of their audience and quickly recognizes which elements in the message “work” and which don’t. But Jesus refused to do that. He wouldn’t even debate with them. Instead He warned them that they would be sorry if they didn’t listen. Let’s revisit that Palm Sunday afternoon and hear Jesus proclaim those unchangeable truths. And let’s not react the way many in that crowd did. Let’s identify those spiritual realities and believe them with all our heart. While we have the “Light,” let’s believe in the Light so that we may become “children of Light.”

70 - Dealing With Danger

Fear is very lonely. It seems to place a barrier between us and others, and between us and God. It feels like we’ve walked into a chamber and closed the door. There, alone, trapped with our terrible thoughts, our emotions churn and our body grows weary. In fact the suffering that fear brings is often worse than the problem itself. We can suffer through the same event over and over again in our mind, long before we actually encounter whatever it is we fear.

I wish there were a way we could do away with fear forever, but that blessing awaits the return of Jesus Christ. Until then you and I live in bodies that are vulnerable to fear. But when God gave us the Holy Spirit, He placed inside us a power greater than fear, a power strong enough to bring our rebellious emotions into submission. Here’s how the apostle Paul described that power: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal (dying) bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Ro 8:11).

That means that the Holy Spirit who lives inside the physical body of every believer is stronger than the forces, impulses, temptations or attitudes that arise from that body. This means you and I have been given access to a power greater than fear. And that means you and I are not slaves of fear; we can break its grip and live free of its control. There is no promise in the Bible that says fear will never trouble a believer, but there are many promises that say we can have victory over it when it arrives.

The apostle John gives us a remarkable gift in the passage we’re studying today. He records Jesus talking about how He dealt with the fear of the cross. If Jesus had to deal with fear, then so do we. But as we’ll see, when fear attacked Him He didn’t allow it to control Him. He knew how to gain victory over it. So let’s listen to Him carefully and learn to do what He did.

69 - A Grain of Wheat

The greatest decision you or I will ever make is to repent and receive by faith the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That decision changes where we will spend eternity. But there is another decision each person must make which determines the outcome of our life. It’s one of those decisions where to not make a decision is to make a decision. If we make the right choice our life will be “fruitful,” meaning it will be full of people who are, in one way or another, being drawn closer to Jesus. If we make the wrong choice we will, essentially, live alone focused on ourselves.

Jesus compares this decision to a grain of wheat which must be planted in the earth in order to produce more wheat. He says, “Unless the grain of wheat which falls into the earth dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24) (literal). And He’s not talking about self-neglect or having a sour attitude toward the good things this world provides when He adds, “The one who loves His soul (natural life) loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will save (guard, preserve) it into eternal life” (Jn 12:25) (literal).

Most humans are born with the instinct to care for themselves. God places that desire to stay alive in us, and it’s healthy and necessary. When someone begins to neglect those needs people recognize it as a warning signal that something is wrong. Jesus lived a rugged life (Mt 8:20) but not a life of self-neglect or withdrawal from others (Mt 11:18-19).

For Jesus Himself to choose to be a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies meant that He chose to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. But Jesus was unique. He alone is the eternal Son of God who came from heaven to rescue us by His physical death and resurrection. You and I aren’t called to die like that. Our physical death would have no power to atone the sins of others. We’re simply not good enough, and our death is not needed because His death was more than sufficient to pay for the sins of every human who ever has or will live. Yes, serving Him can lead us into danger, and many have suffered and died for their faith. But that suffering is a by-product of their obedience, not a goal that God desired for them. It was the price they had to pay but not the prize.

Yet He makes it clear that we too must become like a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. So what type of death is He talking about? If it’s not physical death and it’s not being grumpy at the world around us, then what is it? Let’s try to answer that question today because the decision we make will determine whether or not we produce fruit for God.

68 - Priorities

It’s the most natural thing in the world: People turn to God because they need something and want Him to use His power to help them. That’s actually the motivating factor behind most of the world’s religions, and has been throughout human history. People do something, or sacrifice something, or chant something until their god or impersonal spiritual force treats them favorably. And history has shown that humans will do just about anything, no matter how horrible or costly, to persuade whatever they call “god” to help them.

Selfishness is obviously a main motivation behind this sort of religious behavior, but selfishness isn’t the only reason people relate to the spiritual realm this way. Sometimes people pursue God/god/good vibrations on someone else’s behalf. Fear or anger can also drive people to seek for spiritual help, but regardless of why people come, the underlying nature of the relationship between humans and the spiritual world remains the same: pleasing God, or a god-like energy until He, She, or It gives us what we want or need. It’s very much like a business transaction. We pay something to get something.

The problems with approaching the God of the Bible this way isn’t so much that we ask Him for help, after all, He’s the Source of all things. The problem is we only ask Him for help. We don’t seem to want to be with Him as a person. We’re content to go on with our daily lives until there is a problem. We get religious until the crisis passes, and then slide back into our routine. But the God of the Bible created us for relationship. He made us in His own image (Ge 1:27) in the hope that we would freely choose to become His children. Here’s how John stated it in the opening to his gospel:

“He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, [even] to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn 1:10-13)

This God, the God of the Bible, the real God, wants to love us, and He wants us to love Him, more than we love anything or anyone else. And for that to happen we must desire to be with Him more than we desire anything else. We must hate the things that separate us from Him and long for a way to draw close to Him.

Judas Iscariot is traditionally portrayed as the embodiment of evil, almost sub-human, as if a normal human being could never do what he did. Indeed, he became Satanically possessed in the process of betraying Jesus (Lk 22:3; Jn 13:2, 27). Jesus warned him that he was becoming “a devil” on one occasion (Jn 6:70), and referred to him as “the son of perdition” (spiritual ruin) after he left the upper room to report their location to Caiaphas (Jn 17:12). But what apparently motivated Judas to follow Jesus in the first place was not different than what motivated the cheering crowds that lined the road to Bethany, or even some of the other disciples (Mt 20:17-28; Mk 10:35-45). The problem arose in Judas’ heart when Jesus explained His priorities and Judas refused to change his. At that point he became deeply disappointed in Jesus, and that disappointment gradually turned into anger, while in the other disciples it merely turned into sadness (Lk 24:17). Today, let’s examine our own priorities.

67 - Listening Carefully to God

If you’ll recall, Mary is the one who listened carefully. While her sister Martha was busy serving the guests, she sat at Jesus’ feet and pondered His every word. The Gospel of Luke describes that exchange. Let’s hear it again:
“Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up [to Him] and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.’ But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but [only] one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her’” (Lk 10:38-42).

Unlike her sister, Mary stopped to listen. Unlike the twelve disciples, she let Him say whatever He wanted to say. She didn’t try to argue with Him or correct His theology like Peter did (Mt 16:21-23). And in the passage we’re reading today, we discover that she didn’t ignore the sad predictions He made about His death. Other than Simeon, the old man who prophesied over Jesus when He was a baby (Lk 2:21-35), Mary appears to be the only disciple who understood that it was God’s will that Jesus die violently for our sins. And it’s not because Jesus didn’t try to teach people that truth. Over and over again He told His disciples and the multitudes that the Father had sent Him to die for them, but no one listened, probably because they didn’t like what He was saying.

Yet this one woman, who only weeks earlier had undoubtedly helped to prepare her brother’s body for burial (Jn 11:1-2), came over to where Jesus was seated at a dinner table and began to prepare Him for burial as well. How did she know that He was going to die a few days later? She knew because He had said so, and she had listened carefully to every word He spoke. You and I must do the same. We must listen carefully to every word God speaks, even when we don’t like what we hear. It can be a matter of life and death.

66 - Love - Not Anger

Human beings have always had a hard time getting along with each other. The same forces that separate us from God also separate us from people. The Bible uses a simple word to describe those forces; it calls them “Sin.” Bundled into that one word are three destructive attitudes that have been the source of our troubles from the first humans onward. Those attitudes are selfishness, rebelliousness and independence. The “sins” we humans commit are the result of the “Sin” that's inside us. If you examine the things we do that offend God and hurt others, you will usually find that they are the result of one or more of those three attitudes: selfishness, rebelliousness or independence. 

Jesus went to the cross, not only to forgive our “sins” but to free us from the “Sin” that causes us to do those “sins.” He does that by giving us a new heart and filling us with the Holy Spirit. He replaces our selfishness with selfless love, our rebelliousness with trusting surrender and our independence from Him and others with humble cooperation. When that miracle takes place, a person not only enters into a new relationship with God but with other people as well. Those forces that used to drive us apart are still present in our “flesh” (our physical bodies and our old ways of thinking), but they no longer have the power to enslave us. That's why John can say this in one of his letters: 
“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death” We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1Jn 3:14, 16). 

Selfless love, trusting surrender and humble cooperation not only draw us close to God, but they draw us close to each other as well. Those qualities draw us together for the right reasons, and they make it possible for us to accomplish amazing things. 

65 - Refusing to Believe

There are people who absolutely refuse to believe in Jesus Christ no matter what proof is presented. You can explain God's plan of salvation in crystal-clear terms, but they say it doesn't make sense to them. They might watch a miracle performed before their eyes, yet they won't repent. There are people who fearlessly acknowledge that the Bible warns them about what will happen to them if they die in their present condition, but still refuse to change. Why? What causes a person to refuse to believe? I'm sure there would be a different answer for each person we asked, but over the years the explanations I've heard or observed all seem to result from a particular decision that person made earlier in life. 

Most of us, at some point in time, have struggled, or will struggle, with doubt. And there are many who become honestly confused by all the conflicting opinions about God. There are passionate voices that argue for God, and there are passionate voices that argue against Him. And I don't think any one of us escapes getting caught in those debates on occasion. But generally, as the years pass, most of us will come to the conclusion that the existence of God is, at least, possible, if not probable. Because in truth, it takes more faith to believe there is not a God than to believe there is one. So those who end up firmly rejecting God, do so for a reason, and that reason is often hidden from view. Somewhere in their past a deep, primal decision was made. They asked themselves a question and then answered it in a way that ended their investigation into the truth about the claims of Jesus Christ. And until that answer changes, no amount of evidence will make a difference. In fact they don't want more evidence, it only worries them. 

As Jesus looked at the crowd standing around Him at Lazarus' funeral, His reaction was surprising. He became visibly angry and then He began to weep. What did He see that made Him do that? He saw people who refused to believe. Today let's try to understand what causes some individuals to refuse to believe, and then let's decide to do something about it. 

64 - Resurrection and Life

You aren't your body. You express yourself through your body; you are influenced by your body; you even have to take care of your body, but your existence is rooted in another dimension altogether. That's because God made you in His image, and He doesn't have a body. He is spirit (Jn 4:24). When He created Adam and Eve, He created rational, volitional, conscious beings who can know Him, obey Him, love Him and communicate with Him, person to person. He gave us a body, and said it was “good,” and intends us to have one forever. But you are not your body. No human is. Once conceived we are eternal spirits: rational, volitional, conscious beings.

I admit it can be difficult to remember this when someone dies. Their body looks dead, but that's because the person isn't there anymore. He or she has gone somewhere else. That body was just the “clothing” they once wore, and someday God will give them a new one.

Without this perspective, nothing in the Bible makes sense. The ideas we read there are based on the understanding that this season of time, on this planet, is only a testing ground, so people can decide for or against God. And based on those decisions they will spend the next season, which lasts forever, either with Him or separated from Him. And as we watch and listen to Jesus it is quite evident that He was constantly seeing both these dimensions: the physical and the spiritual. To Him the line between life and death was very thin. In no way did He think a human being ceased to exist when their body died. He spoke of people who died as simply stepping into another level of existence and knew that it was possible, given the right circumstances, for someone to return to their body. And what made that possible was Him. Wherever He was, that could happen because life radiated from Him like light shines from the sun. So in His presence, dead things could come back to life, and He could give that gift of life to whomever He chose.

Standing on the outskirts of a little village called Bethany Jesus tried to explain this truth to a grieving woman, but on that day the Father had given Him the assignment to do more than simply use words. His assignment was to demonstrate His power over death, to show her what He is going to do for her, and for all of us, someday. He not only told her that He is the resurrection and the life; He proved it.