“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

Jesus said to him, ” ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”    (Matthew 22)

Oh how these words have entered my soul like a floodlight, revealing every kind of wicked and selfish motive of my heart and leaving me no place to hide.   On my bed the other night thinking of John 13, I laboriously pleaded with the Lord that surely this request was too much to ask… to love as He loved and to serve as He served. 

To which He kindly and gently responded, “Sweet child, this was not a request.  It is a command.” 

Have you ever seen a filled balloon deflate from its opening and just kind of fly all around the room and finally land on the floor empty?   Yeah, that was me. “A command,” He said, “not a request.”   So kind, so gentle, but still a sword.

I remember in my ‘roaring twenties’ how I looked at the first and second commandments… the entire summation of the Law and the Prophets… and thought, “Hmmm… that sounds easy… I’ve got this one in the bag.”  Or something stupid like that… probably not that blatant but you know what I mean.   But time has once again been my faithful instructor and I now see things in a different, more humbling light.   Oh, thank you JESUS for the Cross. 

The other night, I was in the women’s bathroom at the House of Prayer and I was just noticing… let’s see, how to put this delicately… well, if you’ve ever been in a public bathroom, especially a women’s restroom, you know as well as I that it can get kind of gross in there, to say the least.   And as I was looking around, it occurred to me that someone, a comrade in the prayer room, comes every single day, probably a few times a day (since we’re 24/7), and cleans those bathrooms – every nook and cranny… every gross thing I could imagine.   And then I thought “they do this so that they can pray… they clean up our filth as their service hours so that they can spend the rest of their hours in prayer.”   That thought threw me into a tailspin and offered up such a reality check of the pride in my heart that I am still shaken today.    Would I clean toilets to give myself to Him in prayer and worship all my days?

So I read these words again… “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”

This is GOD in the flesh… and the Word says (my paraphrase)… He knew who He was… He was the High and Lofty One… He remembered His throne and knew He would return to it soon.   SO what did Jesus do?  Did He reveal who He really was so that all nations would fall before Him and give Him the worship that was due? 

Nope, not even a little. He got up, took off His outer clothing and dressed Himself as a servant would and went even lower still.  He began to wash the filthy feet of His followers, even the feet of the one that betrayed Him and sold Him out to the highest bidder.

This is what Love looks like.  This is what Love does.

But as for the rest of us… we want praise.  We want jobs that give the most reward for the least amount of effort, jobs that ‘suit our frames,’ jobs that make us look good, jobs that are fun and exciting.  We serve when it benefits our own ambitions.  We love those that are the most lovely and desirable.  We love when we’re loved back.     

But God… served.  That’s stunning.  God served.  He loved the ones that mocked Him and spit in His face.  He loved the ones that nailed His hands to the tree and cast lots for His clothes.   He loved me and He loved you unto death, even death on a cross. 

The servant grew up before God-a scrawny seedling,
   a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
   nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
   a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
   We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried-
   our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
   that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
   that ripped and tore and crushed him-our sins!   (Isaiah 53)

He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself of no reputation, coming as a bondservant, in the likeness of men… Oh, the Lord, the Lord, He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

“Glorify Your Name,” Jesus prayed… and the Father’s response to His Beloved Son as He gazed into the lattice of time… “I have.  Oh, I have.”

And so tonight, as I lay my head down on my pillow, let my heart and soul be filled with the knowledge of Compassion and Love Incarnate, with the knowledge of Your Son, Abba.  I ask You, oh friend of my heart and Healer of my soul, Holy Spirit, will You make known that which comes from the very womb of Eternity… the compassionate heart of my God.  Set me free from condemnation and pride… set me free from the traps the enemy has laid for me… set me free from the illusions of grandeur that puff me up and fill me instead with the truth of Immanuel, God-with-me.  Let me not boast in my godly accomplishments or falter in my ungodly failures, but let me glory in just one thing:  the knowledge of Your heart.   Hear my heart’s cry… beyond these words or any words that I could offer, hear what you have placed within me… hear the cry of one who loves You because You loved her first.   And Lord, please let it stick… let it be more than words on a page or a conversation in passing… let it transform me… let Love have His way in me… let whatever little grain of your incomparable beauty that was revealed to my dull heart today be infinitely more fascinating than anything the world has to offer me, anything man might say to me, and anything my unrenewed mind might bring to my attention.  Let Compassion break these chains and clothe me in humility. Be near, O God.  Draw near and reveal Your overflowing heart to Your beloved.  Oh, how I need You Jesus… and I would clean toilets just to be near to You.  I would.  I love You so much.   Amen.