Devotion of the Day

The Technique of the Towel

If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.
John 13:14.

Our Lord steps from magnificence to meniality: “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands…began to wash the disciples’ feet.” From sublimity to service!

In the early days of Communism one leader wanted to admit all who accepted the theory and purposes of the movement. Lenin insisted that only those who were so devoted as to be willing to do the most menial tasks be received. “Fewer but better” was his motto. He said, “Give me one hundred fanatics rather than a thousand indifferent followers.”

“The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” Considering how we have to coax and beg church members to do a few things for our Lord, we can easily see how we are loaded down with excess baggage, nominal disciples who agree in theory but have never learned our Saviour’s technique of the towel.

The average church member would do well to look in his concordance and see how many columns it takes to list all the “serve,” “servant,” “service” references. We come to church to sit but will not go out to serve.

The daily devotions are from Day by Day by Vance Havner. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1953.

Quote of the Day

I have heard of a town-dweller who raised a pig for some meat of his own. When the time came to slaughter that porker, he sent a note to his butcher which said, “don’t send me any more meat – I’m butchering myself.”

It will not be necessary to wait for communism from without to destroy American-we are butchering ourselves. Give us a little more rope and we’ll do our own hanging. Day and night the foundations of our fathers are being dug up, the principles on which we started are being blasted, and a new order is emerging which is not even a reasonable facsimile of the original. Most Americans are under such heavy sedation that they are not aware of what goes on. The same process goes on in the professing church and any man who speak against either movement is smilingly ignored or outlawed as a disturber of the peace. The country is overrun by cliques and clans in state and church, with their panaceas for bringing in the millennium. Some of us have examined these groups and wouldn’t be caught dead in any of them. All we need is a mighty stirring among old-fashioned Americans and old-fashioned Christians who seem to be bewildered at the moment. We believe there is a sizable number of both still in the land. There are more than seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. There are a few voices that have not been silenced but no leader of sufficient caliber is discernible on the horizon as of now. We would do well to pray that, if our Lord tarries, God might favor us with a John the Baptist in this wilderness. There is no time to lose.

The daily devotions are from Pepper ‘n Salt by Vance Havner. Fleming H. Revell Company, 1966.