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The Journey | 8.30.26 – 9.4.26
“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
We can understand the idea of the towel without ever picking one up ourselves. Today’s message asked us to consider: what towel are we willing to take hold of? It brought me right back to the upper room, and to a question I can’t shake this week: how far will my love go?
The ones who followed Jesus were the same ones who abandoned, denied, misunderstood, and failed him — repeatedly. Yet he loved them to the end. He loves you and me the same way.
Has your love ever been tested to see what its limits were? Jesus was placed in a scenario where Satan had prompted one of his closest companions — one of those he trusted most — to betray him. Jesus knew he could call him out on it. He knew he could have called down a host from heaven, or simply told one or all of the other eleven and ended it right there. Instead, he chose to love them to the end.
Love knows — and loves anyway!
By Shelly Huston
Monday, August 31
Jesus got up from the meal and tied a towel around his waist. He extended an opportunity for relationship right up until the betrayal. He extended grace.
I’ve enjoyed a great spiritual heritage and experienced several foot washings in my past — each one unique and memorable, and every one of them deeply humbling.
There is a big difference between a physical cleansing and a spiritual cleansing. As a mom, there’s a way to wash my daughter’s physical feet in a tub. But finding a way to help spiritually cleanse the deposits left by life, situations, hardship, and heartache — from a partner, parent, child, or peer, or even from me — can bring healing, freedom, and release!
But when someone you respect — a leader, parent, supervisor, or spouse — takes off their “priestly robes,” ties a towel around their waist, and kneels at your feet, everything begins to shift. Once they remove the dry, caked debris from your feet and gently place them in a bowl of warm, soapy water, layers of heartache, sorrow, and memory sometimes bubble up. They may begin to listen to the Holy Spirit and pray — for a grandchild who struggles every day with a learning disability, for a couple who has longed for a baby, or for the healing you’ve been believing for. Or they may sing over your family because of all the loss lately: a father, funds you’d been counting on, or a hope you just can’t seem to shake.
Jesus did this for Judas too. He knelt in front of the one who would betray him within hours and washed his feet anyway. That’s the kind of love that doesn’t wait to see if it’s deserved.
Wasn’t that the real temptation — not to expose or humiliate the one you loved completely, after they betrayed you and gave you up for their own profit or gain? Who could you pick up a towel for?
PRAYER: Jesus, I turn to you instead of turning on them. I seek forgiveness from you for the times I’ve let you down, instead of making others pay for the times they’ve let me down. I set my eyes on you. Help me serve you, receive your grace, and learn how to extend it to others.
Tuesday, September 1
Can you imagine the scene? Jesus has just told them one of them will betray him — and instead of falling on their faces, the disciples start arguing about which of them is the greatest. Right there, at the table. After the towel. After the bread and the cup. Old habits die hard, don’t they?
Jesus doesn’t scold them for it. He redefines greatness instead. “The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves,” he tells them. Then he points to himself: “I am among you as one who serves.”
Just minutes earlier, he had stepped forward, tied a towel around his waist, and served without expectation — without needing to be thanked, noticed, or repaid. He redefined greatness right in front of them, and they still missed it. At least for a moment.
Where in your life are you quietly competing for position, recognition, or being “right” — even in small ways?
Jesus says the leader should be like “the one who serves.” Who is someone you’ve been waiting to be served by, instead of looking for a way to serve them?
What would it look like this week to serve someone without needing them to notice?
ACTION STEP: This week, I will look for one person I can serve without being asked — not to “do more” for them, but to actually “wash their feet.”
Wednesday, September 2
King David wrote this psalm at a time when he felt betrayed by someone he shared a deep friendship with. This wasn’t a stranger — it was someone who had eaten at his table.
Has that kind of betrayal — from someone close to you, someone who “ate at your table” — ever happened to you?
How did it change the way you trust people afterward?
What would it look like to bring that hurt honestly to God, the way David did, instead of quietly managing it on your own?
ACTION STEP: This week, I will name one place I’ve been guarding my heart out of old hurt, and bring it to God instead of carrying it alone.
PRAYER: Father, I put my trust in you. I choose to love my neighbors through my actions — to do good toward them. Not to remain in a victim mindset, but instead to choose love without fear of betrayal.
Thursday, September 3
God sent Jesus at the perfect time, to redeem us from the enemy. At that point in history, mankind could not have earned a restored relationship — it could only be accomplished through a kinsman-redeemer, the perfect redeemer, Jesus himself.
Adam, through sin, separated “man” from that intimate relationship with God. Only God — through the second Adam — could restore that intimacy.
Paul says Christ died for us while we were still sinners — not after we cleaned ourselves up. Have you ever tried to “earn” your way back into a relationship you’d damaged?
What does it feel like to receive grace you didn’t earn, instead of working for it?
PRAYER: Father, thank you that you didn’t wait for me to get it together before you loved me. Help me stop trying to earn what you’ve already given me freely and help me offer that same grace to the people around me who haven’t earned it either.
Friday, September 4
If someone has wished us harm, or worked against us in heart or action, an intentional choice to begin doing good toward them will change our hearts toward them. Jesus doesn’t tell us how we should feel about loving them — biblically, it’s a choice we make. Do good for them. Bless them. When we actually do good toward them, we’ll find our hearts changing.
Is there someone specific you’re avoiding, resenting, or writing off right now?
What would it look like this week to do one concrete, practical good thing for that person — not because you feel like it, but because you’re choosing it?
PRAYER: Father, help me pray for those who have attacked me or used me. Help me look for a way to do good toward them and even bless them. Help me show love to those who have persecuted me and put that love into action.
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