John 13:5 Then He poured water into the basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
 
Recently, I was part of a group of pastors who gathered to prepare spiritually for a city-wide unity service on a Sunday morning. I didn’t know the agenda for the meeting; however, I went anyway with Karen because we were invited to be there.
 
What was planned was beautiful. A little instruction for the up-coming Sunday service. A little testimony time. It was also planned for the pastors who were present to have their feet washed.
 
This was a sweet expression of affectionate care.
 
Affectionate care is the bedrock of love. Many people believe that love is what you feel, so put yourself in whatever position you need to so that you can feel love. We will undoubtedly put ourselves in positions that compromise our faith if we believe that is what love is.
 
True love is defined more by what you do for others than what you feel. Feeling is important, there is no question about that. I wonder though, how do you operationally define love? Do you think more about what you are getting from certain others? Or do you think about ways to give more to them?
 
Recently, Karen and I were conducting a marriage workshop. We have fun when we conduct marriage workshops. We intentionally play games, instill competition, and eat chocolate, all to help the walls come down. One of the opportunities for the couples to win prizes and a grand prize at the end, is if they have the guts to sing to their spouse in front of everyone.
 
Karen has asked me for years (20+), of doing these workshops to sing to her. Every time she does, I get a tightness in my chest and my knees go weak. And until recently I have never sung to her, even though she wants me to. At this last workshop, she asked again (in the cute way she does) and the Holy Spirit nudged me to sing to her.
 
My voice crackled, I teared up, I whimpered out the words through trembling lips – it didn’t go like I had practiced all day long. But the look on Karen’s face and the joy it brought to her heart made it so worth the struggle. She even started singing with me and that did more to my heart than I can describe.
 
I thought in humor of standing before Jesus one day giving account of my life. And after Jesus says to me, “David, I had hoped for more…I would then say, “Jesus, I did sing to her in front of everyone.” He would say, “Well yes, there is that, well done son.”
 
Singing to Karen was affectionate care. When Jesus knelt down to wash His disciple’s feet, not only was there deep theological meaning to the gesture of love, this act was also a deliberate gesture to each of these men of affectionate care. It communicates, “I care for you.”
 
How are you doing so far? We haven’t really talked about love yet. We will as time goes on. I want to show you the pathway to true love. True love starts with affectionate care. There has to be something inside of you that wants to show care to someone before love, true love, can sprout.
 
Maybe we can stop here and make a decision to abort the world’s ideology of love. The world says love is what I get – Jesus says love is what I give. Can you name some people in your life that you would like to give true love to? We’ll need to progress further in our discussion before that happens, but – we have to start somewhere…right? Today we can make a decision to start, tomorrow we can put feet to it.
 
Father in heaven, we praise you and thank You that true love comes from You by what You gave to us. So, true love comes from a heart that wants to give. From Your heart comes life and love and we receive what You have given to us. Your Son Jesus is the greatest gift ever given. We desire to know more about that true love. Teach us, so that we can enter into the kind of love that You have to offer. We want to offer to others that kind of love.
 
Blessings,
Pastor D