Bless me, Lord! by John Avant

Who doesn’t want to be blessed?

Jesus wants to bless us. In perhaps the most important sermon he ever preached, Jesus included an entire section about what it means to be blessed.  We call it the Beatitudes. 

It does not appear that the church in the west has paid a lot of attention to the things Jesus actually says about blessing. We don’t think of being persecuted, mourning or purity of heart when we think about being blessed. We usually think about getting our needs met. 

We have spent time with persecuted believers overseas and they don’t understand this way of thinking in the American church. Almost all of our prayers and even our contemporary Christian music is about feeling better, being healed or delivered from our anxieties. 

Recently, my wife and I looked through the top 40 Christian songs of our day and had trouble finding even one that was about taking up the cross, sharing our faith, or laying down our own happiness for others. 

It’s critical that each one of us examine our own thinking before we ask the Lord to bless us. Otherwise, we may miss the greatest blessings God has for us!

Just before Jesus laid down His life for us, He did the strangest thing.  He washed the feet of His friends!

Now this was common in that day, not just as a religious ritual, but as a human necessity. The sewage system of the day was simply a drainage ditch in the middle of the street. The sewage dried and became dust and was all over the feet of everyone. 

Jesus literally washed the sewage from between the toes of his disciples. It was truly a job for the lowest of the low. For the least of the servants.

So when Jesus began to wash feet, they were confused.   Peter even begged Jesus not to do it. Jesus told His disciples not only was this necessary, they would have to do the same.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

John 13:14-16

And then He said something truly shocking:

“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” ‭‭John‬ ‭13‬:‭17

It was in meeting the needs of others, not having their own needs met, that they would be truly blessed!

Recently, our dearest missionary friends told us about an astonishing experience in which they worshiped with a family of believers from a Muslim country where persecution is normal. The husband and father of this family had been sentenced to four years in prison for the crime of loving others and telling them about Jesus. They had been able to escape to the country where our missionary friends live, but had decided to go back voluntarily to their home. 

The man had already been in prison once before, and every morning he would sing praises to Jesus, and the other prisoners would beg him not to stop because it was the only thing of beauty they heard all day! He felt called back to minister to them and was willing to suffer the loss of everything to do it. Our missionary friends prayed over them and wept with them, and then this man, soon to return to persecution and prison, asked if he could wash their feet!

Our friends told us it was one of the most powerful and emotional experiences they could ever imagine. They were blessed. But according to Jesus, the man washing their feet was truly the blessed one!

My prayer is you will consider the following questions:

What does being blessed really mean to you?

To whom and how are you meant to be a blessing?

What will you do now?