The Devotional – A Look at the Book #690

by Jesse Abel

We cover our self-righteous nature with worry, toil and worldly interests. Remove this robe and we may observe the nakedness of a joyless soul. The epistles explain how we might remove this robe and reveal this naked condition. The epistles also show us how to replace that robe with Jesus Christ bringing inexpressible joy and restoration to our soul. Romans 13:14 and 1 John 1:1-4

Many years ago… okay, in 1976 the submarine I was on was ported in Spain. I was a babe in Christ since the day of being saved by Him was in May of 1975. With a friend and brother in the LORD we went into the town called Rota; there were so many people in the streets it was hard to move from one spot to another, I thought that there must be some parade or something special going on. There was a group of young people standing in front of a church handing out some sort of literature. I looked at the paper that was shoved into my hand. There big and bold was a cross and what I thought was Jesus in the clouds above the cross, I could not read the words, but the message was clear. We tried to communicate with these young people and soon with our pocket Bibles and the Bibles they held; we connected.

This unique moment of meeting was not the physical attraction that one experiences when simply meeting people; you do know what I mean, don’t you? There is a worldly attraction of what’s in this for me and a host of other interests that are selfishly motivated. But the moment we knew we were brothers and sisters in our Savior there was a spiritual connection of joy. We did not understand the things we were hearing from each other, but there was so much joy that any passer by would have thought we knew and understood each other perfectly.

Later I was in Scotland and this same brother and I visited a church in a town north of Sandbank, Scotland. It was Sunday morning and the pastor was sitting on a stool with a guitar and singing a hymn when we went in. This was not a familiar hymn, but the message that followed was. After the service he and some of the people came to us and invited us to one of the homes for a lunch. This same spiritual connection was present as in Spain and the joy of the LORD was very special.

When the apostle Peter said to the LORD, “You shall never wash my feet!” John 13:8 he did not understand the connection of serving one another. If we do not reach out to our brothers and sisters in Christ; again if we are not willing to serve one another in our local churches and godly homes then our motives may be out of sync with the joy of the LORD. I know that this passage in John is focused on men who knew the LORD, but I use it too illustrate the misunderstanding that seems to be mounting in our churches and fellowships. We isolate our self to the joy of LORD that is available from God when we say that we do not have a need for the comfort of meeting with and serving each other.

Notice further in John 13:31-35… when in Spain and Scotland we were obeying the commandment of loving one another (even if naive of the command) and this resulted in knowing each other in Christ, that we are His disciples and we had love for one another. What a joy!