Light the Love candle today.
How often do you use a towel in your kitchen or bathroom? And what sort of towels do you use? Dish towels, guest towels, bath towels and washcloths, old towels and new, to pat, dry, or mop up?
Most of us are lucky enough to own many towels and some of them are probably quite luxurious, but unless company is coming and we want to use “the best” we probably don’t give our towels lots of attention. Maybe we should.
Today’s Concept
Towels and the concept of love combines in today’s devotional.
God’s idea of love is very different from the usual way people think of love. We continually see that when reading through the scriptures. We were talking of servants yesterday, and Christ who is also known as “the Servant”.
Phil 2:5-11
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
If I take time to think of a towel, my mind goes to the greatest lesson on what it means to be a servant:
At the last supper when Jesus girded himself as a servant, and washed the feet of his disciples. A towel is meant for service. John 13:3-15 “he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
- Do our ideas of love revolve around a romantic ideal, that at its core is simply self satisfaction?
- What someone thinks of us, does for us, how important we are and the time we may command from another?
Taking a towel and wiping the feet that we have washed is another idea of love. It is the love that cares for someone else’s comfort and well being, more than our own. We may all do similar things, but the motivation with which we do them separates the direction of our acts.
Direction of Flow
To cause all to flow into oneself is a dead end, it stagnates us. To flow outward to others is to be a living stream.
Our connection with the source of Living Water …Jesus… guarantees that the flow of our giving is fresh and constant.
There are many ways we can give and serve, have you thought of some ways to make this a Merry Christmas for someone else? How few times and how unmemorable are the times when it is merely spending money. Especially when the recipient of our gift has more than enough of their own!
Where are your Towels Today?
Do your towels wait in the closet for someone to go and get them? Or are they hung on the towel bar, ready for service? If you wait only for those to ask for your help, you might miss the chance to be useful. Plan to love this week, and plan to be ready for service to those in your path this week.
It could be one of best Christmas seasons yet.
Carol
Sing the carol, “Good King Wenceslas”
Color a Christmas nativity scene.
The Jesse tree ornament is a striped coat representing Joseph and God’s Providence.
A nice resource for Jesse tree celebrations is Dreadlock Girl’s blog.
