January 13th, 2010 by pierreduplessis
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” Isaiah 52:7
Have you ever looked at your feet with the thought of how beautiful they are? I know for me my feet can look pretty beat up at the close of each day unless I’ve placed special attention towards them. (Which is hardly ever!) However in the bible, the prophet Isaiah makes a statement that those who “bring good news”, which is all of our callings as believers, are to have beautiful feet! This stood out to me one day in my devotions and I wondered if there was a significance to the reference to beautiful feet. So I began my journey of studying it. What I found was many references to “feet” in the bible, and a profound revelation was awakened in my spirit that I would like to share.
I noticed that this verse in Isaiah was quoted in Romans 10:15, which, to me, if God made the effort to put it more then once in the bible it is worth taking a closer look as to the message to be conveyed. I also noticed that in all the gospels, except John, when Jesus was preparing to send out the disciples to preach or “bring good news” to the towns he told them to “shake the dust off your feet” of the towns that do not welcome them in. Hmmm… Then I read in Ephesians 6 that the spiritual armor we are to wear on our feet in the footgear of “Peace”. But the revelation hit me as I read the passage most of us are very familiar with. Only this time, the message to my heart was a little different. It is the passage of Jesus washing
the disciples feet in John 13. Peter basically asked Jesus why he was going to wash his feet. Peter thought that it was completely out of line for Jesus to do such a lowly thing. We are so accustomed to hearing servant hood preached or taught out of this passage. But Jesus’ response to Peter provoked something new within me. He said to him a few scriptures down “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is already
clean…” It seemed to me, that in this moment Jesus knew in a few hours he would no longer be with his best friends, the disciples. He knew that it is now their mantle to carry on the message he first proclaimed to them. Jesus took the time to place special attention on the disciples feet to make sure they were beautiful. The revelation goes so much deeper then just having feet that are appealing to look at, but is a spiritual analogy to the purity of our lives and the tracker of the places we’ve been.
When Jesus made reference to Peter of those who have had a bath only need to wash their feet, I believe we can conclude that he was speaking of salvation being the bath. At the moment of salvation our whole bodies are cleaned, but it is now our responsibility to keep our feet clean in order to have the purity to bring the good news as He commissions us to do. Each place that we allow ourselves to become compromised in or fallen to, if we do not walk away and shake the dust off, we are tracking that with us on our feet. Jesus also tells us to wash each others feet! He wants us to be bold enough to keep each other accountable, not to embarrass one another or hurt someone, but to maintain the purity of their feet so they may walk out their calling of bringing His news.
Have you ever noticed that when we act in a way that our flesh is desiring over the Word that the first thing we lose is our Peace!! We don’t loose God’s love or grace, but we almost inevitably will lose our peace. That is because it is the spiritual gear that we are to walk in as we walk out our life as a believer. It is the radar that tells us whether or not we are on track with God’s will. When we lose this discernment it can lead to us walking some very dangerous paths. I also believe this is way Paul warns us in Ephesians 4:27 to “not give the devil a foothold”. We can take this literally in this context that when we are walking in compromise or sin the devil has a literal hold on our feet and he is now directing our steps… Think about that! It scares me to my very core.
I have personally lived this out and carried many things on my feet that almost lead me to death and destruction. I was saved but all the while wasn’t being attentive to my feet and what I was stepping in. I can sum it up to three main things that stu
ck to my feet which gave the devil a foothold and kept me from taking the paths that God desired for me. Abused, Addicted, Abandoned… The enemy attempted to brand them on the soles of my feet in attempt to mare my call to tell a life changing message! But praise God, that Jesus’ blood cleansed my feet then and does continually, but not without placing special attention to the look of my feet.
I ask you this time: Do you have beautiful feet? Or do you have filth that has been stuck to the soles of your feet in need of a cleansing? I pray that we all take some time to search our hearts before God and ask for a cleansing back to a state of purity before him. I pray that during this time of Prayer and Fasting this month that we would begin to shake off the dust and walk away from compromise and sin! Thank you all and God Bless!!!
