washed

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to realize that unless you wash us we have no part with you.  Wash us clean this day of all that keeps us from being completely yours.  Make us whole.  Make us new.  Amen.

Scripture: John 13:8

Journal: Where do you need to be washed today?

Reflection: One of my good friends always used to say, “You can come to Jesus with dirty feet, but you can’t stay that way.”  And I wonder if that was not exactly what Jesus was trying to communicate to Simon Peter on this particular night.  Come to me.  O come, you dirty and messy and broken.  Come to me, all of you who are screwed up and fouled up and lost.  Come to me, all who are anxious and fearful and insecure.  Come to me, all who are filled with guilt and doubt and shame.  Come to me, you whose feet—and hearts and lives—are covered with filth, and I will make you new.  I can make the foulest heart clean.  I can turn your mess into maturity.   I can make the most broken life whole.  Just come to me.  But if you come to me, you must realize that you cannot stay the way you are, because everything that I touch, I transform.  It is just the nature of who I am.  I make things back into what they were intended to be.  So come to me, for unless I wash you, you can have no part with me.  What do you say? 

Prayer

Closing Prayer: 

Wash me, O Lamb of God, Wash me from sin!
By Thine atoning blood, O make me clean!
Purge me from ev'ry stain, Let me Thine image gain,
In love and mercy reign O'er all within!

Wash me, O Lamb of God, Wash me from sin!
I long to be like Thee, All pure within.
Now let the crimson tide, Shed from Thy wounded side,
Be to my heart applied, And make me clean.

Wash me, O Lamb of God, Wash me from sin!
I will not, cannot rest Till pure within.
All human skill is vain, But Thou canst cleanse each stain
Till not a spot remain— Made wholly clean.

Wash me, O Lamb of God, Wash me from sin!
By faith Thy cleansing blood Now makes me clean.
So near art Thou to me, So sweet my rest in Thee—
O blessed purity, Saved, saved from sin!

Wash me, O Lamb of God, Wash me from sin!
Thou, while I trust in Thee, Wilt keep me clean.
Each day to Thee I bring Heart, life— yea, ev'rything;
Saved, while to Thee I cling, Saved from all sin!

(Wash Me, O Lamb of God by H. B. Beagle)