Beautiful Feet

  

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

BEAUTIFUL FEET

Rom 10:14-15

14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"  

NIV

Because the message is the “Good News”, it has to be told. In today’s world, it seems to us there is never any good news to listen to. It is mostly either about some horrific event where people were hurt or killed. Then there is the dirty war of politics that the media cannot spend enough time either vilifying or glorifying. It also seems to us that we hear all sorts of things we would rather not hear, but once we have heard, we cannot unhear. Just as what we have seen, we cannot unsee. Then for a portion of our lives, more for some than others, we have heard this voice of the enemy of our soul, prompting us onto wrong thinking and deeds. But now there is the “Good News” about Jesus Christ. But in order to know this “Good News” we must first hear it. Although for our entire life, we have always had that knowledge of God deep within us, we suppressed it through our own evil deeds. We held it back, giving various excuses for not listening. Yet, once we heard this “Good News” we could not unhear it, and it began to spring to life within us. God directed, even orchestrated the exact time we would hear this message so that we would be ready to hear the one he sent to preach the “Good News” to us. It is life-transforming news that God began within us and he will complete our full transformation. But Paul says someone has to be sent to preach it. Of course, this is in the midst of his speaking about Israel, which will we get to, but for now let us contemplate whether we have any responsibility to preach the “Good News”. First, is there a difference between preaching the “Good News” verbally or quietly being a witness for Jesus Christ, or being the image bearer of God? We have no doubt that Paul was called and he was sent, first to the Jews, but mostly to the Gentiles. We will see that is exactly what Paul illustrates the difference between Israel not listening and thus God sent him to the Gentiles, who praise God heard the “Good News” and believed. However, back to our call in our lives. Have we been sent? Our are feet beautiful? Because we are, in fact, the image bearings of God, we would have to believe we should be reflecting his glory in ever-increasing glory. How then can anyone see our reflection of the glory of God, if they have not heard first? There are all sorts of “Good” people in the world who reflect goodness, in some sense, although it may be simply a mask, covering up their own evil intentions. However, bearing the image of God within and without us brings us to focus on whether we have beautiful feet, or that we have indeed been sent to preach the “Good News”. Yes, we need to hear good preaching or teaching about this transformation in our lives, and how that forms the basis of our new life in Christ. It is although a revolution has happened within us, and the battle was won by Christ. Yet have we been sent? It would seem that some have not, they are listeners of the word, and in some sense, doers of the word, living, with the help and guidance of the Spirit, the best they can for Jesus. Yet have we been sent? What does that look like? Must we travel the world, as Paul did, spreading the message of life? We do send those and support those missionaries who have heard that call, and who have beautiful feet. But if we believe the word of God and we believe that Jesus was not just talking about his disciples traveling the world, then we have to believe that he has also called all of us to go out into the world, which may not be in the physical sense of travel, but in the realm of the world itself, the people who are everywhere in every facet of life, someone needs to tell them so they can hear and believe. Let us look closely and see if our feet are beautiful.