The Lord Jesus—Love That Never Forgets Its Object

In John 13:1 it says, "Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Then what did He do? He laid aside His garments, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He had girded Himself. Instead of being occupied with Himself and the thought that now He was going to leave the world and depart to the Father, He was thinking of them. He says, as it were, I know I will be up there, but I will not be happy without their fellowship and communion, and without My services I cannot have it. So I will take a position toward them that will maintain them in fellowship with Me while I am absent from them, until they do not need that kind of service anymore.
His love never for a moment forgets its object. What a humbling, blessed truth! How we feel more and more our utter unworthiness of it. Nothing humbles like grace, like love. That is the love with which we are loved.
After He had performed that service for them, a type of the service in which He is now engaged in order to sustain us in communion with Himself, He sat down. All this took place in that upper chamber.
This is the only place that I remember where the Lord calls the attention of the disciples to the fact that He is their Lord and Master. "Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet." vv. 12-14. He had never said this before.
Then He says, "If ye know these things." What? Happy are ye? No, it does not say that. There is a little word of two letters in there that is important: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." Do what? Wash one another's feet.
Now we all know, if we know what communion with Christ is, that there is no going on with Him without His doing for us what He did for His disciples. It is utterly impossible for us to restore our souls. "He restoreth my soul." We are as dependent on Him for the restoration of the soul as we are for its salvation. We cannot get on without this service—we cannot get on without the Lord. There is another thing: we cannot get on with one another without knowing how to do it with one another.
He says distinctly, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." And how often have we felt the communion broken, a cloud between. How is it going to be removed? There is just one way, and that is to put the feet into His hands. That is all. We will never get the cloud removed in any other way. "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." Just so, unless there is this service one to another, there is no going on with one another. Think of the love with which we are loved: the love of Christ.
What the heart feels the need of is personal communion with Christ. What He looks for and values above everything else is personal devotedness to Himself. No amount of service can ever compensate for lack of communion with Himself. If there is devotedness, there will be communion; if there is communion, there will be service.
W. Potter