How Do We Wash Each Other's Feet?

If I then, your Lord and Teacher (Master), have washed your feet, you ought [it is your duty, you are under obligation, you owe it] to wash one another's feet. John 13:14

Jesus said that we are obligated to wash each other’s feet, yet we never read about the disciples going around and washing other people’s feet. Why would Jesus make such a bold statement of what we are to do, then we never read in the Bible about it being done again? The answer is that it was done all of the time and we do read about it. The act of washing feet, the thing that we are obligated to do, isn’t taking water and soap and washing a persons feet, it is interceding for them and forgiving their sins. 

Jesus said to him, Anyone who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is clean all over. And you [My disciples] are clean, but not all of you. John 13:10

Once we are saved we become clean. There is no longer anything that can ever separate us from our Father, we can never loose our cleanliness, Romans 11:29. We will never be left or forsaken by God once we are grafted into Jesus. Dirt can get on us, but that dirt will not separate us from our Father. Dirty feet can cause problems though. So what did Jesus tell us to do? He told us to intercede for each other and forgive each other. In other words, wash each other’s feet. We keep the dirt off of each other by interceding for each other.

For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Matthew 6:14

Above all things have intense and unfailing love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and disregards the offenses of others]. 1 Peter 4:8

Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive]. Colossians 3:13

What is really powerful about washing feet, is that Jesus doesn’t tell us to wash our own feet, but to wash other people’s feet. So many are always asking God to forgive them for what they have done, when Jesus tells us to always be forgiving others. We are kept clean by interceding for others, not because we intercede for ourselves. Read the Lord’s prayer, we are forgiven because we forgive, not because we ask for ourselves to be forgiven. Love covers up our sins. They are not covered because we ask for them to be forgiven. We are forgiven by our Father because we have been empowered with the Holy Ghost to forgive others. We have conquered sin in our own lives because Christ is within us causing us to love others and intercede on the behalf of others.

Don’t believe this? Go and try to find the scriptures that tell us that we are to ask to be forgiven. You will find that time and time again Jesus tells us that our forgiveness is based on us forgiving others. Now thank God that we have Jesus in us causing us to forgive, so there is no worries whatsoever. Jesus will absolutely cause us to forgive others, so that we can absolutely be forgiven!