The first time Moses “runs into” the God of his fathers, even the God of the universe, one of the first things the LORD says to him … “remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (Ex. 3:5b – NASB)
When Joshua is on the verge of taking the very first city within the land promised to them by the LORD, he sees a man standing in front of him with His sword drawn, and Joshua asks this man if He is for them or against them. The man tells him, “No”, that He is captain of the LORD’s host. Joshua falls with his face to the ground and asks what he should do … and the Man tells him, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” (Josh. 5:15 NASB)
When you read the account of the Levites’ wardrobe in their service of the tabernacle, what you don’t see … are sandals. The priests had to be bare footed … touching & walking on … HOLINESS … by the intentional will of YHVH !
When Deity, the Word of God, became flesh and blood, and dwelt among us, this perfect Man, prior to His arrest and crucifixion, lowers Himself to the status of a house slave, takes off His garment and girds Himself with a towel … and proceeds to wash the feet of His twelve disciples, including those of Judas.
In the early 80’s I was a missionary to deaf children in Bolivia, S.A. The country, though officially “Spanish”, is made up also of other people groups, the two other predominant languages of which I recall, are Aymara and Quechua, indigenous Indians who were in that land way before the Spanish ever settled it. They were, I recall, extremely poor. I remember also that most wore sandals … their “ragged” feet showed the wear and tear of exposure to the outside elements. The streets were extremely dusty, many then just dirt roads. I learned, while there, that it was rude, when sitting down, to cross your legs so as to show the underside of your foot; for the underside of one’s feet were considered the filthiest part of one’s body … and if you realized that their feet were always exposed and touched by the filthy elements, you clearly understood why.
It was then that I saw Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet in a whole new light. Deity was stooping very low to clean mankind’s feet so that we could touch unblemished … holiness … without being condemned for it. God did not tell Moses or Joshua to hide the parts of their feet that could be seen, but to remove the part attached to their feet that kept them from realizing Holy God was touching earth.
YHVH does not want you and I, Beloved, immune from His touching the dirt that He used to form us. I am overwhelmed that Deity, Holy God, in His perfect Son, wants to wash my feet AND wants me to touch the earth that He is touching, that His manifest presence is touching. He doesn’t want Believers immune to His presence touching the earth. He doesn’t want unbelievers immune, either, from His presence touching the earth. Jesus was most comfortable, not around those who knew the scriptures, but among those who didn’t, who didn’t do “religion”, who were tax collectors and adulterers and every other sinner we could tag a label to.
That He told Moses and then later Joshua to remove their sandals because the place they were standing was holy had nothing to do with the Law. It had to do with YHVH not wanting them immune to His Holiness, which was touching the earth.
But there is something more …
Moses, Joshua, the priests, and the twelve, all whose feet He touched, all whose feet He wanted to touch His presence, were leaders who were to take the revelation of YHVH’s “Holiness” to the world. That “revelation” was not to be a theological doctrine, as it were, not to be some teaching that declared God was too holy for us to stand uncondemned in His presence, but the real, the true, the actual touch of heaven’s touch of the earth … It is God, Almighty God, wanting us to touch, with our feet, His Holiness. Our standing, our foundation our Savior and LORD wants us to confidently feel under our feet.
… Selah …
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‘Every place on which the sole of your foot treadeth, to you I have given it, as I have spoken unto Moses’ Joshua 1:3 (YLT)
The LORD intentionally says the “sole of your foot”, not just “your foot”. He did not say to Joshua, “Every place which your foot treads”, but “Every place which the sole of your foot treads, to you I have given it,” Is this not peculiar to you? I asked Him why, and then searched out “the sole” (the arch) of our feet, what is it about this …
As you read this, Beloved, keep in your thinking the above section about removing that which immunes us, or, keeps us, from touching His holiness.
While it is so that the soles of our feet have some of the thickest skin on our bodies, it is also one of the most sensitive places due to the high concentration of nerve endings … this literally allows us to “feel” that upon which one is standing or walking. Moreover, besides only a very few other places on our bodies, the soles of our feet also have no velus hair, small particles of hair which is on most of our body, which thus also allows sensitivity to know “what” is touching our feet to be “less cushioned”, if you will, from that sensitivity.
There is a difference between walking over and thus taking authority by such “trampling”, contrasted to feeling so as to know the places being given, yes, with authority, but in a way that makes us to know – by touch – what is becoming ours from the LORD.
It is not that Joshua would go bare-footed in his taking possession of that which YHVH was giving to him. Joshua was given to feel the LORD’s holy presence … and THATwas the feeling he would remember with every step he was to henceforth tread as he was being given possession of each succeeding step taken.
Beloved, I believe the LORD Jesus, even Father God, would change our paradigm, our thinking, as to what His Holiness really is, even what it “feels like” under our feet. We have for so so long walked in a “terror” of our LORD (but seeing this terror as of our “Lord” – read the “Unveiling His Name series prior to this blog to understand). We have not properly walked into the Holy Of Holies in the confidence of the blood of Jesus – the blood upon the real Mercy Seat where Almighty God sits, the blood of Jesus upon us which has cleansed and covered and forgiven (wholly) and continually changes us, the blood that to each of us gives a true uncondemned standing in the presence, in the face, of Almighty God, our Heavenly Father. For this reason so many times too many of us have wondered why we never seem to gain, or come into, the promises of God spoken again and again in the past in sermons and prophetic words in our hearing. We have not been confidently walking in the finished work of our Joshua who is the One to lead us into, and so distribute to each of us, our inheritance – for we have been gauging our standing based upon our deeds, and not Jesus’ finished deed. We have seen holiness through the lens of the Old Covenant even though we have heard the preaching of the gospel, for the mixture of both covenants has been so subtly interwoven, and this has left our hearts and minds in an ongoing state of unsurety, even insecurity, as to whether or not we have the strength to hold fast to our salvation. So much has been fed into our hearing as that which is based upon our deeds, not Jesus’ finished work and His present sit down rest upon the highest throne existence which is the very position of our very identity as believers.
The last statement I wrote in the above section of this blog – “Our standing, our foundation our Savior and LORD wants us to confidently feel under our feet.” – you need to let sink, Dearly Beloved, deeply, into your spirit and soul and mind. When we enter into the rest, the true rest, of the finished work of the cross, the finished/complete work of the shed blood of Christ Jesus our LORD, when we stand, no matter our up and down feelings, no matter what kind of day we have or had, when we stand in the confidence of the finished work of our Savior, in what HE accomplished on our behalf, then we stand confidently before our Abba Father God, and then our confidence IN HIM, in our Savior Jesus Christ, is that by which our hearts are strengthened with courage throughout our days, our secular work days, or whatever those days of the week are to us; and we will then find that our LORD Jesus is indeed granting us our inheritance in giving to us every place upon which the soles of our feet treads.
Remove the sandals from your feet, Beloved, when you are aware of His holy presence … and just stand there and let the water of the words of the blood of Jesus upon the Mercy Seat wash over your soul and mind. Let the truth of His finished work be set into the fabric of who you are, let this sink into your eyes and your ears and your heart again and again. Give attention, not to your short comings, but to the finished work of the cross. You will come to find, even to feel under your feet – the soles of your feet where sensitivity is great -that you have a confident standing before your Heavenly Father, and thus a confident treading throughout your week. You will find your LORD Jesus to you giving inheritance you have been afraid either to ask for or to take hold of, inheritance you have come to believe you would never honestly inherit in this life.
“Our standing, our foundation our Savior and LORD wants us to confidently feel under our feet.”
‘Every place on which the sole of your foot treadeth, to you I have given it, as I have spoken unto Moses’ Joshua 1:3 (YLT)
You are so loved, Beloved
Mark D.