Girl Wash Some Feet

I recently had a post go viral (like it LIT ON FIRE). In case you missed it, here's the post.“In a world where it’s girl power over His power, when we choose self-help over the helper, and “in your own strength lingo” is selling millions I say; Girl wash some feet.We’ve forgotten that Jesus humbled himself and served. One of his greatest and most shocking postures was bowed in service. Doing things like feet washing, kneeling down to lock eyes with a prostitute, bowing his life to the will of the Father, these were the signs of a true leader. Servanthood.Work hard. Be bold and confident in the gifts, talents and abilities your creator has given but don’t you forget that true strength comes from above, that favor is from the Lord not from what we do and that the best posture to have as a leader is taking a servants posture. May we be the best feet washers ever! #weekendchallengeLet’s not forget in our “DIY your life” culture that it was already done on the cross and it is because of that ultimate posture of servanthood that we have true girl power. Use your influence well, Girl wash some feet.”You were all so passionate in your responses that I thought I should address the elephant in the room: Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. Originally I read only parts of this book because I got a few pages in and had some red flags. This weekend I read the entire thing cover to cover, no word left unread. This is the fastest I’ve ever read a book in my entire life; I feel like I need a gold star on my chart.I want to be very clear: It is not my intention to pick a fight with Rachel Hollis (let’s be honest she’d probably win, I’m not very scrappy). This book is filled with some very “off” theology regarding who we are and who God is. The deeper problem being; we wouldn’t know Biblical un-truth if it told us to “go wash our face”. Let me give you a few examples from the book that we have bought millions of copies of and are defending so aggressively on the Internet. Here’s the run down on the Biblical non-truth of the book Girl, Wash Your Face:“You are meant to be the hero of your own story.”This sentence is found on page five. I didn’t actually have to read the whole book to identify the non-truths; I could have just stopped here. This concept is also referenced in chapter twenty: “I’m my own hero” (page 211).Lovely children of God, you were NEVER meant to be the hero of your own story. The only hero was, is, and will always be Jesus. He saved us. He’s the hero. No one else. And my life must be bowed to Him, the true hero, all the minutes of all the days. Believe me, I would love to be the hero here because that would be way easier than dying to myself and my sin nature every single ever-loving day of this one life. This is why we bend our knees and bow our lives to the Lord, because He knew better than to make us the hero of anything. He calls us instead, to be a servant (Romans 12:1) and to basically take a back seat to His plan and His way (1 Samuel 12:24). His hero, Jesus, is way better than any hero we could ever try to be, and there is such hope for us in that (Romans 15: 13). This takes the pressure off of us! You don’t have to be anyone’s hero, not even to yourself. So take a deep breath sister, you get to be saved and in that you will find more fulfillment and victory than you could ever imagine. (John 8:36)“You should be the very first of your priorities.” (page 31) This is FALSE, plain and simple. The Bible says, “Seek first the Kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added” (Matthew 6:33). If Mrs. Hollis had, somewhere in this chapter (or her book), followed this thought up by explaining that we must first pursue God in all we do, then I could let this one slide. However, she never circles back around here. Jesus, during His time in ministry, practiced self-care. It was minimal, but it is there. He slept, He ate, He got away from the swarms of people, and He spent time with the Lord. He didn’t use self-care as an excuse; He used it to be able to continue the arduous and exhausting ministry life that He lived. I love self-care and believe you should take care of yourself. In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 it says the body is a holy temple, so absolutely take care of yourself! But, for as many things as I do in the name of self-care, I also recognize that I should not be the very first of my priorities. The Bible says God should be put first. We should not be our first priority, and we see that walked out in the life of Jesus. I mean, good thing Jesus wasn’t Jesus’ first priority because WHERE WOULD WE BE TODAY? We would likely still be slaughtering lambs and hanging out around the holy of holies praying not to get zapped. NO ONE practicing self-care as taught by our society would take have taken up the cross, no one. (Luke 22:42)Sisters, take care of yourself, love who the Lord made you to be, admit that you are human and need recharging time, but, most importantly, remember God above all else. Get with him first, get in his word first, pray to him first, then he will fill you up and give you what you need to endure the next thing.“We decide our religion is right, therefore, every other religion is wrong.” (page 40)I could probably write a very long and passionate blog post just on this point. Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and life, no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Every other religion IS wrong because of this one sentence. If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior and believe the Holy Bible is the truth because the creator God penned those words to us through its authors, then no other religion could ever be right.  The only way is through Jesus. That’s it. Pluralism tells us that there are multiple paths to heaven, and that is just not truth. Guard your heart.These are just a few of the concerns I have with this book, but the real issue is not with the book Girl, Wash Your Face. The issue is us, my friends. When are we going to stop using our purchasing power, our social media support, and our voices to uphold ideas that are not upheld by scripture? Aren’t we tired of watered down Christianity yet? There was absolutely nothing watered down about what Jesus preached. Jesus was both law and love; he came to uphold the law (Matthew 5:17). The law must always be laced with love. Always. We need to learn to hold a tension between God’s love and God’s law, we cannot choose one over the other. When are we going to hold Christian writers, authors, speakers, pastors, ourselves and those who stand and type on platforms accountable for the truth of the word of God? When will we tire of watered down, pop-culture Christianity? When will we begin to fear God and not man? His acceptance and truth is all we need. I stand by my original post. Girl, wash some feet. We need your gifts, talents, and abilities to influence this world well.But more importantly? Girl, fear the Lord. He is the hero of our stories and without His grace and truth, nothing else matters.