Find Your Towel

1. The Ladder and the Towel

My senior pastor once stood with me in the church fellowship hall staring at a row of framed photographs—portraits of evangelists who had conducted meetings through the years. His finger paused on one.

“H. M. S. Richards, Sr.,” he said softly.

Then came a line I’ll never forget:

“He was the only preacher who ever helped me take the newsprint off the walls after the meetings.”

It wasn’t the pulpit that impressed him; it was the ladder. Not the sermon, but the servant.

Greatness, in Jesus’ dictionary, is not measured by how high you stand but how low you’re willing to bend.

When Christ washed His disciples’ feet, He didn’t redefine leadership—He revealed it.

---

2. Authority that Lifts, Not Leans

Mark 6 says Jesus called the twelve, sent them two by two, and gave them authority.

Notice the sequence: calling, sending, empowering.

He gave authority to heal, to liberate, to proclaim—never to control.

That same authority still moves through the Church, but it only works when it’s used the way He used it.

Power in the Kingdom is always borrowed.

It is never a possession; it is a trust.

He entrusted authority so His followers could do what He would do if He stood in their sandals—lift the fallen, not leverage them.

---

3. Two Sources of True Authority

There are two streams of legitimate authority.

First, from God.

It is conferred, not claimed. A calling, a gifting, a holy assignment.

Jesus could speak with authority because He was sent by the Father.

Second, from people.

It is earned through trust. “He taught them as one having authority,” the Gospel says—because He cared.

Where He was trusted, miracles flowed. Where unbelief hardened, even He “could do no mighty work.”

Authority and trust travel together like current and conductor. You can’t have one without the other.

---

4. When Power Goes Rogue

But authority has a counterfeit.

Jesus warned that the Gentiles “lord it over” one another—turning power into a ladder of control.

History is littered with those who tried to sanctify ego with religious paint.

Years ago I read again the tragic story of Jim Jones—the preacher who began by feeding the hungry and ended by feeding poison to his own flock.

It started with compassion but ended in control, because the power shifted from God-given trust to man-demanded loyalty.

Whenever influence becomes dependence, and charisma replaces character, servanthood dies.

The church doesn’t need more bosses in shepherd’s clothing. It needs shepherds with towels over their arms.

---

5. The Towel Test

Picture that night in the upper room.

The disciples are arguing about who’s greatest—again.

Jesus rises silently, wraps a towel, and kneels. The hands that formed galaxies cradle dust-streaked feet.

If you’re too important to serve, you’re not ready to lead.

That’s the test.

One of my mentors used to say, “What if God only counted the things we did that no one saw?”

Heaven keeps a different scoreboard.

Power without a towel is dangerous; power with a towel looks like Jesus.

---

6. Servanthood in the Field

I once worked beside a man named Jack—old pickup, grease under his nails, faithful deacon.

Every week after church dinners, when everyone else had gone home, I’d find him rolling up tablecloths, scraping plates, humming hymns to himself.

Never asked, never thanked.

One day I told him, “Jack, you don’t have to do all this.”

He smiled. “Pastor, I can’t preach, but I can wash dishes. That’s my pulpit.”

There it was again—the ladder and the towel.

No applause. Just obedience that smells like Christ.

---

7. The Cruciform Heart

Paul said in Philippians 2, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus… who made Himself of no reputation.”

The word kenosis—He emptied Himself.

No titles to defend, no rights to demand, no image to protect.

That’s what gives spiritual authority its fragrance: the scent of humility.

Sometimes I have to check my own attitude when fatigue creeps in—when serving starts to feel like duty instead of delight.

It’s easy to slip from servant to supervisor without noticing.

That’s when I hear Him whisper again: “As I have washed your feet, so you must wash one another’s.”

---

8. Greatness in Small Places

You told the story once of Susan Clay, the 13-year-old cancer patient who, though tethered to an IV pole, made her nightly rounds to other children’s rooms just to tuck them in and tell them Jesus loved them.

When nurses asked why she kept doing it, she said, “Because I want them to feel safe.”

That’s authority—the kind that makes demons tremble and angels sing.

The world measures success by spotlight; heaven measures it by towel weight.

---

9. Power, Presence, and Permission

There’s a kind of quiet strength that doesn’t shout.