Focus On Feet Series

Centuries ago the Danes decided to invade Scotland. They very cleverly moved their great army in

the night so they could creep up on the Scottish forces and take them by surprise. In order to make

this advance as noiseless as possible they came barefooted. As they neared the sleeping Scots, one

unfortunate Dane brought his foot down on a bristling thistle. He let out with a roar of pain that was

like a trumpet blast which rang through the sleeping camp.

The Scots were alerted, and quickly grabbed their weapons, and the Danes were driven back.

One could say that they came within one foot of victory, but one foot led to their defeat. The

thistle from that time on was adopted as the national emblem of Scotland. Feet are vital for the

onward march, but they can also be your foe and lead you to defeat because of their weakness. Not

all have the feet of the Kentucky backwoods farmer who never wore shoes. One day he came into

the cabin and stood by the fireplace with his callused feet. His wife said, "You'd better move your

feet a mite, you're standin on a live coal." He replied, "Which foot?" Unfortunately, most foot

soldiers do not have feet that tough. Even Achilles, the great Greek warrior, had one weak spot, and

that was the heel of his foot. It was by means of an arrow in his heel that he was brought to defeat.

Our feet determine whether we stand or fall in more ways than one.

The statue, or government, or organization, with feet of clay is easily toppled. When we want

somebody to become independent, we tell them to stand on their own two feet, and to get both feet

on the ground. The unstable position and shaky argument puts a man where we say he doesn't have

a leg to stand on. All of the many texts about the Christian walk and the Christian stand make clear

that feet are essential equipment for the Christian life, for you cannot stand or walk without feet.

The feet can bring you to defeat, or they can march you to victory. Either way the feet play a

major role in every life, and that includes the life of our Lord. There are 27 references to the feet of

Jesus in the New Testament. That is likely a greater focus on feet than you will find in the

biography of any other man. Biblical times were times of far greater foot consciousness. There are

4 Hebrew and 2 Greek words for feet. There are 162 references to feet in the Old Testament, and 75

in the New Testament. Feet were just more conspicuous in that world where walking, marching,

and cleaning of feet, and sitting at the feet of others, were daily events.

The feet of Jesus were exposed, and so more people beheld the feet of Christ than other great men

of history. The feet of Jesus were the center of so much of His activity. In Matt. 15:30 we read,

"Great crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, blind, the crippled, the dumb and many others, and

laid them at His feet, and He healed them." Mary became famous for sitting at the feet of Jesus and

soaking in the wisdom of His teaching. Many were laid at His feet unable to walk, and Jesus lifted

them up and stood them on their own two feet again, and enabled them to walk and be restored to

the world of folks with feet that would function again. Only those who have lost the ability to walk

can appreciate how beautiful it must have been to be laid at the feet of one, who because He created

feet could fix them, and make them work again.

"I cried because I had no shoes till I saw a man who had no feet," is a popular saying, but here

were crowds who wept for joy, for those with no feet walked away from the feet of Jesus having

been made whole. Walking is being revived in our day for health and exercise, but in the day of

Christ walking was a necessity, and that is why one of the most frequent miracles of the New

Testament was that of making the lame walk. To be put back on your feet was to be given new life.

We take our feet for granted, and do not often consider that they are one of the wonders of creation.

Leonardo da Vinci called the feet, "A masterpiece of engineering and a work of art." There are

26 bones in each foot or 52 in both, and that is one forth of the bones in our body. By means of

these instruments the average person by the age of 55 has walked 70,000 miles, or 2 and one half