The way to enjoy your relationship with Christ.

Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over;" (John 13:10)
And in those words The Holy Spirit gives you a beautiful explanation of the process of salvation. It begins with a bath. That initial coming to Christ, in which you take the place of bankruptcy before him, coming without any trace of your own righteousness to offer, and allowing Jesus to cleanse you, is like a bath in which you are washed all over, completely, from head to foot. Jesus is referring to a very common social practice in those days. It was the custom to take a bath before you went out for a meal. But in walking through the dirty streets of the city with sandals on, your feet would be defiled. And so when you arrived as a guest, a servant would wash your feet. But you would not need to repeat the bath.
So Jesus is saying, "When you first come to me, you are bathed, you are cleaned all over." This is what the Bible calls "justification by faith." It is a washing away of all the guilt, all the defilement, and all the evil and sin of your entire life -- past, present, and future. But as you walk through life, Jesus knows, there will be defilement contracted in the feet, in the walk, and that needs to be washed away. Thus he teaches you that not only do you need that initial never-to-be-repeated cleansing, which washes you as a bath; but you need also the many-times-repeated experience of forgiveness, of coming to Christ for the cleansing away of the defilement of your life’s walk, and being forgiven again and again and again, over and over again. It is this which determines that you have a part with him.
In other words, the enjoyment of your relationship with Christ is lost when you are temporarily defiled by wrongdoing, by guilt and by sin, by attitudes which are wrong in your life. You lose the enjoyment of your relationship with him. His attitude toward you doesn't change, but your attitude toward him does. That is why you are taught all through the Scriptures, "If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness," (1 John 1:9). And the moment you do so you are renewed, that original cleansing is renewed to you, and you feel that cleansing once again -- the washing, the restoration, the renewing of your spirit, the lifting up of the vitality of your spiritual life -- and you go on again, restored. Every believer has experienced this, but Jesus makes it clear to Peter.

Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part [with] me." (John 13:8)

And Peter's error is still being repeated today. There are those who, like him, refuse to have Jesus wash their feet. They are rejecting the basic way for enjoying their relationship with Christ. When people refuse to let Jesus wash their feet, as Peter said, they lose that sense of partnership with him.

On the other hand, there are those who, like Peter, feel that they need a bath all over again when they sin, that they have lost their salvation and that somehow they have to start all over in their Christian experience. Many people are laboring under those delusions, who think that they need to be born, not only again, but again and again and again. But Jesus teaches you by this whole process that only one bath is needed. This is reflected in the truth of baptism. You are baptized once, as the initial act. But the Lord's Supper reflects the washing of the feet, the need for the cleansing again and again through life from the defilement and the guilt of sin.

(John 13:12-17) In those words Jesus is explaining the meaning of what he is doing. He begins again with his own authority. "You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right. I am your teacher, I am your Lord -- your teacher, with the right to instruct you; your Lord, with the right to command you." He acknowledges his own claims before them, asserts that he has this right in their lives. But his argument is, "If I, then, with this acknowledged position of authority in your lives, have washed your feet, then you also are to wash one another's feet."

But what he means is that just as you need the cleansing and forgiveness of the Lord in order to maintain the sense of unity and refreshment of spirit in your Christian life, so you need to forgive one another, to extend to one another free forgiveness for guilt and for the injury that they may have done to you. You are to be, "tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, through Christ, has forgiven you," (Ephesians 4:32 ). This is what Jesus taught you in the Lord's Prayer "Forgive us our trespasses, even as we forgive those who have trespassed against us," Matthew 6:12). He is exhorting you to forgive others, and his authority to do so is based upon his own example.

He knows that it is difficult, sometimes, to forgive, that the flesh within cries out for revenge. But you’re forgetting that Jesus the Lord and Master humbled himself. He laid his rights to be worshiped all aside, did not demand it, did not seek it, did not insist upon it, and washed the feet of his own disciples. And so he says that you must do the same for one another.