"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God: so He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around His waist... and began to wash the disciples' feet."
       He took a towel. He did that! God incarnate took a towel and performed the task invariably assigned to the lowest slave. And that, even that, was not the final depth of humility to which He stooped. For, bearing our sin and atoning for our guilt, the Man with the towel became the Man on the tree in a self-humbling which baffles our comprehension.
      In Matthew 11.29 Jesus asserts, "I am meek and lowly in heart." So as I remember Him, my ego starts to shrink to its proper pigmy proportions. Are you having a battle with pride? Is it hard to be authentically humble? Do you wish to be served rather than to serve? Do you twitch emotionally with the itch to be important and well-known and successful and influential and admired and envied; an idolized big-shot?
       Tell you what. Take a small piece of towel. Put it in your wallet or billfold. Carry it with you everywhere. Look at it daily for the first few weeks after you voluntarily join the highest and noblest of all fraternities: The Royal Order of the Towel. Do that, if you are able to do it sincerely. Let the towel become your insignia. Let the towel remind you of your Master. Let the towel motivate you to follow the example of our God who humbled Himself to wash feet and wash consciences and wash records.
       The guaranteed solution to our personal and ecclesiastical and national problem of pride is the self-humbling spirit of the man who girded Himself with a towel and died in disgrace on a tree. James 2.8, "If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, 'Love your neighbor as yourself,' you are doing right." And Jesus said, "whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20.26)