5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh: What is Real Strength? | 5 Minutes with Jesus | February 26, 2026
- You know, i think we are obsessed with strength
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- And status in our culture at times, even in the church.
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- But jesus showed us what real strength looks like.
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- As he washed his friend's feet,
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- Jesus showed us a different way to live,
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- To love, to serve,
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- Maybe be good for all of us.
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- To have a course in food washing for beginners.
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- Have you ever felt that someone kind of pulled
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- The rug out from under you, and you didn't see it coming?
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- That could leave you feeling very weak and vulnerable.
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- You know what i've discovered?
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- Like millions
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- Before me who have walked this path of faith that we are on.
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- That god will use the darkest of nights
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- To let us know that he is there.
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- That he upholds us, and that in our weakness he is strong.
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- On the night that christ was betrayed.
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- He told those closest to him.
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- You're going to have trouble in this world.
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- That is a given. don't be surprised by it.
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- A look anymore for trouble free life.
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- Take heart of overcome the world.
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- Well, that's quite a promise.
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- And jesus, his disciples, were about to find out
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- Just what it meant.
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- The fact is not lost on me that when jesus
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- Makes his promise to overcome the world,
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- His disciples, they're thinking things just
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- Might be looking up for them.
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- And they're people
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- Because they think he's going to overthrow the roman
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- Government and return power to god's people.
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- I mean, they've been with jesus for almost three
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- And a half years of ministry,
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- And they sense a change, this revolution in the air.
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- People follow jesus and he performs miracles.
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- And his teaching is full of authority.
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- But his stories always upend what the people think they know.
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- This is disturbing,
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- Especially to the traditionalists among them.
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- And jesus life
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- Has been threatened by religious officials and rabbis.
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- Well, now jesus has just entered jerusalem
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- And the people are greeting him with praises and spreading
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- The coats on the ground for him to cross over
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- The whole city is stirred up.
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- And so the disciples, as they're with jesus,
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- They're pointing out the temple buildings, thinking,
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- This is it.
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- This is the beginning of christ coming to give us a new king
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- With a new order.
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- They don't
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- Understand that jesus had not come to establish
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- An earthly kingdom then, but something far, far greater.
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- They don't see that jesus is life as a man
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- Is just hours away from being taken from him.
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- What they do see kind of confuses them.
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- After raising lazarus from the dead.
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- Jesus does not make a public appearance again.
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- He knows that his time is very short, and for a moment
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- He pulls away from his enemies to be with his closest friends,
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- To try and prepare them for what lies ahead.
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- So that is a stage set for jesus final night with his friends.
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- They go to the upper room and prepare to have supper.
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- But first, jesus needs to give them one final lesson.
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- Try to show them
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- One more way that he's come to bring revolution,
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- But that it actually begins in their hearts.
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- So he grabs a towel and a water basin,
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- And he begins to wash his disciples feet.
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- The disciples are stunned.
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- They would be king is just taken on the most demeaning,
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- Menial job reserved for non-jewish slaves.
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- The powerful has chosen the place of the lowliest.
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- Their strong arm has chosen to become
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- What looks weak to them.
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- We know that this is how
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- Jesus chose to spend his final hours on earth,
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- Choosing a place of weakness and humility,
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- A place of suffering and not seeming to overcome,
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- But to be downtrodden.
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- Had the disciples understood just how little sand
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- There was left to run through the hourglass?
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- They might have asked how is this overcoming
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- The world?
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- Maybe you find yourself at a place like that right now.
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- John's gospel states that at the beginning of the foot
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- Washing scene, having loved his own who were in the world,
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- He now showed them the full extent of his love
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- And washing his dear friends feet.
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- Jesus is giving them and us a taste of what he's about to do
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- For all of us to wash his clean and to use
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- Not only water, but his very blood.
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- You know, i think we are obsessed with strength
- 00:05:02.925 --> 00:05:05.328
- And status in our culture at times, even in the church.
- 00:05:05.328 --> 00:05:09.932
- But jesus showed us what real strength looks like.
- 00:05:09.932 --> 00:05:13.803
- As he washed his friend's feet,
- 00:05:13.803 --> 00:05:17.106
- Jesus showed us a different way to live,
- 00:05:17.106 --> 00:05:20.743
- To love, to serve,
- 00:05:20.743 --> 00:05:24.347
- Maybe be good for all of us.
- 00:05:24.347 --> 00:05:26.115
- To have a course in food washing for beginners.
- 00:05:26.115 --> 00:05:31.888
- Let me pray for you.
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- Lord, the grace you showed on that night
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- When you were betrayed is beyond me.
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- Even knowing what was just a few hours
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- Ahead of you and the devastation he would walk through,
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- You got down on your knees and you washed your friend's feet
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- And you were showing them.
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- This is what leadership looks like.
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- This is how a servant lives.
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- Lord, forgive us for the
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- Times when we try to think we're better than anybody else.
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- Would you help us to understand again
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- In your kingdom,
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- We get down on our knees and we wash each
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- Other's feet in a million ways.
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- We serve.
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- If anyone in all of human history could ever have said,
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- This is not my job, surely it was you on the cross,
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- But you did that to show us a different way to live.
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- And i ask holy spirit that you would give us the grace
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- To choose to live differently in jesus name.
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- Amen.
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