Have your feet been giving you trouble lately?
If you’re anything like me, they can drive you crazy. They get tired and sore and achy. I have a standing desk, and after a long stretch on my feet, I feel it. Back in high school I had athlete’s foot, and man, was that uncomfortable. I’ve had ingrown toenails too. Maybe you’ve dealt with bunions, corns, calluses, hammertoe or plantar fasciitis. Our feet take a beating.
Well, regardless of how our feet fail us, the Bible says it’s possible to have beautiful feet. Not just decent feet. Gorgeous ones. Maybe you’ve never connected your feet with your faith, but they are intricately linked, and Isaiah 52:7 makes the connection for us.
What Isaiah 52:7 says about feet
Check out Isaiah 52:7. The prophet writes, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news.” Then he tells us what that messenger carries. He announces peace. He brings good news of happiness. He announces salvation and says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
Another translation uses the word beautiful rather than lovely. Either way, Scripture is telling us that feet can be lovely.
Beautiful feet are not just for women
Now maybe you’re a man and you’re thinking, “Jeff, I don’t know that I want beautiful feet. That doesn’t sound very masculine.” Now while that may be how we usually talk, notice the pronoun at the beginning of the verse. It speaks of the feet of him who brings good news. In the original Hebrew, the messenger is described in the masculine. So yes, anyone can have lovely, beautiful feet. Not just women, but boys and men too.
And it does not require getting a pedicure.
It’s where your feet take you
Here’s the point. Lovely feet are not based on what you have done to your feet. Lovely feet are based on where your feet take you.
Why would Scripture talk about someone’s feet when the message comes out of their mouth? Because your feet take the message where it needs to go. As long as your feet take you to places where you share a certain kind of information, your feet are lovely.
Well, what kind of information? Once again, the passage gives us the answer. The person with beautiful feet brings good news, announces peace, and announces salvation itself.
Be a good newscaster
When it comes right down to it, there are two kinds of newscasters. Bad newscasters go around talking about all the horrible, negative things going on in our world. Political parties butting heads. Wars overseas. This nation and that nation putting coalitions together. There is no shortage of bleak reports.
Rather than focusing on those, you and I can be good newscasters. That is precisely what Isaiah 52:7 describes. We announce peace. We bring good news of happiness. We announce salvation, the eternal life, joy and hope that can be found in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Say so, day after day
We are told repeatedly in the Scriptures how important it is for God’s people to get out there and share their faith.
Psalm 107:2 says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” If you have been redeemed from the hand of the adversary, the spiritual enemy of your soul, Satan himself, then you need to say so. You need to tell others what God has done in your life.
Psalm 96:2 says, “Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day.” Notice that last phrase. Day to day. This should be an ongoing, regular, continual proclamation. Not some sporadic hiccup that gets communicated once in a while, but, if possible, day after day.
You are the preacher
Romans 10:14 asks a string of questions: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
But please don’t think of a preacher only as some seminary-trained, Bible college-trained individual standing behind a pulpit on Sundays. No. All of God’s people are to be preachers. All of us are to be proclaimers of this good news. And when someone pushes back, it helps to know how to respond when someone says “I don’t believe the Bible”.
There also needs to be a sense of urgency, because people are hurting. They’re struggling. They’re feeling defeated, and in some cases despondent and depressed. They need hope. And that’s where you come in, my friend.
What are your feet preaching?
So let me summarize. Isaiah 52:7 says beautiful feet belong to the one who brings good news, announces peace, and announces salvation. Beautiful feet have nothing to do with a pedicure and everything to do with where you go and what you carry when you get there. And Scripture calls every believer, not just the pastor, to say so, day after day.
Your feet preach every day. The question is what they’re saying. So take those feet of yours and be a good newscaster, so the people around you can hear what it takes to enter into a personal relationship with the true and living God.
If you’re going to take those feet God has given you and get out there and share your faith with someone who needs to hear the good news right away, I’d love to hear from you.
If you’re committed to being a good newscaster with those feet of yours, head over to the video and jot down the word feet in the comments.
Until next time, may God grant you and yours his strength for today.
