SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/13/2024 10:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The
Preparation of Loving Worship”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Matthew
26:6-13
Message
of the verses: “6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of
Simon the leper, 7 a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly
perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table. 8
But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said,
"Why this waste? 9 “For this perfume might have been sold
for a high price and the money given to the poor." 10 But
Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you bother the woman? For she
has done a good deed to Me. 11 “For you always have the poor with you; but you
do not always have Me. 12 “For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did
it to prepare Me for burial. 13 “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is
preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in
memory of her.’”
I
mentioned that I wanted to talk more about the Mary who did this loving deed
for Jesus in today’s SD. MacArthur
writes “Mary had always been specially attentive to the Lord’s teaching (see
Luke 10:39), and it seems that on this occasion she accepted the reality and
understood the significance of Jesus’ impending death better than the
Twelve. She may have sensed that in His
tragic death somehow lay her redemption.
She understood what the disciples did not want to understand, that Jesus
had to die in order to be raised again.
Unlike them, she was not caught up in the carnal, selfish desire for
Christ to establish His earthly kingdom immediately in order to share in the
glory and privilege that event would bring.”
In the Gospel there are two times
that Jesus was anointed like Mary was doing this time, and in the first time it
was by an unknown lady when Jesus was invited by a Pharisee to have dinner with
Him. This time it was Mary, and my
understanding that this was Martha and Lazarus’ sister. At any rate this was done as an act of unmeasured
love that Mary poured the perfume upon His head as He reclined at the table. The perfume was a pound of pure nard from
what John tells us in 12:3. In that
adoring testimony of love and honor Mary poured out her soul in worship even as
she poured out the perfume. Being
absolutely controlled by adoration for her Lord, she lost all sense of
restraint and economy.
I want to do one more quote from
MacArthur’s commentary and then continue this section in the next SD. Saturdays and Sundays are usually shorter SD’s
for me as there are things that I have to do, and today is no exception.
“May did not offer that valuable
possession to support a program or a ministry but offered it to Christ Himself. She did not selfishly seek a visible and
tangible result from her generosity but without hesitation offered her most
expensive earthly possession to the Lord in an act of effusive, adoring
worship.
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: It is my desire to have the same
kind of attitude that Mary had in offering her sacrifice of love to the
Lord. When doing things for other
people, especially believers it is like doing things for the cause of Christ
even though He is not on the earth at this time. Mary surely has set the bar very high and has
set a wonderful example of sacrificing to the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I trust that through the Holy Spirit that I
will be able to do the things for the cause of Christ in the same wonderful
attitude that Mary did as that is such a wonderful example of love for the
Lord.
4/13/2024
12:02 PM
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