Good morning students,
Now that you have your Internet back you should be able to follow my adventures in Mistissini as well as do your devotions with me each morning. We are looking at Matthew 26 this morning.
Between the part about the leaders not having the brains to figure out how to arrest Jesus and the enemy doing the work for them, we have an incredible touching moment. Yet even here there were disturbers of the peace.
An unidentified woman entered the home of a man who was hosting Jesus. There she began to anoint Jesus with an expensive perfume. Thus was born a war that continues to this day as the voices cried out against the apparent waste of this act of love. In the Church we still have a tug of war between those who wish to pour out lavish love to God and those who want to be more practical in the use of things that could benefit humanity. How do we decide which is the better? Well, let's consider Jesus for a moment.
Do you remember the incident with Mary and Martha? Martha was very busy and for a legitimate reason. She was hosting Jesus. It was her responsibility and she took it seriously. But Mary had chosen to sit and listen to Jesus. It was a lavish use of her time. A practical use would have been to help Martha but Jesus said Mary had chosen wisely this day. Does that give us the right to do nothing? Far from it, but there is a time to be lavish in everything with God, time, money, talents. We need to be sensitive to these times.
It is the same with this incident at Bethany. This woman was moved to be lavish in her love for Jesus and no one should have criticized her for it. If we are all sensitive to the Spirit we would understand a lot more what peopel around us are doing. Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me." Is Jesus telling us to disregard the poor? Hardly. You should know better especially after yesterday's devotions. Jesus spent three years serving the needs of the multitudes. He had a great deal of compassion for them. But this was a time to be lavish in love to Jesus.
Have you ever know what it is to be lavish in love? Perhaps you have danced before God on Sunday. Maybe you sang louder than ever before. Maybe you emptied your pockets into the offering plate. If you have not then it would be hard for you to understand this moment. Trust me then when I say that we must learn to be sensitive to the Spirit in these matters and keep out comments and attitudes to ourselves.
11 comments:
I can't say I have ever been lavished in love toward anything. I never thought of these stories having anything to do with that either. Now I can see that this is really important though.
Money is just money. But today, money seems to be everything. You aren`t happy if you dont have money, you can`t do anything if you dont have money. It seems like it was the same back then. They dont want to use expensive perfume on Jesus because it costs a lot of money. To me, it`s as if they were saying that Jesus wasn`t worth the money spent on that perfume.
I wouldn't say that I'm lavished in love.... I will agree with both Niki and Olivia... The perfume was like just honoring God and asking for forgiveness.... And like the guy the Jesus was dining with thought that Jesus doesn't deserve the perfume and he should have it...
The bible "says there is a day for everything on this earth", so I thing that its not a bad thing that unidentified woman was showing her love to Jesus that way.But the thing is that not everyone would have done it the same way.People may think the way she didn't is not respectful or any other bad comment about it.but still we knew the reason why she was doing it.
It was very nice of the lady with the perfume to pour it on Jesus's feet. And Mary was smart to listen to God. Sometimes we don't really give God what he deserves. We might just whisper the song during church. or buying a whole bunch of junk instead of using the money for good.
we should always give God the most love and give him extra, and not the minimum. The woman went and bought a very expensive perfume and gave more than minimum. Like In schiool It is better if you do more and not just the bare minimum.
It's not easy keeping our comments and our attitudes just to ourselves. The poor women was crotized by many for having poured expensive oil on Jesus, she didn't do anything wrong all she did was honor him. That's why we realy need to try to be more sensitive to the Spirit.
I have never been lavished in love. I agree with brandon, we should always give God the Most love and not the minimum. I think the woman went to by that perfume and poor it on Jesus because she knew how much Jesus was worth, and how precious He was, but the people who criticized did not.
Whenever I read that story, I always think "What's wrong with those people? She's doing such a nice thing for Jesus and here they are criticizing her!", but than it hits me... Are we really all that different? Would we really respond any different than they did? Can we honestly say we would react any diffently? Do or commend or condemn those who we see giving it all to God when the money is needed somewhere else to pay bills/buy food/etc?
I don't think I've ever been lavished in love God, not saying that I don't want to be, I just never have yet. I know what you mean by it though, I've seen people lavished in God's love before. The girl who bought the perfume for Jesus' feet was probably thinking it was because he was worth the most expensive perfume. Mary who listened to God, had the same idea in mind, but gave him her time, her dedication, and her appreciation.
I agree with Olivia. The unidentified woman poured the expensive perfume on Jesus, because she was honoring Him. But, the man said that the perfume was very expensive and that she could have used the money for the poor. It was like he was saying that Jesus wasn't worth the price of the perfume.
Post a Comment