Adoration (Daily Devotional)

Welcome everyone, we are talking about worship and we are trying to understand what worship is. We know that it is our response to who God is and our response is one of bowing down before Him, honoring Him, loving Him because He is so wonderful. Today, I want us to look at this incident in Mark chapter 14, from verses 3 to 9 and that passage talks about Mary of Bethany. Mary of Bethany who at the house of Simon, the leper; Jesus was there and this woman took an alabaster flask which had a very costly oil of spikenard and we read the rest of that incident there that she broke the flask, poured it on His head and then there was a certain response from the people around her. What does this passage teach us about worship? This is Mary’ worship. She recognizes that Jesus is God, she recognizes that He is Lord and she finds the best way she knows to express her honor for Jesus. We see that she brings the spikenard and from what we learn, spikenard in those times, it was more like an heirloom in families, it was even passed on from generation to generation because it was so expressive. There were families where mothers used to hand it over to their daughters because it was like an investment which would help people during their difficult financial times. Think about Mary, she is bringing this very, very expensive oil in the alabaster jar and she doesn’t hesitate to break that jar and it says she pours that oil on Jesus. It is a picture of sacrificial worship, and extravagant worship where she doesn’t know what else is good enough for Jesus. In those times, spikenard was used to anoint people and guests but only a dab of the oil because it was so expensive but Mary does something here, she pours it on Jesus. In a way it was like anointing of kings, that oil was poured on their head and Mary does that because she recognizes the worth of Jesus as a king. When she worships, there are a couple of other things that we can see here. It was very quiet, she didn’t try to make a noise about it or she didn’t want people to see it and applaud her, it was a very personal act of worship, very quiet and she just wanted to anoint Him and nothing more than that, to express her worship. It shows us how our worship can be personal, how it can recognize the worth and value of our God and how it can be so precious. We also notice that when Mary worshipped in this way, there was criticism. There were people around her, particularly Judas who criticized her about how she had wasted expensive oil but he had his own vested interests, his own selfish motives. But here as Mary, none of that bothered her. It was her personal worship and she poured it out and that is how, when we know the worth of who our God is, we begin to pour out our worship, no matter who says what because He is so worthy. Let’s pray together, Heavenly Father, we thank you for this beautiful picture of pouring the nard on your head. Help us that when we worship, that it will be true, it will be personal, it will be extravagant because you are worthy of it all, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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