John 12:4-11
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. "Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you,[c] but you will not always have me..."
When Maria offered the perfume to the Lord, Judas Iscariot felt unease about it, so he said "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?" In other word, why waste the perfume on the feet of Jesus? Why not use it to help the poor people? In our life or in the church, we often see these things from perspective of people. We know it's important to help the poor, do good deeds, and hold meetings, so why would anyone waste time, money and energy to anoint the feet of Jesus? Actually, Maria valued the presence of the Lord, and she valued the Lord's will and satisfaction more than any activity and good deed.
Brothers and sisters, we often only pay attention to things on the outside, but overlook the fact that it is the presence of the Lord that can truly satisfy the hearts and souls of people. When we are serving God, do we pay attention to the presence of the Lord, or we only care about whether the event was successfully done? Very often we only pay attention to whether the activity had a lively atmosphere, and that's like celebrating a birthday by announcing: "today is his birthday, let's have a joyful time together," and then afterwards no one pays any attention to the birthday guy. Can you imagine how the birthday guy feels? His birthday was declared, but afterwards he was totally neglected.
This is the condition of the church today. We gather in the name of Jesus, but we actually don't pay much attention to how Jesus feels. What does Jesus want to do today? What does He want to say? We usually just do what we want to do and say what we want to say, but seldom put attention on whether the Lord is with us. Of course you might say that as long as we gather in the name of the Lord, He's surely among us, but is He with us with joy, or is He with us in sorrow? We need to spend time to learn the Lord's will, and to satisfy the Lord's will. May the Lord help us to be more like Maria, be close to our Lord, to be considerate of Him, so that the Lord's will may be satisfied among us!
Pray with Pastor Tong
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