No 3

(Mary)

One day, Jesus was in the town of Bethany at the house of some friends and was teaching as he usually did. One of the members of the household say down at His feet and listened attentively to what He was saying. This same person, on another occasion took a pound of expensive spikenard ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus because His crucifixion and death was approaching. If you haven’t already guessed, this person was Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus who considered worship more important than service. In the Bible, God has allocated more space to worship than any other theme; rightfully so, this is why we were created: “…for the Father seekth such to worship Him” (John 4:23). In the Old Testament, there are hundreds of verses that speak of worship. Mary knew that and did not want to miss an opportunity to worship Jesus and be close to Him. Mary’s example is one that we can and should follow. Are we more involved in service than worship? Think about it. How many hours, per week, do we spend on worship and how many do we spend on service? It’s good to take inventory sometimes because we can often get off the right track and do works that are important but are not necessarily what God wants of us primarily. Martin Luther, the reformist spent much time in prayer and meditation; on very busy days, he spent three hours with his Creator. We are not all afforded this privilege but should make an effort to spend as much time as we can in worship. Of course, there are many forms of worship that we have seen in our past studies (Vol 1 No 8 – Aug 18 2000). Our loving heavenly Father wants to be in communion with us; let’s be like Mary.