Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of song and lyrics from the group Hillsong United singing … Here I Am To Worship … poignantly declaring in song that we worship King Jesus in His worthiness as our Lord and Savior.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Luke 23:34 … [NLT] …
3 Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar[b] of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.
… Mary’s worship is the essence of complete surrender to King Jesus.
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Highlight Passage [context]: John 12:1-8 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Mary, the sister of Lazarus, worships her Lord, Yeshua Hamashia, by anointing his feet with expensive oil and cleansing his feet with her hair.
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … 2nd Samuel 6:21-22 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK…
... David explains to his wife how his joy in worshipping the Lord overwhelms his desire to please the judgment of others.
Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : … Psalms 139:23-24 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… As the ODB Author declares: Our worship is right when we are right with God.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Julie Ackerman Link, used a biblical story to illustrate that the essence of our worship of Jesus, Our King and Messiah, is complete surrender to Him. The ODB author wrote: Shortly before Jesus was crucified, a woman named Mary poured a bottle of expensive perfume on His feet. [see photo] Then, in what may have been an even more daring act, she wiped His feet with her hair (John 12:3). Not only did Mary sacrifice what may have been her life’s savings, she also sacrificed her reputation. In first-century Middle Eastern culture, respectable women never let down their hair in public. But true worship is not concerned about what others think of us (2 Sam. 6:21–22). To worship Jesus, Mary was willing to be thought of as immodest, perhaps even immoral.
Fellow readers, what do you think is the essence or true worship of our Lord, King Jesus? Well, the scene of Mary, the sister of her brother, Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, anointing and cleansing the feet of the man she recognized as the Son of God and her Messiah, illustrates that the essence of true worship of our Lord is SURRENDER [see highlight passage above]. Mary was in complete surrender to her Lord when she cleansed His feet, even though some of the Disciples, like Judas Iscariot, felt her act was wasteful. King David illustrated the same surrender to his God when he danced almost naked in celebration of the Ark being returned to the Temple (see 2nd Samuel 6:21-22).
The question raised by this ODB entry, … at least to me, … is whether our worship of King Jesus has that attitude of complete surrender to our Lord that Mary or David displayed to their God. In fact, as any reader reads this, hopefully in an attitude of worship, as Hillsong sings in today’s song, is our heart in surrender mode in worshipping our Lord today? Or as we go to church this Sunday for Easter service, will we be there to surrender in worship to the one Who was raised from the tomb in glorious victory over death; … or will we be there merely to show that we are wearing fine clothes.
As the ODB author states today, … our worship can only be right when we’re right with God; and as was Mary that day, are we here to worship today with a clean and pure heart of total surrender to our Lord?
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … King Jesus, … my Lord and Savior, … here I am to worship You !! … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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