Monday Morning Mail, 7th April 2014

Good Morning!

Yesterday morning, we looked at John 12:1-11, which is the story of Mary anointing Jesus' feet with perfume that cost a year's wages.

We saw that Mary's grateful, responsive, loving, extravagant, disgraceful love was exactly the right response to Jesus, even though it left her with no money, no provision for the future and her reputation in tatters. In contrast, Judas was shown to be hiding his real sin behind trying to look pious.

One of the ways we applied it was by thinking about whether we hold back from worshipping God for fear of what other people think, whether that's when singing at church or when speaking to our friends at work or at the pub, or even whether we're sometimes, like Judas, people who sit on the sidelines and snipe at those who are putting their hearts into worshipping God.

We also saw how Mary's action predicts what Jesus is about to do – that she becomes the servant who washes Jesus' feet and who makes herself nothing, just as he is about to wash his disciples' feet as a sign that he makes himself nothing for them.

So the challenge for all of us is this. God does not hold back in showing his love for us. He poured himself out, made himself nothing for us, took on the very nature of a servant and humbled himself even to taking our guilt, shame and disgrace as he died for us on the cross.

Will we hold back from loving him, for fear of what others will think? Will we even criticise those who respond rightly to what God has done for us?

As Paul wrote in Romans:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

God bless,

John