Do you place a cap on your love and affection for Christ? Still thinking about the woman in Mark 14 who removed the cap and emptied her jar of expensive ointment-like perfume on Jesus‘ head. This pint of pure nard would likely have been a valuable family heirloom passed down like jewelry for generations. Normally, such an object would have been precious and prized and sold only in a time of great need. The text tells us that her possession could have been sold for a year’s wages.
She did this for the sheer beauty of WHO HE IS and WHAT HE HAS DONE. Her love, affection and worship for Him seemed to be LIMITLESS even in the face of the criticism of the religious right who charged her with being excessive in her practice. So I ask, where do you place limits on your devotion to Christ? Are you afraid of being too excessive? Do you think that when you give of yourself or your possessions that you will somehow be short-changed?
Our affection should rival the woman in the passage because she had an experiential understanding of the magnitude of His worth and His love for her. It was like she was singing along with the hymn writer of When I survey the Wondrous Cross:
“Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; (if everything belonged to me and I gave it all to Him, it wouldn’t be near enough)
“Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”
Lead, Laugh, Love 