Watchman Nee: The Normal Christian Life
Published in 1977 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc
Mark 14
1After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.
2But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.
3And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.
4And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said,
Why was this waste of the ointment made?
5For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
6And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.
7For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.
8She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.
9Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
Why did Jesus say that the story of Mary pouring the ointment on his head would be told with the Gospel? he wishes that we be willing to waste ourselves on him, to count him more precious that anything that we have. He wishes us to consider that nothing that we could possibly give him is too costly.
Are we worried that our talents are not being used, that our lives are somehow being wasted? All that God really wants is that we waste ourselves on him, and as our lives are crushed and broken as we bear the cross, our lives wasted unto him become a sweet fragrance that will stir a hunger in others for Christ. As an alabaster box is broken and the sweet aroma fills the room, Christ desires our lives to be broken and the fragrance to draw people to worship Him.
"Clearly it is this, that in approving Mary's action at Bethany, the Lord Jesus was laying down one thing as a basis of all service: that you pour out all you have, your very self, unto him; and if that should be all he allows you to do, that is enough . . . the Lord's first concern is with our position at his feet and our anointing of his head. Whatever we have as an "alabaster box": the most precious thing, the thing dearest in the world to us - yea, let me say it, the outflow from us of a life that is produced by the very Cross itself - we give that all up to the Lord." (Nee 274)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=s68w2eO3B7s
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