By John Crist
Mark 14:3-9
And 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.
And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.
For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.
She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.
Verily 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.
Almost exclusively, without exception, save one, God is continually mentioned from a male perspective. The Bible says that, “He is a man of war…” It refers to Him as being the “Father,” the “Abba” of creation. Almost exclusively it refers to Him from a male perspective. It indicates to us that when He got ready to show us what He looked like He created Adam while Eve was still shut up in his body. Portraying to us the wholeness and the fulness of the Godhead, that everything that He needed, He had within Himself, and that He was complete, lacking nothing!
One of the things that we must understand when we look at Adam, we begin to understand something about God’s personality, because God needs to be praised! He needs to be worshipped! He made man so much like Him that man wasn’t happy just giving praise to God and nobody honoring him, and so God said, “It is not good for the man to dwell alone…” He said, “I’m going to pull out of you, like I pulled out of Me!” God pulled out of His divinity, humanity, and made Adam! He reached into man’s humanity and pulled out Eve and made His bride! And as man was created to the glory of God, the woman was created to the glory of the man, and so they looked from one to the other! Perpetually expending themselves from one to the other!
God is a speaking God. He opens His mouth and speaks, and out of the spoken Word, He creates, and when He gets ready to be praised, He doesn’t want us to “think” of praise, He wants us to “say” a praise! He wants to hear you say it! It builds His divine ego for you to tell Him how good He is! Praise affects God the way praise affects a man. When you praise a man, it will make him outdo himself! If you tell him he is good or he is wonderful, he will extend himself, he will hurt himself trying to live up to what you said! Man is so much like God; if you really want God to perform in your life, just start bragging on Him, and start telling Him how good He is! When you start telling Him how good He is, you’re telling Him, “You’re my way-maker!” “You’re my joy!” “My bridge over troubled waters!” He starts flexing His muscles and showing off and extending Himself! That’s what David meant when he said, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together!” The word “magnify” causes confusion in my mind because I understand God to be omnipresent, meaning that He is everywhere! And yet David teaches me that when I praise God, He is magnified! How can I make an all-inclusive God bigger than He is? And yet he says that if I would just talk to Him, God would magnify, (swell up), God would become larger! He would extend Himself! I cannot make Him any bigger than He is in the universe, but He will be magnified in me! If I’ve only got a small regimented amount if anointing, instead of me getting jealous when you get up with a greater anointing, if I would begin to praise God the anointing in me would begin to swell up! The apothecary would begin to stir up the anointing that He has placed down within me, until it begins to swell up and God is magnified in me!
That means that if I want a greater expression of God, I cannot sit up with my lips glued together, with an aloof expression on my face, and expect to get a mighty move of God! I want you to understand that if you are going to get what God has for you, you are going to have to break out of your comfort zone! God did not promise to fit into your training, background and personality. God did not promise to fit into your little idiosyncrasies! God did not promise to be housed in any man’s culture or philosophy! God is to big to be held to the principles of your age or time! God say’s, “I know what I want, and I like what I want, and I want somebody to praise me!” “If I can get somebody to praise me, I will bless them!” “…For thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are created!” He let us know that when He started creating things, I didn’t create things to make Me any more God than I already was, I just created things that would acknowledge that I am God! I created something that would just tell me that I am what I already knew I was! The heavens are telling the glory of God! The atmosphere, birds, lilies, are telling the glory of God! The oak tree is stretching out it’s arms in praise and grass is leaping up out of the ground, testifying to the authenticity of the glory of God! The whole creation acknowledges the sovereignty and the awesome force of God, for God is the God of all flesh, and He sitteth on the circle of the earth, and He has all power in His possession! If your going to be blessed, you are going to have to be the kind of person that acknowledges the power of God!
God likes to be sought after! The Bible said, “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is yet near, let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts!” God likes to be sought after! He says, “Call on me, will I not answer thee!” God likes for you to put forth effort to come into His presence! He did not promise to make it comfortable for you. He likes to find you in pursuit of Him! He says, “I won’t open a door unless you knock on it!” In other words, you have to be the initiator; you have to solicit an action that brings about a response! When He finds you trying to get it, He will make it available to you! “I know you are outside the door, but if you don’t knock, I’m not going to open it!” “I know you don’t have the answer, but if you don’t seek, you won’t find it!” “I know you confused, but if you don’t ask Me, I won’t answer you!” He says, “I get my blessing out of seeing you trying to get to me!” “When I see you trying to get me, I open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that you will not even have room enough to receive!”
God rejected Saul as King of Israel because he sought the position of God more than he sought the presence of God! God is not promoting people who are self-seekers. God is not promoting people who are consumed with seeking positions! God is promoting people who are seeking the presence of God! If you are somebody who is worried about who is going to get the promotion, the title, and who’s going to sit on the right, and who’s going to sit on the left, and who’s going to be great and mighty, and who’s going to be wonderful! God is not interested in your program at all! He did not be God in order to promote your agenda! God is not God just to be your bell-boy! God said, “I’m going to wait, I’m going to hold out, I’m going to freeze you out until you realize that I am not here to serve you, but you are here to serve me!” When it is all said and done, God is saying, “I don’t have to chase anybody, anywhere!” “So tell Jonah I’m not chasing him all across the ocean, I’ll stop the boat in the middle of the ocean, swallow him up with a fish, because I’m God, and I don’t have to chase nobody!” “Before I let you get away, I’ll hold you in fish guts for three days!” “I’ll make him vomit you up on the shore and make you run back home, because I’m God, and when you get back there, I’ll be right where I told you I was going to be before you showed up!” Seek the Lord!
Saul got rejected by God because he sought everything else more than he sought God. We are living in an age where people are seeking everything else more than they seek God! They are seeking fame and fortune, they are working overtime, and around the clock, and on Sunday’s, and on week-ends, and taking two jobs, and extra jobs, because we seek the wealth of the world! We seek the blessings more than we seek the blessor! God will sooner or later make you to understand that the blessing doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have a relationship with the blessor! Sometimes He will freeze you out. He’ll let you get what you want and then show you that you don’t’ want what you got! Some of you married folk ought to say Amen! “I can’t live without Roger!” “I know he’s not saved, Pastor, but I just got to marry him, and I just think that someday the Lord’s going to save him!” Two years later they are in the office, “Roger’s killing me, I don’t know how I got in this mess!” Woe be unto the person who seeks anything above God. For whatever that thing is that becomes an idol in your life, for whatever you pursue, you worship! Be careful what you chase! If you are going to pursue it, be sure that it is good enough to be your God! Make sure that it can heal you! When you are dying, make sure that it can raise you! When your children are in trouble, make sure that it can find them in another state! Be careful what you choose to be your God!
God rejected Saul, because Saul sought the position and not the presence of God. While Samuel lay around in depression over God rejecting Saul, God went on a man-hunt. God doesn’t spend a lot of time crying over who doesn’t want to do. You can be replaced! God’s got somebody, drunk, sleeping up under a bridge, that will out sing you, out preach you, out pray you and everything else, God is not in trouble. So when you get all upset and you say you’re quitting, and you’re not going to come, and you’re not going to do it, and you’re not going serve, don’t expect heaven to go bankrupt because you got an attitude! God told Samuel, “While you were weeping, I was looking for a man, and I found me a man!” God never goes looking for anything that He cannot find! He said, “I found me a man that is after mine own heart!”
One of the few things that God ever sought was a worshipper. “For God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in the spirit and in the truth, for the father seeketh such to worship Him…” God said, “I sought a man, and I found a man that was after my own heart…” “Not perfect, not clean, not a pattern of my heart, that’s not what I mean. I found a man that was pursuing me!” A man that was after His heart! He kept searching till He found a man that was searching for Him! “I found a boy that was outside on a hill, dancing before me!” “He was just a dancing out there in the middle of the woods, there wasn’t nobody around, just a bunch of sheep! He didn’t have any nice clothes, smelt like the sheep-cote, but he was standing out in the middle of a dry place, twirling around on a mountain, saying, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want…,’ and I’m going to bless him!” “He’s singing me songs, he’s writing me poetry, he’s after me, he’s courting me, he’s flirting with me, he’s telling me how good I am!” “He’s telling me I’m able, I can do anything but fail, He’s calling me his strength and his life, he’s calling me bulwark and his tower, I’m going to bless him!” When God finds someone who will seek Him, He will promote them. God said, “I’m going to make him king!” “He hasn’t been trained for it, groomed for it, didn’t grow up in the courts, knows no protocol, nobody even knows him, his own daddy didn’t support him, his brothers don’t like him, but I’m going to make him king!” “Go find him, don’t act like he’s not there, but find him, and when you find him, anoint him to be king!” It don’t matter how many people look over you, if you will get in your prayer closet and go to seeking and praising God, God will find you. God says that He is going to seek the man that seeks Him!
Ps 27:1-4
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.
Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.
One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.
Not many things, I’m not after everything, I’m not position, I’m not after title, I don’t want to be in the clique, nor in the club, I don’t want you to be impressed with me, you ain’t got to praise me, “…One thing have I desired of the Lord,” There is but one thing that I have desired of the Lord, and “….That will I seek after!” I want it bad enough to get out of my comfort zone, bad enough to extend myself, bad enough to get in the car and drive for two or three hours where the anointing is falling, “….That will I seek after, (and when I find it), I will dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life. To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple, for in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion, in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me, He shall set me up upon a rock, and now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me, and I will sing, Yea, I will sing praises unto my God, Hear O’ Lord when I cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me and answer me, for when thou saidest, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face Lord will I seek. Hide not thy face from me O’ thou my redeemer!”
Ps 42:1
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Ps 91:1-2
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Ps 63:1-2
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;
To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.
God was searching for, and found a man that would seek Him! God raised him up because he was somebody that would seek His face.
But how can we seek Him, if we think we have known Him? The problem with this generation is that we have decided that we know God. You know how it is when you get in a conversation with people who like to impress you with who they know. This generation has that attitude about God! You know how we run around telling everybody that we know God. Do you really think that you know God? GOD? God, who stood on the mountains, and in a body of His clearness, they looked through Him and saw the creation? God, that sitteth on the circle of the earth? God, that stands in eternity and speaks into time? God, that by whom and in whom all things consist? God, who upholds all things by the word of His power? God, who spoke to the sun and said, “Stay where I put you.”? God, who stepped down into hell and took authority over the demonic kingdom and walked up to Satan and yanked the keys from him, and on His way out, pulled the sting out of death and reached over and grabbed victory out of the cell? GOD? YOU KNOW GOD!?!? We don’t know God. We know church, protocol, greek, Hebrew, and each other, but we do not know God! Who told you that you knew God? Moses followed God out into the desert and confessed that he led over one million people and he said, “God, you know me, but I don’t know you!” You don’t even know your own family members, how do you think you know God? Your children are still shocking you, how do you think you know God? Moses said, “I’m serving you, and I’m leading your people, but I don’t know you!” And God said, “Moses, there is a place beside me, no man has ever sought it, but if you will come a little higher, I’ll set you in the place, and I will show you my glory,” “You don’t know it yet, but I’m going to pass by you, my goodness is going to fall over you, I’m going to show you my glory!” “Why?” “Because you asked me!” “Because you sought me, I’m going to expose you to a level of glory that others don’t know about!”
Saul, turned Paul on the Damascus road, the writer of most of the Epistles of the New Testament, perhaps one of the greatest Apostles to contribute to us a revelation of Jesus Christ, after leading and pastoring and becoming a pastor’s pastor, after studying the law zealously, a Hebrew amongst Hebrews, from the tribe of Benjamin, excellent in all the law, concerning the law, zealous to the point of being a Pharisee, converted to Christianity, pursuing God with his whole heart and his whole life, to say, “O that I may know Him..” I wrote most of the New Testament and I didn’t know Him! “…..That I may know Him…” I don’t know enough about Him, My only problem is that I don’t know Him. “O that I may know Him!” I want to know all about Him, not just the Santa Claus, Gimme gimme, “I want to know Him in the fellowship of His suffering…” I want to know Him when all hell is breaking loose! When friends have forsaken me! With sweat on my brow and nails in my hands! When I feel naked and exposed on the crosses of life! “O that I may know Him!”
This generation knows nothing of suffering. We want the candy cane gospel, but we don’t want the suffering. No matter what your theology, sooner of later, they that live Godly shall suffer persecution. “O that I may know Him, in the fellowship of His suffering, and in the power of His resurrection!”
Perhaps we have allowed ourselves to believe that we’ve known Him, and maybe that’s why we won’t seek Him! For why would you seek what you think you already have? Perhaps the greatest deception that Satan has unleashed upon this generation, is a false sense of security and contentment. That’s one reason we have to hire people to lead us into the presence of the Lord! Our preacher’s cannot edify us, they must entertain us! We have more equipment than we have ever had before, we know more ABOUT praise than we ever knew before, we can explain it, but we cannot do it! Our people come to church like spectators to a concert, they sit around like they are listening to a musical, and evaluate who is the best entertainer. They evaluate who can move me best!
Who are you that you should be moved? Did we not come to stir God? Did we not come to move heaven? Did we not come to bless the Lord? Who are YOU? And yet He blesses us over and over again, while we are sitting back and looking for it. He knows that if He didn’t give you your nest breath, you couldn’t catch it in a fast car. He said, “Let every thing that hath breath, praise ye the Lord!” And you make the excuse that you are not emotional. The problem is that you are not obedient! This is not a feeling, this is a fact, it is a direct command, a sovereign God who says, “If you are going to please Me, then praise Me!”
I submit to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that we have gotten used to God! We’ve had so many good services, choirs, sermons, preachers; we have gotten used to God. We have gotten so used to Him that we decide whether we are going to come to church or not. We schedule Him like He is a little league football or baseball game! Like a man and a woman who have been married so long that they have gotten used to what they used to be in love with! Have e not gotten used to God! The chill-bumps! The anointing! The singing! So used to it all, until we are not impressed with our own Saviour!
It’s nothing new. You are not the first generation to do this. The disciples, when they first met Him, they were so impressed with Him that they quit their jobs and left their families, to walk with Him. “Never mind what I am going to eat, just keep talking to me Jesus!” Jesus said, “Will you leave me?” “No Lord, we will never leave you, where would I go?” “In your hands are the words of eternal life!” “I need you Lord, I’m not going anywhere!” Dr. Luke quit His job to walk with Him! Tax-collectors became soul-collectors to walk with Jesus! Fishermen became fishers of men! Just to hear the word! The problem was that they had been around Him so much, heard so many testimonies, seen so many miracles, seen so many healings, walked with Him when He was performing, and was with Him when He was tired; You see, the test is not how you walk with God when he is moving, an atheist could walk with God while He is moving, the real test is to walk with God when he seems to be doing nothing at all! They had spent normal days with Jesus! Bathing, washing clothes, setting up tents, moving from city to city, doing the work of the Lord, but they had forgotten the Lord of the work! So busy being busy, they didn’t notice that the fire had dwindled in their eyes. They had gotten used to Jesus, in fact, they were ministering to His every need, but now He was just one of the fellows, so now when they came into the little house in Bethany, Jesus was with them, and it was no big deal!
Can you imagine that? Jesus being with you in your house, and it’s no big deal? Can you imagine Him sitting at the table with you and your family, and it’s no big deal, no special place, no china, no crystal, no big deal. Isn’t that like when we come into His house, and the anointing moves, and worship goes up and you go, “Ho-Hum, it’s no big deal.” Wouldn’t it be nice if we would uncross our legs and lift our hands in the presence of the Lord?
They were used to Jesus, and so when he came in, Peter, James, and John and all the rest just plopped down in a chair. “Get a seat Jesus, make yourself at home.” “Boy, I’m tired!” “What a day!” “So much to be done!” “I would wash your feet; its’ not that I wouldn’t; I would do it; you know my heart, Jesus!” “I would pay my tithes, I mean if there was really a need, I mean, you know I would, you know my heart Jesus!” It wasn’t convenient, and so they sat at meat with Jesus, as if HE were nothing at all! You know the problem with some people right now is that you are dealing with people, who act as if you are insignificant. You feel lonely in your own house, because somebody who used to be excited about you, is saying, “No big deal….” Isn’t it an insult when your presence no longer seems important! They sat around: All the big names, all the officials, the VIP’s, the religious potentates, all of those of the religious upper echelon, the aristocracy of the ecclesia, the self appointed bishops, they all set at meat with Jesus as if it was no big deal!
As they sat there, at the table of a man who had been a recipient of one of the most notable miracles ever at the hand of Jesus, the man Simon the leper, (the world still apparently called him a leper, but it didn’t matter what anyone else called him, Jesus ate with him at the same table), suddenly a woman comes in the room, and she did so many different things that the Gospel writers record different modes of worship. One of the writers said that she “….anointed His head,” another said she “….anointed His feet,” another one said, “…she wept…,” yet another said, “…..she let down her hair.” I have come to tell you that she did it all!
When you get in the presence of the Lord, and you are really glad to be there, you don’t have any hang-ups, you can do it all! Any war you bless me Lord, I’ll be satisfied! If I got to spin, I’ll spin! If I got to lay out, I’ll lay out! If I got to dance, I’ll dance! I can do it all!
There she was in the presence of God, worshipping the Lord! Worshipping Him; not the system, not the people, not the choir, not the doctrine, nor the standard, but Him! “This is between you and me, Jesus!” “I don’t want nothing between you and me!” “Excuse me……Excuse me….Excuse me…..!” Move everything out of your way and go to praising God! Move everything that has been on your mind! Move it! Tell it, “Excuse me, I don’t want nothing between me and Him!” “I came to be blessed!” “I came to be loosed!” “I came to be delivered!” “Excuse me, headache!” “Excuse me, trouble!” “Excuse me, trial!” “Excuse me, problems and burdens, I came to see Jesus and nothing is going to stand between me and Him!”
Somebody is seeking God, and God is seeking them! Somebody is reaching out to Him and He is reaching out to you! The glory of God is in this place like rain! I care you to praise Him in this place tonight!
She sank to the floor in the presence of the Lord and began to worship Him with Holy Abandonment! The only way you can worship like that is when you have been through something! You can’t learn it in a class, you had to go through something to get this! Something that sets you apart from other people, makes you different! She fell at Him feet! Her attitude said, “I don’t care if I’m the only woman in the room, it don’t make no difference!” “I know you are going to murmur and gossip about my motives, but I’m going to worship anyway!” “I know you are going to start a rumor about me and Him, but it don’t make no difference!” “I’m going to bless the Lord!” She fell at His feet, and begin to worship!
Worship; if it is to be any good, it must be spontaneous. Unrehearsed! Something that your heart creates in the power of the moment! You can’t know which way your feet are going to move, they just gotta move! You can’t know whether you are going to spin or clap, sometimes you don’t even know you are going to get up! You thought you were going to just sit in your seat, and suddenly, you just leaped out of your seat! You didn’t even know your hand was going to go up, you knocked your Bible over when it happened! It will make you radically seize the moment! Like the thirst of a dying man, seizing a glass of water! It will make you seize the moment! “….Like a hart panting after the waterbrooks…” I must have this moment with Him! She drops down onto the floor and says, “Oh! This is just what I have been needing!” “What other people are used to, is what I’ve been needing!” “Jesus, all your church people have gotten used to you, but I need you!”
In the power of the moment, she says, “I must give Him something!” Loving, will make you giving. Don’t tell me you love someone and you never give them anything! Love ventilates itself through giving! She says, “What can I give to Him?” It was not her bodily movement that changed the atmosphere, it was what she gave; for when she reached to give, the Bible says she had an alabaster box that was full of spikenard. Precious ointment! I’m told that alabaster is shipped from India, and because it was so expensive, it was used to hold the finest perfumes, so that the aroma of the perfumes did not escape the sanctity of the alabaster. They used it for the good stuff! This was very expensive perfume! It could have been sold for a lot of money! But when you see Jesus, business don’t matter!
She gets the box, she looks at Jesus. She looks at Jesus, she looks at the box. This was my life savings, this was important to me! This was in my dowry, my hope chest! This was what I was saving for a rainy day! But as I worship, my values change! What was important, is not important anymore. What used to worry me, doesn’t worry me now! I count it all as dung that I may win you Jesus! If this will win you, I will give it! So she broke the box, not opened the box, that’s what we’ve been doing! She broke the box! Anything you open, you can close back again! You can control it! We have been turning Him on and off like He is a radio! Pouring out little drops, depending on how my day went! This girl didn’t open the box, she broke it at the feet of Jesus! When you break it, you cannot control how it comes out! All of you good folk that still have wonderful control, it’s because you have been opened, but not broken! If you ever get broken, you can’t control how it comes out! Cry, and can’t help it! You’re broken and it just starts coming out! You don’t want people to see that side of you but before you know it, it just starts coming out. It comes through your damaged places, the cracks, your wounds, your hurts, your sore, your traumas! If you’re broken, you can’t stop it, it’s just coming out!
Touch somebody and tell them, “It’s gotta come out!”
I am going to tell you what Jesus is trying to teach us in this story: The reason He made it of such pre-imminent importance that He forbade us to preach the Gospel and not preach about this woman. It is wrong, it is a sin for us to teach you all the doctrines there is to teach and not preach about this woman. The Bible says, “……Wherever this gospel is preached, this woman’s story must be told!” You can teach faith, prayer, and anything else, if you don’t tell the church about this woman, you are out of order! He said, “Tell the church about this woman!” This woman teaches us the personal expense of real worship. It cost you something to really worship. Oh, you can go through the motions, but the kind of worship that provokes God; it will cost you something to enter in to that level or realm!
She broke it at His feet! God wants what you’ve been saving! If I never preach to you another message, hear what I am telling you tonight! He wants what you have been holding back! He is jealous of your alabaster box! You have saved it, but you have broken Him! If you had broken it, you would have saved Him! He is jealous of what you are saving! You won’t get the real blessing until you break the box!
She did something that in her day was not considered respectable for a woman, not in vogue, she got down on the floor and let down her hair! It was a sign of a tramp, a trollop, a harlot! Risking further gossip, she let her hair down! This church has got it’s hair to high! If we are going to get what God has got for us, we are going to have to let our hair down! If we let our hair down, other people will talk and gossip about us, but it doesn’t matter! What does it matter what they say as long as we bless God?
Here is a vivid image in the text. We have a man, Jesus, in a room surrounded by disciples, sitting around at meat, and a woman has come into the room. She has walked into a hostile atmosphere. She is controversial, not accepted! She ignores their rejection, walks over to Jesus anyway! She flops down at His feet and becomes intimate in the midst of criticism! She begins to minister in the presence of the Lord, failing to be distracted by the controversy of men, she breaks through the veil of flesh into the Holy of Holies, into the inner-sanctum, where the Ark of the Covenant is and the Shekinah Glory, she worships Him on the floor in Holy Abandonment, she doesn’t even care what they think! She pours her oil on His head! On His feet! His head for His authority, because He is sovereign, His feet for His victory, for He shall put all things under His feet!
She honors His authority and His victory! She honors the totality of the body! She prepares the body for burial! She says that the same ointment that is on the Head is supposed to be on the body! The whole body shall be affected with what the head goes through. She then begins to kneel at His feet, and becomes personally involved in the worship process! She gives up her glory for His! She says, “I know my hair is my glory, but I can have no glory, looking at Your glory!” The woman’s glory was used to wash His feet! All the while she is doing it, Judas is indignant, the rest of the disciples are confused because somebody has finally came to church and changed the atmosphere! I am so tired of everybody acting like everybody else! We need somebody that will change the atmosphere!
Touch somebody and tell them, “I’m not trying to be like you, I was chosen to change the atmosphere!” Somebody is going to be loosed tonight! There is something that God wants to do in your life! God is going to release you!
Whenever I teach, preach, or read, I must visualize the text. I cannot stay in my study and preach the text. I must slip from my desk into the pages, I must be one with the text, or I cannot preach it! If I cannot see it, I cannot declare it! I thought I had totally dealt with the text, through vision, I had seen the whole scenario! All of it! I say them walk in and flop in their chairs, set at meat as if no0one special was in the room, sit listlessly and unconcerned, I saw the door opened and the woman come in, the indignation on their faces, the sneer on their lips, and the gleam in their eye, I saw them as they whispered one to another as to the morality or the integrity of this woman, I saw them murmur as she walked through their crowd and come over and humble herself in the midst of their criticism, fall sown on the floor, pour out her savings, I heard the alabaster shatter, I saw the glory of the Lord as it begin to leak through the cracks and down her hands and off her fingers onto his feet all the way to his hair, I watched her as she massaged the feet that would soon be nailed to a tree, I saw her let down her hair and dry His feet with her own personal glory, and as I was about to walk away, I realized that I had missed the best part of the text. Suddenly I realized, that when she broke the box: (sniff!); I had looked, but I had forgotten to smell!
The real power of worship cannot be seen! It is the aroma of worship that changes an atmosphere! It’s not the action, it’s not just a verb, it’s a noun! Real worship is invisible! You can’t even see it! It’s effect is in the spirit! to the carnal eye, you see nothing. It is in the spirit where the aroma of worship fills up the room!
When I leaped into the text, this time I leaped in with my nose also, and I smelled the savor of real worship, of a broken heart who had laid prostrate at the feet of Jesus and said, “I have nothing to lose, but everything to gain!” I smelled her love, her compassion, her struggle! It was all over her hands, her hair, the aroma of worship was all over her clothes, it was on her knees, on the floor, on His feet, on her hair, on His head! Whenever they got around Him they would smell her, whenever they got around her they would smell that she had been with Him! Worship! She changed the atmosphere with her worship!
And then I stepped into my imagination and I wondered what it would be like, after the scene was over, to walk into the room where worship had been and gone! “This room didn’t used to smell like this!” “Something has changed!” “Something!” “I can’t see it, but I can ….smell it!” “What happened in here?” “It’s all in the wood, it’s everywhere!” “You cannot begin to get it out!” And then God said, “Tell my people that when they walk into a hostile atmosphere, and when they need a miracle, and whenever they want change, do not grumble, murmur, complain, just worship!” If you will praise God in that hostile house, He will change the atmosphere! Whenever you go to work, and all the demons of hell are fighting you, don’t act like the sinners, go in thirty minutes early, walk all over the floor saying, “Hallelujah!” “Lord, I praise you!” “Glory to God!” You can change the atmosphere with a praise! You can change the whole house with a praise! You can see deliverance in any quarter with praise!
You have been asking God to change things. You been saying, “God! When are you going to change things?” You have been praying for change, you been waiting on God, but God said to tell you, He is waiting on you! If you will praise Him as the scriptures have said, “…..Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water!”
If you want to get to where you need to be in God, you ain’t got to wait on the Lord, the Lord is waiting on you! If you praise Him, you can change your atmosphere! Whatever you need, just praise Him! You’ve got the power! You were chosen to change the atmosphere! Quit being stingy, and break the box in the presence of the Lord! Break the box and see God heal! Deliver! Set free!
I can’t take you where you don’t want to go, but I dare you to reach down into your spiritual cabinet, and get your alabaster box and go for broke, in the presence of the Lord! You were chosen to change the atmosphere!
