Today’s Reading: Matthew 25:31-26:13

When was the last time you had your breath taken away? I’m not talking about the last time you got the wind knocked out of you. I’m talking about the last time you saw something so wonderful that it took your breath away. When was the last time? It seems that those times are very few and far between in our lives, doesn’t it? Maybe seeing mountains or waterfalls or the northern lights. Breathtaking moments. Each of us has had them. You can’t script them. You can’t prepare for them. You can’t make them up. They are virtually indescribable. But they are unmistakably real.

Even more so, we remember the encounters people in the Bible had with entering the presence of the Lord. You remember what happened when Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah 6. When he saw the Lord, he was completely undone. Being in the presence of the Lord made him cry out, “Woe is me! For I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King—the Lord of hosts.” When Ezekiel saw only the “appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord,” What happened to him? He immediately fell on his face. In the book of Revelation, when John saw the risen Jesus in all His heavenly glory, what did he do? He said, “I fell at His feet as dead.” I guess it would be an understatement to say that those were breathtaking moments. Moments of pure, unhindered worship. Moments of adoration of God in all of His glory. That is the kind of relationship we are supposed to have with Jesus right now. We talk about worship all the time. But do we really know what worship is?

The woman in our passage was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. This is the same Mary that hung on Jesus’ every word while her sister Martha was busy doing the housework. Mary urgently adored Jesus as her teacher. The housework could wait. She didn’t care what it cost or what people thought – she was ready to worship. She was going to give her full, undivided attention to the Living Word of God. In our passage, Mary urgently adores Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. Nothing was going to stand in the way of Mary whole-heartedly worshipping Jesus. How is our worship this today?

Reflection

What do we let get in the way of our whole-heartedly worshipping Jesus this morning?