Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
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One moment at a dinner table in Bethany turns into a lesson on worship that still confronts us today. We talk through Mary of Bethany taking an alabaster jar of rare, costly nard and anointing Jesus’ feet, then wiping them with her hair as the fragrance fills the entire house. It’s a vivid picture of gratitude that isn’t cautious, calculated, or concerned with looking sensible.
We also sit with the tension in the room: Judas labels her devotion “a waste” and tries to sound righteous, while Jesus steps in and defends her. That contrast raises honest questions for our own lives. Do we measure worship by efficiency, or by love? Do we hide behind good-sounding motives while missing what Jesus values most in the moment? And what happens when our worship looks unreasonable to people who don’t share our gratitude?
Then we connect Mary’s act to the bigger story of Passover and Easter. Without fully realizing it, she is anointing Jesus ahead of his death, pointing to the sacrifice that would change everything. We close with a simple, practical challenge: make time not just to pray for what you need, but to worship Jesus for who he is and what he has done, trusting that your worship can bless others in ways you may never see. If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one way you can practice “costly worship” this week?
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right.
Today I want to talk about an act of worship that Jesus received during the week prior to his crucifixion that speaks an awful lot about worship, about the impact of worship, and about the priority that Jesus had in this person's life. Jesus was at a feast at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and we'll pick up the story from there in John's Gospel, starting in the twelfth chapter in the first verse. Six days before the Passover began, Jesus went back to Bethany, the town where he raised Lazarus from the dead. They had prepared a supper for Jesus. Martha served, and Lazarus and Mary were among those at the table. Mary picked up an alabaster jar filled with nearly a liter of extremely rare and costly perfume, the purest extract of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet, and she wiped them dry with her long hair, and the fragrance of the costly oil filled the house.
But Judas, the locksmith, Simon's son, the betrayer, spoke up and said, What a waste. We could have sold this perfume for a fortune and given the money to the poor. In fact, Judas had no heart for the poor. He was only saying this because he was a thief and in charge of the money case. He would steal money whenever he wanted from the funds given to support Jesus' ministry. Jesus said to Judas, Leave her alone. She has saved it for the time of my burial. You will always have the poor with you, but you won't always have me.
Now the washing of a feet of a guest and when they came to your house was something that was very common. And it seems like this had already probably happened, the removal of the dust and the cleaning of the feet by the servants, that probably had already taken place. But now Mary went and did something extraordinary. She brought out this alabaster jar with this very expensive perfume and she broke it open, and she began to wash Jesus' feet, worshiping him with the most valuable thing that she had. She was giving something to him that was costly and important to her, and she was showing Jesus how much she loved him and how much she worshipped him. The fragrance penetrated the house. It lingered in the room. Mary's worship not only impacted Jesus, it impacted her and everyone around them as well. It swept through the place like a sweet aroma. And then Mary did something very strange. She she wiped Jesus' feet with her hair. A towel was normally used to wipe the feet of a guest after you had washed them, but Mary used her hair. The result is that throughout the rest of that day and probably into the next and maybe even to the day after that, the aroma of that perfume was going to linger on Mary's hair. She was reminded constantly of her worship for Jesus and what he had done for her and for her family.
And then there's something that Mary didn't realize. She didn't realize that she was actually anointing Jesus for his death. What we know as Easter weekend was in fact the Passover time for the Jews. And during Passover a lamb was taken and was sacrificed, this lamb was to be perfect, and was to be chosen six days before it was sacrificed. Jesus was now being anointed six days before his death, the perfect sacrifice for our sins. And the anointing oil that Mary was putting onto him is the kind of oil they would often use in preparing someone for their burial. She was anointing him for his death. What we see in this story is we see a woman who was so grateful and thankful to Jesus for what he had done for her that she is willing to give her absolute very best just to show him how much she loves him and how grateful she is to him, and how much she knew that he had done for her more than any other person ever could. He had raised her brother from the dead, and she was so grateful. Her worship spread, and everybody was aware of it. Her worship impacted people all around her. Her worship lifted her up as well and stayed with her for possibly days. And what's more, she didn't even know the full impact of her worship. Her worship was the anointing for Jesus' death, and without even knowing it, she had done that.
When we worship God, when we start to thank Him for who He is and what He's done, we have no idea how much our worship is going to impact other people. He is God, He is worthy of our worship. But our worship also impacts other people, and it's beautiful. When was the last time that you set aside time just to worship? I'm not talking about setting aside time to pray. We we do that often enough where we tell God what we want and what we need. But when was the last time that you just decided I'm gonna take some time just to worship Jesus for who he is and for what he means to me and for all that he's done for me and for my family, and all that he is going to do. There is never a better time of the year to worship God for who he is than at Easter. So celebrate who he is this week. Worship him and thank him, praise him, tell him how much he means to you, and it will bless you and it will bless him. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk again tomorrow.
