{"id":2461,"date":"2013-03-25T00:10:45","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T04:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2013-03-01T00:11:56","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T05:11:56","slug":"pearls-of-wisdom-03-252013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/2013\/03\/25\/pearls-of-wisdom-03-252013\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearls of Wisdom 03-25-2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Anointing of Jesus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew 26:1-16; Mark 14:1-11<\/p>\n

Two days before Passover, when Jesus had finished preaching, He said to His disciples:\u00a0 \u201cYou know that the Passover is in two days, and the Son of Man will be delivered up, betrayed, and crucified.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief priests and elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas and consulted to develop a secret strategy how they might have Jesus arrested and put to death.\u00a0 But they said that it must not be during the Feast, fearing that there would be a riot among the people.<\/p>\n

Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper.\u00a0 A woman having an alabaster box of very precious perfume (oil of spikenard), broke the box and poured the perfume on His head.\u00a0 When the disciples saw it, they were indignant and declared:\u00a0 \u201cFor what purpose is this waste?\u00a0 For it might have been sold for more than 300 denarii (a laboring man\u2019s wages for one year).\u201d\u00a0 They murmured against her.\u00a0 They censured and reproved her.\u00a0 Jesus was aware of their judgment and said to them:\u00a0 \u201cWhy do you bother the woman?\u00a0 She has done a noble and beautiful thing to Me.\u00a0 You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have Me.\u00a0 In pouring this perfume on My body she has done something to prepare Me for My burial.\u00a0 Truly I tell you, wherever this good news of the Gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told also, in memory of her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then one of the twelve, Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you willing to give me if I hand Jesus over to you?\u00a0 And they covenanted with him for 30 pieces of silver.\u00a0 From that moment on Judas looked for the proper time and opportunity to betray Jesus.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at this passage and see what the Holy Spirit tells us about the anointing of Jesus and the betrayal.<\/p>\n

Jesus told His disciples that He would be betrayed and crucified.\u00a0 Apparently, it went right over their heads.\u00a0 Knowing these disciples, I am sure they would have had a heated discussion about what He said, particularly Peter.\u00a0 But their eyes were blinded and their ears were stopped.\u00a0 For understanding had not yet come to them of what their beloved Jesus would suffer.<\/p>\n

We see in this passage two extremes concerning money.\u00a0 The woman with the expensive perfume loved Jesus so much she was willing to give Him her all, in honor and praise for Him.\u00a0 The perfume represented her pouring out her love on Him.\u00a0 She did not understand the full significance of what she was doing, but her complete commitment to Him moved her to do something for Him.\u00a0 She loved Him so much she wanted to give to Him.<\/p>\n

Look at the disciples.\u00a0 They condemned her and judged her and reproved her.\u00a0 Who does she think she is?\u00a0 What is she doing?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t she know that that would have helped a lot of poor people?\u00a0 Why is she wasting all that money?\u00a0 Sound familiar!\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that what we have thought about something a person does when we don\u2019t approve.\u00a0 We are too quick to judge what someone does, not understanding the spiritual significance of it.\u00a0 Let us leave it with the Lord when we see something we don\u2019t understand, instead of analyzing it from our limited perspective.<\/p>\n

Then there is Judas.\u00a0 Greed, lust for money, drove him to betray Jesus.\u00a0 He thought Jesus would use His Kingly anointing to pass through the crowd and not be crucified.\u00a0 That is why Judas threw the money at the chief priests after Jesus was crucified and said that he had betrayed an innocent man and hung himself.\u00a0 Oh the sadness of his death.\u00a0 He could have been forgiven if he had asked forgiveness, but he did not know that.\u00a0 Because of Jesus there is forgiveness for whatever you have done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Anointing of Jesus Matthew 26:1-16; Mark 14:1-11 Two days before Passover, when Jesus had finished preaching, He said to His disciples:\u00a0 \u201cYou know that the Passover is in two days, and the Son of Man will be delivered up, betrayed, and crucified.\u201d The chief priests and elders of the people gathered in the palace […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2463,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions\/2463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kspministries.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}