Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,
There came unto him a woman
having an alabaster box of very precious ointment,
and poured it on His head, as He sat at meat.
But when His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying,
To what purpose is this waste?
For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.
When Jesus understood it, He said unto them,
Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon Me.
For ye have the poor always with you; but Me ye have not always.
For in that she hath poured this ointment on My body,
she did it for My burial. Verily I say unto you,
Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world,
there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her. Matthew 26:6-13
Ointment can be symbolical of many things of value we give to the Lord
This lady had precious, very expensive ointment
We might not have ointment
We do have precious things
Things that are valuable things to us
Do we use them on the Lord?
Time is one of the most precious commodities we have
If we just fit Him in here and there,
we are not using our time as precious ointment
Inconvenience
If we see someone in distress
or who may need something we can give at an inconvenient moment,
Is that something we are willing to sacrifice for Jesus?
Sacrifices of forgiveness, letting go when someone has wronged us
Fasting from food, foods or other natural desires is an honor to the Lord,
things we give up to show the Lord we esteem Him higher
than our earthly wants and for a time, our necessities
It would be impossible to think of all the ways
we could give up precious ointment for the Lord
and some are very different for us than they would be for our fellow mortals
Our best for the Lord is something we would do well to strive for all the time
We can never be perfect but we can do our best
and Jesus knows what that is
and He will appreciate every sacrifice and obedience performed for Him