Mon, Apr 20th - 6:27PM

DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIE THAT GOD HAS NO FURTHER NEED FOR A HIGH PRIEST Brothers and sisters, let us priests give continual offerings of fervent love, praises and thank offerings to God our Father through Jesus Christ our Saviour, great High Priest, Mediator, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Potentate, invincible in power, and mighty in love and mercy for He is worthy. Therefore, holy brethren let us always continue to assemble together as God commands, yet let us look no more to temples made by the hands of men for God Has declared: 1Co 3:16 - Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?1Co 3:17 - If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. 1Co 6:19;  Act 7:48 - Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Act 17:24 - God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Holy brethren, I pray that we shall always remember who we are as priests under our Eternal Absolute High Priest, Jesus Christ, serving as His representatives and ambassadors on earth, therefore let us all act accordingly knowing that everything we do reflects on Him for the good or otherwise. We know that God is absolute eternal love and truth, He is a discerner of the intents and motives of the heart. The Levitical Aaronic high priest under the Law had to accept whatever was offered by the people. He had no way of knowing what was in the hearts or minds of the givers. He didn’t know whether they gave willingly or begrudgingly. He didn’t know if the people gave out of love cheerfully or out of fear of punishment by God if they failed to give. He had no way of knowing if what the people gave was from honest labor, or from thievery or some other illicit act. He had to accept what the people gave on face value and all of it went into the treasury. The Levitical priesthood is done away in Christ, God the Son of God whom God the Father has anointed as the Eternal Asolute High Priest of the New Covenant after the order of Melchizedek. Because Jesus is fully man and fully God, equal with God the Father and also omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent He is able to know what is in the hearts, minds intents and purposes of His people when they give or do any works dedicated to Him. No works or offerings of any kind not given to Jesus out of love and trust in Him is accepted.  This is why God warns in 13 chapter of Corinthians vs 1 that we can have gifts, give all our works, money to the poor, even give our bodies to be burned etc., but without charity or agape love we are nothing to Him, we have no relationship nor kinship with Him, for God is love, and truth. Most certainly as we return to our study, dearly beloveds, in every sense we look at a scene of two mourners one whom John our brother and apostle reveals as the repentant Mary who had sat at Jesus’s feet intensely attentive to His teachings the few times He was in her home, who believed in Him realizing the great sacrifice that Christ would give of His life, in love, worship, and mourning anointed his feet with the valuable ointment knowing that Christ was the true value beyond all treasures of the present evil world. The other mourner, Judas Iscariot heard Jesus’ preaching publicly and privately, saw all the miracles, received the love and encouragement from the God Man, received all the warnings to turn him away from betrayal, knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Judas saw Jesus as worthless, Jesus’ death as the cruel end of the gravy train and easy money that he stole from the money bag, his hopes of a cushy position and power under the ministry of Jesus evaporated. Judas Iscariot who had lived, slept and ate in the presence Jesus during His entire ministry on earth, still didn’t believe in Him and never called Jesus Lord. Likely, Judas thought when Mary appeared with her precious ointment, he would gain possession of it and secure a final windfall from stealing from it. He mourned the loss of it and seems to have gone over the edge at the loss of this last hope of financial gain when he saw Mary putting all of her ointment on Jesus. 4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, 5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. 7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. Jesus is protective of Mary, and reveals that her anointings of Him were not random acts out of the blue. Instead, Jesus revealed she heard the gospel and believed. she understood Him as Man and God, His mission, message and the meaning of His coming death and had obtained her ointment in advance for the sole purpose to lavish it upon Him in love, worship and gratitude and mourning for the world changing sacrifice He would give of His life to pay in full for the sins of the world to save all who believe in Him.Some would have been outraged at Judas knowing he was a thief who was going to betray them Some would have called Judas every bad name in the book to display their utter disgust at this dog who’d bite the hand that fed him. Some might have become physical and thrown the ingrate, sneaky thief Judas out of the house.  However, Jesus does none of that. Jesus is always in control, and here we get a deep understanding of our Lord as Good, Great Shepherd, who protects and lauds the repentant Mary and rebukes yet still offers Judas Iscariot as it were the last chance to stir up in him some type of human feeling of love for Him, that he might miss Him or long for Him after His passing. We cannot fail to note the great love patience, long suffering, and mercy of Lord Jesus in His dealing with Judas Iscariot. John gives us the final rendition of the Story of Mary and her precious ointment here, reminding us that repentance is more than a word or a one time event, and that those who hear and believe the gospel are led by God in repentance to love and show gratitude to the Saviour that made heaven possible for all who believe in Him. We must look further at Judas Iscariot this evil man and what the Bible means by the horrific occurrence that satan entered him. Stay tuned. Love and truth forever, serola