In Luke 7, we are given a beautiful image of worship.
Jesus is invited to have a meal at the home of a Pharisee. Pharisees were a Jewish sect that believed the Word of God. They also believed in miracles, angelic activity, and in resurrection from the dead. They accepted these supernatural things as being part of God's dealing with man.
As Jesus sat down to eat with the Pharisee, a woman entered the home. She was weeping as she approached Jesus. She used her tears to wash His feet, and then dried His feet with her hair. She kissed His feet, and then poured out a precious anointing oil on His feet that she had brought in an alabaster box.
The three people in this portion of scripture teach us about worship.
The Pharisee, watching the woman do this, thought in his mind that if Jesus were really a prophet, He would know that this woman who was touching Him was a known sinner, and therefore, would not allow her to touch Him. So from this woman's act of worship, the Pharisee concluded that Jesus could not possibly be the Messiah, or a prophet, or a special servant of God.
Jesus, in this scriptural passage, receives the homage from this woman without condemning or rebuking her. He tells her that her sins are forgiven, her faith has saved her, and to go in peace.
The woman, Jesus reveals, is worshipping Him from a place of deep gratitude and love, for she has been forgiven and delivered from much.
Jesus contrasts the worship of the Pharisee with the woman by saying to the Pharisee:
"Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head.
You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in.
You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil.
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little." (v. 44-47).
The attitude of the Pharisee was not changed, however. Instead of learning from the example of the woman, as Jesus explained it to him, he was more concerned with the fact that Jesus had told the woman that her sins were forgiven. Who did Jesus think He was to tell anyone that their sins were forgiven? This same attitude appears in Luke 5:21.
We can learn from what Jesus was teaching the Pharisee. Our worship of our Father should come from a place in our heart of deep gratitude. It is not something that is to be done by tradition, or without thought for the sanctity and sincerity of our worship.
These two people had the same opportunity to enter into a place of holy union with the Lord, but only the woman was able to receive the wonderful grace that proceeds from worship.
How does this woman's worship correlate to the character of our Father?
She washed Jesus' feet with her tears. Our Father washes us with His Word, and yes, I believe our Father weeps, as this woman wept. In scripture, we are told that Jesus wept on a certain occasion, and as He told in scripture many times, Jesus only did what He saw His Father doing. So I believe that our Father also weeps at times.
She dried Jesus' feet with her hair. Our Father covers us with His glory, as the woman's hair spread as a covering over the feet of Jesus.
She kissed His feet. A kiss is related to fine wine in Song of Solomon 1:2, and 8:1-2. We have been given the new wine of the Holy Spirit, and the New Covenant by our Father.
She anoints Jesus' feet with oil, and scripture tells us that our Father anoints our head with oil in Psalm 23:5.
So even while receiving our sincere worship that comes from a heart of love and gratitude, our Father pours out upon us even more so, more abundantly, that same devotion that we are showing to Him.
Our Father is worship.
"Bow Down and Worship Him"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ks05wY8m0s
Moses, that most special servant of God, had found grace in the sight of the LORD, and was known by his name to the Lord (Ex. 33:17).
One day, Moses made a special request to God,
"And he said, "Please, show me Your glory."
Exodus 33:18
The LORD answered the request of Moses by explaining that "no man shall see Me and live".
But, to answer His servant's desire in part, the LORD went on to hide Moses in a cleft in a rock, covered him with His hand, and allowed Moses to see His back after He passed by.
Later, as Moses completed the work on the tabernacle of the congregation, a cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the LORD filled the place: Ex. 40:34-35.
Moses, the prophet of God, and the deliverer of God's people, could not approach the glory of God, and live.
When King Solomon had finished the construction of the temple of God, and the Ark of the Covenant had been put into place, the priests exited the temple. When the priests had left the building, the glory cloud of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not remain standing, even though they were outside of the building.
Man, under the former covenant, could not come into contact with the glory of God.
But Jesus brought a new revelation, and a new covenant. Part of this new covenant, under the redemptive power of His blood, and the resurrection power of His body, brought with it, a whole new creative existence between man and their Father:
"And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."
John 17:22-23
This was, and is the prayer of Jesus to His Father for those who believe, and are joined with Him.
Sharing the same glory as Jesus, as the Father - this is an amazing gift of love from our Father. We are allowed to be joined together with Them as One. What wonder Moses would have felt, if he had been able to join as one with the Father, and share the glory of His Presence!
The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Thess. 2:13-14:
"But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God, from the beginning, chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Our Father has shared His unspeakable glory with us.
"Fall on Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59eNZP8-Jos
All life came from, and comes from our Father.
His Son, Jesus, said in John 11:25, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."
In Acts 3, Jesus is called the Prince of life.
In John 10:10, Jesus says that His purpose is the exact opposite of the thief of life, Satan. Jesus said "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
Jesus revealed in John 5:25-26, that He received this power and authority of life from His Father in heaven:
"...the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself."
The life that the Father has in Himself, He breathed into the man He created:
"And the LORD God formed the man of the dust of the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being (soul)." Gen. 2:7.
The word for living/life in the above scripture is the word "chay". Its root meaning is:
continue in life, sustain life, live prosperously, to revive and be quickened from sickness, discouragement, faintness and death. To restore to life.
The life given to man from His Father included restorative life, or everlasting life. Jesus came to restore this same kind of life that had been lost to man through man's disobedience, sin, and man's choice of separation from the life of God Who made him.
It was always the Father's desire that man have this gift of never-ending life from His very own essence and breath.
This everlasting life is not just attainable at death. We can walk in it now. In Romans 6, Apostle Paul talks about knowing Christ so deeply that we should walk in the new state of life, and we can attain the likeness of His resurrection. The innermost nature of Christ is the life of the Father.
If we want life to be part of anything and everything we do, whether it is our giving, our family, our health, our choices, our worship, we need to bind everything we do, and everything we have, in the bundle of life with God. And from that bundle, everything that is death is cast out (1 Sam. 25:29). There is no life outside of Him. He is the source of life that is everlasting.
Our Father is Life.
"I will Rise"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa8w7mGug0c
