The Alabaster Box
Author: Pastor Pat Aman
Written 2008/2014/2015
Have you ever just felt like throwing your hands up and screaming? If you say NO, I will pray for you because we all have felt this way at sometimes in our lives.
As each of you that read Coffee With Pat daily, you know that CWP has not been able to post on the website. It seems that there is one problem after another. I have at times become very irate over this situation. But, I pray that I have finally figured it out. I hope I have finally learned the new program to work on the CWP site.
As of 2015 and thanks to Mark Reynolds, I can work on website with no problems. Even post from my IPhone.
Thanks, Mark.
I know that some of you maybe thinking, Pat, there are people who are sick, depressed, angry, and have so many more problems and issues then you not being able to work website at the computer.
Well, my answer to this is, “that is the exact reason I need to be able to post devotions and maybe say something that may help those persons in their time of despair.
Since 1996 Coffee With Pat has touched so many lives for the glory of God. People have been saved, healed and even stopped from taking their lives because they came across Coffee With Pat while searching the web for an answer to their hopelessness. So, now you may understand while I have been in despair myself, when I have not been able to post on the daily devotion site.
See, there may have been someone out there who needs a touch from God’s hands and heart, and just possibly, the Word the Lord gave me to share on a certain day, or even today, touched them and turned their lives around.
More of this devotion coming later….My car is ready to pick up at garage before they close. LOL.
Yes, see, I do not have someone or a group that do the devotions for me. I do each and everyone with the good Lord and me. And, yes, just like you, I have other things that come up, just like my car leaking transmission fluid after I had it changed. I am one person as you are and I am just human with daily things to take care of just like you do…
Be back in a little bit….. More to come…..
Well, I am back. They put a new seal around the pan from changing the transmission fluid. I should be able to put a couple 300 thousand on my 2007 Chyrsler 300.
Someone asked me why don’t I buy a new car? I said, “why”? There is nothing wrong with the one I have and it is pay for, and besides, I do not have any idea what I would want to buy.
I can hardly believe Easter Time has come and gone, and it seems we have just celebrated Christmas.
When I think of Easter, I think of Mary annointing Jesus feet. She once was a broken person, but, Jesus touched her. Because Jesus had touched her and gave her a new life, the Holy Spirit spoke her to anoint Jesus, preparing Him for the steps He would soon take to walk the Road to Calvary.
I love the story of Jesus, Mary and the Alabaster Box.
I often tell people, “do not judge others by what you see, because you do not know what is in their Alabaster Box!”Pat Aman
She broke a box of ointment and poured it on Jesus. This ointment was valued at 300 pence. A pence was the daily wage of the average worker. Therefore, in modern terms, it was worth about $15,000.00. This spikenard was produced from a rare plant that grew in India. It was very expensive and many people saved for years to be able to provide this for their own funeral preparations. However, this woman, poured it out on the Lord Jesus.
Some Preachers teach on the subject of how expenses the oil/perfume cost. Others teach that it meant Mary was giving her best, her all.
But, I think of it this way. ‘What was really in Mary’s Alabaster Box?
I like to imagine that as she broke the vessel so that she might extract every drop of ointment for use on the Lord Jesus, she was also showing Jesus every broken part of herself.
The vessel was her broken life, filled with the oil of all the hurts, sorrow, jealousy, hatred, disappointments and even happiness that she had experienced.
Yes, she had paid a great price in her life, the way she had lived, but, Jesus only saw the broken vessel as clay that He could mold into a beautiful vase. And he did not judge or smell the unpleasant odor of her sins, but the sweet smelling aroma of her love and her willingness to scarified everything to follow her Lord and Savior.
Whatever you may think about when reading this story, Mary gave all she had to Jesus for His glory! She totally opened herself up to Him. She did not try to hide one part of herself.
I wonder have we broken the Alabaster Box of our lives and poured out ourselves, every drop for Him? All the broken of our sinful lives.
God is seeking people who have surrendered everything they have, everything they are and everything they hope to be. He is looking for people who will assume the place of servants before Him. He is looking for those who will merely respond when He speaks to them. He is looking for those about whom He can say, “They have done what they could.”
I think of Apostle Paul also when I read this story. In 2 Timothy 4, he says,
“6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
I think that after Mary anointed Jesus, she also, felt the very same way that Paul did.
Are you now ready to break the Alabaster Box of your life?
Please right now, open your Alabaster Box to Jesus. He is waiting to heal you.
I have added the video link below: The Alabaster Box by: CeCe Winans.
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