We read about priesthood in the second chapter of 1 Peter; we read about holy priests and about royal priests. Holy priests offer the sacrifice of God, the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, worship. Holy priesthood precedes royal priesthood. Royal priesthood is testimony, but God puts the holy priesthood first.
In John 4, in that wonderful interview with the woman there by the well, we find God the Father as a seeker. What is He seeking? He is seeking worshippers, worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Things have become so confused in the Christian profession today that the very word “worship” is often not understood. We find that ministry is often confused with worship. Ministry may create worship in the heart, but ministry itself is not worship. In John 12:1313Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. (John 12:13) the Lord is invited into the home of Martha. Here we have one of the most beautiful examples in the Word of God of a real worshipper. We can learn what it is to be a worshipper from this little scene at Bethany.
Can you imagine a scene more fitted to the delight of heaven than what we have before us in this third verse? Christ is the center of the scene! Mary, this dear devoted child of God, is on her knees at His feet again. She is not there with a request. She is just there to pour out upon those blessed feet the best she had. She had this box of ointment, very precious. I suppose that a conservative estimate would say that that box of ointment was worth, in purchasing power, the equivalent of several thousand dollars in American currency today, and yet nothing was too good for Christ. She was there anointing His feet and wiping His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. Oh, beloved saints of God, there is no odor like that —the odor that comes from the owning of the loveliness of the Person of Christ.
The whole house was filled with the odor—worship ascending up to God. That is what the Father is seeking first — worshippers. If we come into His presence as worshippers and dwell there as worshippers, it fills our hearts with the loveliness of Christ. Then we want to go out in service and tell someone else about the Saviour we have found.
C. H. Brown, adapted