(An excerpt from Pastor’s Book, “How to Make Your Life Count for God”)
It is important to obey God and live a pure life in order to fulfill God’s plan. Because of this, I want to live clean and pure. The further I go in the ministry purity becomes more of a passion with me. I have come too far to throw away my reputation. I want to do the right thing. I want to be a pastor that my congregation does not have to be ashamed of. I want my faith to be an example that others can look to. Keep the stream of faith pure. Faith will always require obedience and sometimes the people around you will not understand you. Sometimes members of your own family will criticize you. If you are going to make your life count for God you cannot let what other people say deter you from being obedient to the voice of God.
There are some other things that I think God wants us to see. In Mark’s account Jesus says, “She hath done what she could.” Notice that Jesus did not rebuke her. Jesus will never ask you to do what you cannot do. That might have been her only valuable possession. The ointment was precious to her but she decided to give it. When you cannot do everything you want to do, doing what you can is a powerful principle.
How do you really make your life count for God? There are people of great wealth who say, “Well I will build a hospital or a library and they will put my name on it.” That is admirable. There is nothing wrong with that, but that is not how you make your life count for God. People build these monuments to themselves so that they will be remembered. In the Kingdom of God it is not so much what you get, but what you give that makes your life count for God.
If it had been me I might have looked at the expensive ointment said, “God is not asking you to do that.” Believe me, you do not know how many times I have said things like that, when people took a step of sacrificial giving. Many years ago there was a woman who went to our church here in Fort Worth who did a similar thing. Her deceased husband had left her a small pension from his work for the railroad which included a few benefits. She was a dedicated member of the church, a consistent tither, and a generous giver. One day she came in and handed me an offering of several thousand dollars, something that she had never done before. “This is my entire savings account, pastor,” she told me. I had an idea of how much she made with her pension. It would have taken her a couple of years to save up for an offering of this size. I would never encourage anyone to give away their savings, unless they are directed by God. I would think this type of giving would be foolhardy without God’s direction.
“Now sister, this is just too much! You don’t need to give this.” I told her, but she was not moved. She looked me square in the eye and said, “Bob Nichols, you take this offering. You have been teaching about giving and I want to give this as a seed.” See, this is the attitude of people who are operating by faith in their giving. They are not moved by what anyone says to them. So I took the offering, believing that she would receive a harvest.
A couple of weeks later she testified that someone had asked if she was aware of some unpublicized pension benefits. He informed her that she would have to sign up for them or they would be lost. This was the first that she had heard of it. She signed up and received double the amount of money per month than she had been receiving! When you sow a seed in faith the result is a harvest of multiplication!
One day the woman with the alabaster box said, “I do not care what anybody says, it belongs to me and I am going to give it to Jesus.” She did not bring a sick lamb or a lame donkey, she brought the most expensive thing she had. She did not ask anybody about it because it would not have been their business anyway. So, she broke that alabaster box and poured the ointment on Jesus. The moment she did, all monetary value was gone. It was not coming back and that is why the world said it was a waste. They said, if you wanted to do something noble, you could have sold that and given the money to the poor.
Jesus went on to say something else. “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 26:13). This woman’s gift became international. Her worship and giving were actually recorded in God’s Word. When Jesus said, “Verily” he meant that you can count on it. Even today the story of this gift is preached all over the world.