I want to be that worshiper!

Amazing Parallel!

Why did the Lord Jesus hang around in the Temple on that Wednesday afternoon just days before He went to the Cross?

Israel had rejected Him and the Temple wasn’t a safe place for the Son of God.

Still, He tarried.

I see an amazing parallel between Jesus’ reluctance to leave the Temple in the First Century to one of the darkest days in Israel’s history 600 years before Christ. In Ezekiel 8-11, the wickedness of Israel brought judgment—the Glory of the Lord would no longer reside in the Temple. As it departs, God’s glory hesitates at every threshold and finally departs the earth from the mountain east of Jerusalem that we know today as the Mount of Olives.

What a touching look into the heart of our God. Even though His people deserved judgment, God lingers. It’s as if the Son of God is desperate to find something good, something pure, something worthy of commendation in His people, anything He could affirm, anything to encourage His broken heart days before the Cross.

God Encouraged?

He finds it in the simple worship of a simple Jewish widow, and turns to His disciples to teach them a private lesson on worship.

When that seemingly hopeless widow threw her last two pennies into the offering receptacle, Jesus praised her…not for the amount she gave to the Lord but for the amount of trust it took to give Him everything.

I believe the Lord is looking for just that type of worshiper today—the type of worshiper who gives Him everything and trusts Him for the results. And when He sees that, He gathers a crowd and exclaims, “That’s what I’m talking about. That’s the type of worshiper that blesses my heart!”

I want to be that worshiper. Don’t you?

But she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood (Mark 12:44).