Would that love to "that same Jesus" were with all of us more paramount than it is! "Lovest thou Me _more than these_" is His own searching test and requirement. Is it so?--Do we love Him more than self or sin--more than friends or home--more than any earthly object or earthly good; and are we willing, if need be, to make a sacrifice for His glory and for the honour of His cause? Happy for us if it be so. There will be a joy in the very consciousness of making the effort, feeble and unworthy as it may be, for His sake, and in acknowledgment of the great love wherewith He hath loved us. "Thrice blest, whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher Love endure; Whose souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs?" Let it be our privilege and delight to give Him our pound of spikenard, whatever that may be; and if we can give no other, let us offer the fragrant perfume of holy hearts and holy lives. _That_ religion is always best which reveals itself by its effects--by kindness, gentleness, amiability, unselfishness, flowing from a principle of grateful love to Him who, though unseen, has been to us as to the family of Bethany--Friend, and Help, and Guide, and Portion. Mary's honour was great to anoint her Lord, but the lowliest and humblest of His people may do the same. We may have no aromatic offering, neither "gold, nor frankincense, nor myrrh;" but My son, My daughter, "give Me thine heart." "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Nor ought we to forget our blessed Lord's reply, when Judas objected to the waste of the ointment--"Let her alone; ... the poor ye have always with you, _but Me ye have not always_." Let us seek to make the most of our Lord's visits while we have Him. The visits of Jesus to Bethany were soon to be over;--so also with us. He will not always linger on our thresholds, if our souls refuse to receive Him, or yield Him nothing but coldness and ingratitude in return for His love. "Me ye have not always." Soon may sickness incapacitate for active service! Soon may opportunities for doing good be gone, and gone for ever! Soon may death overtake us, and the alabaster box be left behind, unused and unemployed; the dying regret on our lips--"Oh that I had done more while I lived for this most precious Saviour! but opportunities of testifying my gratitude to Him are now gone beyond recall." Good deeds performed on Gospel motives, though unknown and unvalued by the world, will not go unrecompensed or unowned by Him who values the cup of cold water given in His name. "God is not unmindful to forget our work of faith and our labour of love." The Lamb's Book of Life registers every such deed of lowly piety; and on the Great Day of account "it shall be produced to our eternal honour, and rewarded with a reward of grace; though not of debt."