Wherever anything of the love of God exists there must be a desire to sacrifice some considerable portion of our worldly goods to Him; and the most ordinary way of doing so is by giving to the poor, in whom Christ has promised that He Himself shall be found, and that He will consider such gifts as given to Himself.
I. But then the question arises, Will this be acceptable to Him? He loves a spiritual worship and the care of the poor, but does He love also external and outward signs of our love and reverence? To this, I think, we shall find a most satisfactory answer in that most interesting incident which is recorded of the good Mary pouring the precious ointment on our blessed Saviour's feet, and His most gracious acceptance of it. Why was this good deed so exceedingly pleasing to Christ and honoured by Him? It was not that He who, in every sense, loved poverty cared for such things. What was the precious ointment to Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things? It was because it was the manner in which love to Him was shown. She did what she could; she had been at what was to her great cost, because she loved much.
II. The Almighty has so appointed it that the true service of Him is the best cure for the diseases of our sick souls; to pray to Him, to praise Him, to worship, is the medicine of our hearts. Now the disease with which this country is sick to the very heart is the love of money. A nation hurrying to and fro with the love of mammon, so as to be the very spring of life to it, as the heart is to the body, this would lead one to fear that God is preparing for judgment. What, then, is the cure for all this? Why, surely, to make ourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon, that when God visits us we may be received into everlasting habitations. Unless persons are disposed to make far greater sacrifices to Almighty God, than Christians now usually are, their religion must be something very different from what Christianity used to be. Let every one do something; do not hide under a stone, and hoard up for the moth and rust; do not spend what you have on your own pride and comfort, but be content with that most blessed and good Mary to be accounted a fool in this world, that, at any cost, you may win Christ.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. x., p. 98.
References: Mark 14:6. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxxi., No. 1834; Ibid., Christian World Pulpit,vol. 27; p. 254.