Pursuing More of Jesus

My bible study is doing Anne Graham Lotz's book Pursuing More of Jesus this semester and it is incredible. The study takes a look at the intimate relationship Jesus had with his disciples, especially at the end of Jesus' days here on earth, and suggests our life should look the same. We have only completed through week 2 and I can't say enough good things about this book. Lotz is an incredible woman of faith who deeply desires a intensely close relationship with the Lord. The way Lotz writes about Jesus and his interactions with the disciples and us will move you. Lotz has an incredible way with words and the book is also very visually appealing.

Chapter 2 covered how Jesus not only identified with his disciples, but also identifies with us. Lotz goes on to say that we should so desire to identify with Christ that his tears of joy, love, grief, pain, and blessing should be our tears. Lotz discusses the story of Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus, breaks her alabaster jar over Jesus' feet and wipes it with her hair. This is symbolic of Mary's tears of love for Christ. Mary literally gave up everything by breaking her jar over Jesus' feet in an act of love for him. The jar itself would have been a part of her dowry and in breaking it over his feet she is saying that he is all she needs. This begs the question, what is my alabaster jar? What am I holding back from him? Am I willing to give everything I have in love for him?

Lotz ends the chapter with this picture of the breaking of The Alabaster Jar. What a beautiful picture of God's all consuming love for us.

"In the early light of creation's dawn, the Father held His Alabaster Jar. It gleamed with the beauty of the Morning Star and was scented with the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon. It was His most precious possession. As His omniscient eyes looked down the years that stretched out before Him into generations and centuries and ages and millennia, He knew...

The Father slipped into the darkness of the world He had made and loved. The hands that held the Jar with such tender, eternal love, relaxed and opened as He placed the Jar ever so gently on the small manger bed of hay. During the years that followed, the beauty and glory of the Jar were shared and admired by those who had eyes to see.

And then, with hands that were trembling yet certain, the Father once again picked up His Alabaster Jar. And on a hill so far away from His celestial home--a hill that was cold, barren, and bleak, swarming with an angry mob that was unruly and obscene--the Father smashed His Alabaster Jar on a rugged, wooden cross. As the contents of flesh and blood were poured out and the fragrance of His love permeated human history forever, our tears were on His face..." (Lotz 38)



What is your alabaster jar? Are you willing to pour it out as a love offering to Christ?


Lotz, Anne Graham. Pursuing More of Jesus. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009. Print.