I was reading John 12:3 recently. 'Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.'

The oil was very costly. True worship always costs us something. David said, "I will not offer the Lord that which costs me nothing." True worshipers are hard to find, because there are no "cheap" alternatives to genuine worship. It's not enough to worship God with our words. We must worship Him with our hair. Hair speaks of sanctification. The Nazarites did not cut their hair as a sign of living their lives separated to God. We must worship Him with our sanctification, and this is the worship that is costly. This is the worship that fills the house with the presence of God.

Sometimes in the middle of a "worship" service I wonder, "where is God in all this?" In the midst of all the noise we are making, is there something in our lives that speaks beyond the words we bring, something that anoints His feet, and brings those anointed feet into our presence? Could it be that our sanctification is what determines the level of anointing we sense? If there is no real sense of the presence of God in our midst, maybe we are not really worshiping Him at all, in the truest sense of the word. What you do in private, God will honour in public. Genuine worship will fill the house with His presence. Selah.