Giving Our All To God
“The Lord answered, "Martha, Martha! You
are worried and upset about so many things, but only one thing is necessary.” Luke 10:41.
Part of the balance
of life is learning to serve the Lord in everything that we do. Paul wrote in Colossians 3, “Be the best you
can be at what you do as if doing it unto the Lord.” One of the keys of life is
learning to abound by serving God in every area of our lives. Serve God in your work. Serve God in your family. Serve God in your leisure. Anything can become worship if given over to
God.
In the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
Jesus could hang out. In their home Jesus could kick off his sandals, as it
were, put His tired feet up and relax. Here He could “cocoon” to use the modern term, and bond with people He loved
and who loved Him. Luke
10:38 says, “As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by
the name of Martha welcomed Him and made Him feel quite at home.” Before the
passage indicts Martha, it’s important that we see that she really blessed Jesus. We see in verse 38 that Martha, the fastidious housekeeper, opened her home to Jesus and
His twelve disciples at a moment's notice. Now it's obvious that Jesus loved
and valued both sisters equally. It's unfortunate that we see only this one
occasion when Mary is praised and Martha put down. I'm sure that Jesus did not
mean for us to read it that way. It’s like watching a Father discipline two
daughters and it’s the only snapshot you have of them…you wouldn’t think one
was perfect and the other one was not (Jesus is very tender with her). She’s really quite amazing in her serving.
After all, assuming Jesus and the twelve
were all there, plus Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, there were at least 17 hungry
people to be fed. No wonder Martha was "distracted with so much
serving." One author
wrote, “At this point must we not say a word of commendation about what Martha
did? She was a front porch person -- willing to open her porch and her home for
the sake of extending hospitality when it was needed. Jesus was on the road,
and His agenda was consuming. Since He accepted the invitation, He must have
felt a need for rest and restoration. Martha provided Him that. Someone said, “Martha
sometimes comes out as the heavy in this story. That's unfortunate. She was
excited to see Jesus. He was a visitor in their home on more than one occasion.
And it was always a pleasure.”
Some time back, a pastor told about Al and
Betty Johnson, who live on a farm about 200 miles northeast of Rapid City, S.D.
(not many folks live in Rapid City…they say it isn’t the end of the earth, but
you can see it from there). Needless
to say, there isn’t a Wal‑Mart on every corner, so whenever the Johnson’s have
a reason to go into the city, they keep a running list of things they want to
do and need to buy. A while back, Betty’s mother was flying in for a visit. Al made a list of all the things he needed to
do on his way to the airport to pick up his mother-in-law. When he finally got
home late that evening, he was so pleased to tell
Betty about all he had accomplished. He told her about what he had done. He had gotten new tires put on the truck and
found everything she wanted at the mall. He had even bought her a new dress
that he couldn’t wait to show her.
Finally, she interrupted him and asked, “Al, where’s Mom?” Poor Al’s face turned ashen, and then red. It
seems, in his determination to complete the list, he had forgotten to go to the
airport. He had forgotten the only real purpose he had for going to town in the
first place. Poor Al. It’s easy to do, to be so busy that you forget the one
thing you were supposed to do.
Much like Al, we can do many good things but
must never forget the greatest thing. Making sure all that we do is worship to God through our hearts of
praise. Work can even be worship if we
focus it right.
David Gooding, in his book, According to
Luke, writes: "In those circumstances there is no
doubt what Christ would have preferred. He would have preferred Martha's
fellowship to her service. But Martha's idea of what had to be done was
different from Christ's. As we can now see, it was false. She meant well, she
loved the Lord, and she thought she was serving Him, but her sense of proportion
with regard to what was necessary was, in fact, depriving the Lord of what He
most wished for, and depriving her of what was most necessary. And it had come
about precisely because she had not first sat at His feet and listened to Him
long enough to find out what He regarded as the paramount necessity." Jesus
wanted to spend time with her and He wants to spend time with us. No matter what we do, it can then become
worship to God.
Terry Risser
Reflections:
1) Do you tend to have more Mary or Martha in
you?
2) How does God want to balance that out?
Copyright
2014- Terry Risser
Consider reading the Word today:
Copyright
2014- Terry Risser
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