Luke 10:38-42 ESV
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’”
The message here is not teaching against serving, but it is
teaching priorities. Now, do we have to work? Yes! Even if we don’t work for
pay, we have daily chores to do, and we need to spend time with other people.
So, what was the issue here? They had the Lord in their home, and Mary chose to
sit at his feet and to listen to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with
serving, and that is all she could focus on, and so she totally missed that Mary
had chosen the better thing, at that moment.
And I say, “At that moment,” because the women could not
just sit at Jesus’ feet all day and night. They had to get rest, and they had
work they had to do. But there is a time for this and a time for that, and we
need to make time spent with Jesus, sitting at his feet, and listening to his
teaching, top priority. And if you are a stay-at-home mother of young children,
you have to plan your times with the Lord around your scheduled time with your
children. Or if you have a paying job, you have to plan time with the Lord
around your work schedule. But Jesus must never get neglected!
We should never give Jesus Christ just a passing “Hi,” or a
passing glance. We should never cheat on our times with the Lord in order to spend
time with things which are less critical. Now, the laundry still has to be
done, and we have to eat at some point, and so there are things which need to
happen, but if we have to choose between eating and spending time with the Lord
because we only have one slot of free time, then we should choose the Lord over
food. Because it is critical that we have time with the Lord each day, drinking
in his word, and learning from him.
And time with the Lord should be time spent with him in
prayer and in seeking his face in the studying of the Scriptures. Devotions written
by other people should never replace time spent in the pure word of the Lord.
And we should not just spend 5 or 10 minutes with the Lord, but we should give
him quality time, even if it means skipping a meal or losing one hour of sleep.
And then we shouldn’t just walk away and forget what we learned, but we should
be in the practice of applying to our lives what we learn from Him.
Now, time spent with the Lord, too, is not to be confined to
just a specific hour of each day, but we should have open communication between
us and the Lord all day and night to where we can talk with the Lord and he can
talk with us any time of day and night, regardless of what else we are doing.
So we don’t have a “quiet time” and then that’s it until the next “quiet time.”
We should be listening for our Lord throughout the day while we are working and
doing our chores and/or taking care of children, etc.
And we should be responding to the Lord in obedience
throughout the day and night, too. For he might get you up in the night when it
is quiet and free from distractions in order to speak to you, or in order to
have you pray, or in order to write something, perhaps to another Christian to
encourage that person in his or her walk of faith. Now, if you are female, and
you are married, I say you shouldn’t have private communications with other men
unless they are your family, and the same applies for married men, that they
should not be having private conversations with other females.
But back to the point I was making, our times with our Lord
should be top priority in our lives. And they should be important enough to us
to make sacrifices necessary in order to spend quality and quantity time with
the Lord. And our time with the Lord is not to be limited to just one hour a
day, but we should have open communication between us and the Lord to where he
can speak to us anytime of day or night, regardless of what else we are doing.
And these times with the Lord are to be precious to us and not seen as a
drudgery. So, we are to be like Mary in her desire to hear from Jesus.
Full
Release
An
Original Work / April 15, 2012
Walking daily with my Savior
brings me joy.
Loving Father; precious Jesus;
He’s my Savior and my Lord.
Gently leads me; follow Him.
I’ve invited Him within.
Now abiding in His presence,
oh, what peace.
From my self-life
He has brought me,
By His mercy, full release.
Hope and comfort,
peace and safety Jesus brings
When I daily bow before Him;
Obey freely; do His will.
Follow Him where’er He leads.
Listen to Him; His words heed.
Now obeying his words fully,
oh, what love
That He gives me
through salvation,
By His Spirit, from above.
Loving Father; precious Jesus,
He’s my friend.
With my Savior, by His Spirit,
I will endure to the end.
Share the gospel, tell what’s true.
Witness daily; His will do.
Tell the world of how their Savior
bled and died.
On a cruel cross He suffered
So that we might be alive.
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