Day: February 27, 2016

“Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life” (Pr. 4:23 NASB).

We should keep this verse ever before us, principally when viewing it through the eyes of our eternal souls… If you’re a Christian today, or, are feeling led to surrender your life to Christ, there are very clear lines in the sand we mustn’t cross. The world around you will always tell you otherwise, that’s its job…“Did God really say” (Gen 3:1 NIV)? Please, don’t take my word for this, just look around at the world, read a newspaper, sit in on a conversation. People of every walk of life are talking about how chaotic the world is today. Drive on any metropolitan highway, talk about chaos…one wrong turn and you end up in places your GPS doesn’t even recognize! Seriously. Also,Pay attention to the billboard advertisements lining those freeways; to the not-so subliminal messages aimed at shanghaiing your choices and directing them towards what the world wants you to view as important, needed, crucial.

Within our scripture passage today, we witness in part, the blessing missed out on.Those precious moments with Jesus we allow to be snatched from our hands daily, by permitting ourselves, get so caught-up in our works that we get sidetracked… often leading us into making the wrong choice in a timely moment (Jas.1:13-16 NASB).

The saying goes: life is all about choices.

We must make choices daily. Statistics tell us the average adult makes approximately 35,000 decisions a day. Now multiply that times two. Remember we had to make a choice between two options to reach that one decision. So, about 70,000 choices are contending for our attention on any given day. Ranging from the mundane… what we will eat, drink, wear, or brand of toothpaste we’ll purchase…to the more complex, spend or save, rent or own, marry or remain single. And we aren’t touching on the mixt issues of the heart, or deeper still, our singularly most fundamental of choices… where will we be spending eternity?

Choices…

Our Scripture today speaks to this very topic… Two sisters, both believers, each followers of Christ (Lk.10:38 NLT). We enter into their home as invited guests along with Jesus and the disciples. We’re graciously seated at the dinner table. Martha is busy bustling about, after all, this is technically,her home and she is hostess. Mary, her sister, has been right beside her throughout the day seeing to it that everything is just-so for their guests tonight. From the dinner preparation to flower selection Martha insisted everything be picture-perfect! After all, Jesus, their Rabbi and friend will be in attendance.

There are many times that our choices seem to be the right-thing to do; they’re done from a good-heart and certainly from a desire to please. We want to do our best and give our best to those we love undoubtedly, but how much more so when we are serving Jesus? And it is here where two sisters diverge in their definitions of what is the better portion. Everyone’s seated and Jesus begins to speak; with that Mary pulls up a stool and sits at the His feet (Lk.10:39 NLT) Oh how she loves to hear her Rabbi speak, His simplest words are like honey to her ears! While Mary sits listening to Jesus, Martha returns to the kitchen clearly irked! Mary unnoticing, is in her glory. There is nothing more in this life she enjoys than time spent with Jesus. She could sit for hours and simply drink in every word that flows from the Masters mouth…Martha also, but not now, not tonight.

Tonight, Martha has chosen to make service to the Lord her priority. After all, she has worked on this meal and its presentation all day. There will be time to sit with the Master another day, now there is still much to do…”The bread, I must put out the bread. Where is that sister of mine? I must speak to Jesus about her, surely HE will make her get up and help me”. And with that Martha knocks the basket, laden with the warm bread, to the floor. She is now beside herself and burst into the dining room in a huff to appeal to Jesus for help… Listen to her!

“Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”    Now pay attention to how lovingly, tenderly, yet plainly Jesus answers His frazzled friend… “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Lk. 10:42-43 NIV).

Martha has just been taught a very valuable lesson, but, as with all of us, the question becomes was she hearing the Lord as He spoke to her?are we? or are we doing nothing more than half distractingly listening? I’m reminded of the words of the prophet Micah concerning what it is God requires of us, “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you Except to be just, and to love [and to diligently practice] kindness (compassion), And to walk humbly with your God [setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness] (Micah 6:8 AMP)?

Martha was not an enemy of the Lord, she was His friend, and more a true believer. A follower of The Way. Scripture makes that clear within the context of a conversation she and Jesus have when He and the disciples come to her, and her sister Mary, after the death of their brother Lazarus. Jesus tells Martha that Lazarus will live again now, and in the world to come. He asks her if she believes this. Let’s listen to her reply…

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world” (Luke 11:27 NLT).

Even the most fervent of us, those who hunger and thirst after Jesus (Matt.5: ), who crave time alone with Him, get caught-up on occasion in service to Him ;forgetting to come away from all the work of our hands. We forget to simply be still in front of Him (Ps.46:10 NKJV). Like Mary, our first duty to the Lord is to Love HIM alone above all else; to seek building a relationship with Him. To know Him, love Him, spend time and converse with Him. And like Mary, desiring to take in His each and every Word (Duet.8:3 NIV).

Are women to remember their place and sit quietly at the feet of men? Or should they be allowed to Preach and teach as men do? I am by no means scholarly, nor theoretically well versed in the politics of this particular text. I leave that to my Brother The Apostle Paul and the great Theologians of our time. For our purposes, I believe the Lord clearly states that Mary, in her desire to be in a relationship with Him, and satisfy herself in Him alone, shows in this instance that she has chosen the better portion and will walk away refreshed and sated.

Neither woman was wrong in their worship of the Lord, though each demonstrated their devotion quite differently. I believe the deeper issue of what Jesus was communicating concerning Martha and Mary was one of a condition of the heart. The take-away, Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt.22:37 NLT).
Let me leave you to ponder an excerpt from, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary of our text. I believe you’ll find it to be not only eloquent, but more biblically sound…

“Here with respect to our Lord Jesus and right care of her household affairs (speaking of Martha). But there was something to be blamed. She was for much serving; plenty, variety, and exactness. Worldly business is a snare to us, when it hinders us from serving God, and getting good to our souls. What needless time is wasted, and expense often laid out, even in entertaining professors of the gospel! Though Martha was on this occasion faulty, yet she was a true believer, and in her general conduct did not neglect the one thing needful. The favour of God is needful to our happiness; the salvation of Christ is needful to our safety. Where this is attended to, all other things will be rightly pursued. Christ declared, Mary hath chosen the good part. For one thing is needful, this one thing that she has done, to give up herself to the guidance of Christ. The things of this life will be taken away from us, at the furthest, when we shall be taken away from them; but nothing shall separate from the love of Christ, and a part in that love. Men and devils cannot take it away from us, and God and Christ will not. Let us mind the one thing needful more diligently.”