One thing is needful
Posted on January 12th, 2023 by RedeemedBut one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Luke 10: 42
Life can play a lot of tricks on us if we are not careful. People work almost non stop trying to take care of bodily needs while all the while ignoring the most important things. With time this can affect their health, relationship and most importantly their spiritual life.
Even as Christians we must create that delicate balance between working or serving even in religious cycles and having quality time with the Lord.
Like relationship that suffers if we don’t invest the efforts and time to nurture it, so is our relationship with the Lord.
A lack lustre relationship is dry and mechanical but a relationship we invest time and effort in will drip with honey, the oil of gladness is abundant in it.
In Luke 10 Martha received the Lord into her house. Her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and was drinking in every word He spoke, but Martha was busy serving, and she wanted Jesus to ask Mary to join her, but the Lord gently pointed to Martha that she was worried about too many things, and Mary has chosen the best part to give her attention to and He would not take that from her.
What keeps us awake at night? Is it worth our worries? Can we set our priorities right as regards spiritual things?
Jesus is saying we should not be worried unduly for our basic needs (or wants?) for our Father knows we need these things but first thing first; seek His Kingdom and it’s righteousness and every other thing will be added to it. We can count on God to keep His Word for He certainly is not a wicked taskmaster; He is a loving Father.
When we give quality time to God in fellowship we will have less to ask and keep us awake at night. Scriptures tells us that God orders the steps of the righteous.
I realized that Jesus and His disciples needed to be entertained as guest to Martha and his sister, Mary. And everyone would have expected Mary to support his sister in this regard, and I believe Martha must have asked Mary to join her with the services and when she wasn’t getting any response from her decided to ask Jesus to help her get Mary to support with the meal.
I can imagine not only her but the crowd as well got the shock of their lives when Jesus told her gently that He wasn’t going to do that! Mary has made the best choice by sitting and listening to Him.
This is an eye opener for me especially, because many people have excused themselves from participating fully in services in the name of working for God or doing a service for God.
Jesus drove out those who were doing Church business, and threw out their monies, then told them God’s house is a house of prayers not where they sell even products used for Church offerings!
As I studied these scriptures I begin to realize that what the Lord wants from us is a relationship. He wants us to fellowship with Him, but typical of us humans, we would rather engage ourselves with everything else except developing that relationship through fellowship with Him!
Jesus is reminding us in the gospel reading as recorded in Luke 10:42 that we must learn to walk with Him rather than for Him. If we are with Him more, we get to develop more intimate relationship with Him.
The more one spend time with someone, the better we know them, and their personality rubs off on us. We become more like Jesus when we spend more time with Him.
Moses’s encounter with God for forty days helps explain this better. Scriptures told us his face shone because God’s glory rubbed off on him. This is not saying we shouldn’t do what we ought to do but just to take a second look at how and why we do what we do.
God bless.
Shalom!
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