Only One Thing Is Needed

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.  She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!”  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

– Luke 10:38-42

Have you, like Martha fallen into the all-to-common trap of trying to do good things for the Lord in order to get to heaven; to get some kind of special recognition, attention, or love from the Lord; or some kind of recognition or reward from people?  You constantly fill up every ounce of your time trying to be here, be there, do this, and do that “all for the Lord”, but all you are getting is worn out and frustrated with everything!  At the end of the day you do not feel like anything you are doing counts for anything because it all leaves you feeling empty!  And you receive your reward in full by people after everything you do “for the Lord”, but where is your reward from the Lord?  Where is your approval from God?  Has God called you or told you to do that for him?  Is the Lord really in any of it or just You??  It seems like all the good deeds you do in the name of the Lord have not pulled you any closer to him, but instead have separated you farther from him!  All your good deeds have become more of a distraction from the Lord more than anything!  Well let me tell you today that the Lord is not impressed by all the good deeds you could Ever do for him because he did it all for you!  The Lord does not need you to do anything for him, because he is the creator of the whole universe and everything in it – that means he owns everything!  When you are in the ‘Martha mentality’ of doing to deserve, that is like you taking Jesus off of the cross and saying that you can do things better than he did for you!  What you must remember is that when you sit down from doing the work, Jesus stands up to do the work for you!  And Jesus can do it a whole lot better than we can!  He is total perfection!!  Who can beat that?!!!  I’m not saying it is wrong to do anything good for the Lord, but if the Lord has not called you or told you to do that then you are aimlessly doing things for the Lord when the Lord has specific plans for you to fulfill for him that he wants to reveal to you!  You see, what the Lord desires you to be is like Mary…  Mary simply sat at his feet and listened.  Mary realized there was nothing that she could do to deserve what Jesus already did for her so she sat down at his feet and listened to Jesus!  Jesus wants our undivided attention!  He doesn’t want us to have so many distractions in our life that it prevents us from hearing him!  No!!  He wants us sitting at his feet absorbing every word!  Blocking out all the distractions in this world so he can tell you what he wants you to do for him!  The Mary’s of this world seem rather lazy to all the Martha’s, yet when Martha came up to Jesus in utter frustration over her sister Mary not helping her prepare, Jesus defended Mary and said that Mary had chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her!  Let us all be like Mary and choose what is best, because there is only one thing that is needed and it is Jesus!