“And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha you are careful and troubled about many things: 42. But one thing is needful; and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
We are going to revisit Mary and Martha and see what they can teach us. You will probably remember that Jesus was visiting in the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha. Martha was concerned about the meal, and whatever else, and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Martha was upset with Mary and wanted her to come help her in the kitchen. Luke 10:41-42 is the answer that Jesus gave to Martha. The problem was that Martha was distracted. To be distracted is to have one’s attention diverted from one thing to another. In this case, Martha was distracted from the presence of Jesus and Mary was taking advantage of having Him present. What distracted Martha was not a bad thing. In fact, if it had been anyone but Jesus, she would have had a case against Mary. I think that the lesson here for us is that we shouldn’t let things distract us from our closeness to Jesus. What are some things that can distract us if we aren’t careful? World events can distract us. As I write this, the world is concerned that Russia has invaded Ukraine. It is something to be concerned about, but it should not distract us to the point that we worry about it. We can’t do anything about it anyway. What we need to do in a case like this is to go to the feet of Jesus, as Mary did, and give all of the worry about that to Him. He told us in Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." We should take Him up on that offer. Jesus knows what is going on in the world, and he does not want us to worry about those things. Personal problems can distract us. I am not being judgmental here, because I know something about the distraction of personal problems. Whatever the problems are, family, school, work, church, health, etc., they should not distract us from going to Jesus with them. Jesus knows what is going on in our lives, and He knows what is going on in the lives of other people who might be of concern in our distractions. He wants to minister to us, and He wants us to know that He is with us through whatever the problems may be. Some people take this to extremes and blame God when bad things happen in their lives. This is not unusual because great Bible characters questioned God at times when they were having personal problems. Psalm 13 comes to mind. In the first verse, David wails:“How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me.” (Don’t judge David too harshly here, because all of us have probably thought that at one time or the other.) In the ensuing verses, David lays out his case and draws closer and closer to the Lord until he concludes in verses 5-6: “But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart rejoices in thy salvation. 6. I will sing unto the Lord, because He hath dealt bountifully with me.” If we will take our minds and hearts off of the problem and put them on Jesus, He will give us an answer, or give us what we need to cope with the problem. We will discover as David did, that God has, indeed, “dealt bountifully” with us. Whatever is troubling you, hurry, hurry to the feet of Jesus with whatever it is that is troubling you. He knows, and His presence will comfort you. I have dealt with only two things that can distract us from fellowship with Jesus, but I think they illustrate what we need to do when we get distracted by the world. Satan is in the business of distracting us, and he does a very good (evil) job of it. Remember that when our attention is distracted away from Jesus, it is Satan at work trying to discourage us and bring us down. Don’t let him do that to you. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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