To Encourage You

Luke 10:42 “One thing is necessary.”

The statement above is a such a captivating proclamation when one considers that they came from the lips of Jesus Christ. It comes from a conversation that He had with His good friend Martha. He was in her home along with her sister Mary. Before He said these words, He told her in a gentle and personal manner, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.” And it is with these words, Jesus would have each and every one of us pay close attention, for it is in this statement that Jesus boils all of life down to its very essence.

How many of us would fit Martha’s mold of “being anxious and troubled about many things”? Doesn’t that describe every one of us? Aren’t we all busy rushing here and there? Don’t all of us have places to go and people to meet? Is there any person on the face of the earth who doesn’t have something about which to be anxious and troubled? I know I surely do. How about you? Some have called it “the tyranny of the urgent.” There’s even a book that’s been written with that very title.

But to all of this Jesus would, in essence, say, “If that’s your focus, you’re missing the main point. If that’s where your energy is being expended, you’ll end up with nothing but emptiness in the end. Your busyness is misplaced. Your efforts are all for naught. For, in the end, there is only one thing in life that is necessary.”

So, don’t you want to know what Jesus, the Creator (and YOUR Creator) and Lord of all the universe, said that that this “one thing” is? For that answer, we just need to turn again to Luke 10:42. It’s there that immediately after having said that “one thing is necessary,” He said this: “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” In other words, whatever Mary had chosen to do was THE necessary thing. It is the one thing that though heaven and earth would pass away, she would never lose. And what was that “one thing”? It was to sit at Jesus’ feet listening to His words, for that’s what Mary was doing at that point, while Martha was running hither and yon and doing anything but. Yet she could have. Jesus was in her house. She could have made it her priority to do as Mary had done, but she was distracted. She was TOO BUSY SERVING JESUS to listen to Him first! And that’s exactly where so many of us go wrong.

You see, it is at Jesus’ feet that we learn about life. It is at His feet that we understand His priorities for us. It is at His feet that we receive encouragement, understanding, wisdom, and guidance. It is at His feet that we learn what to do and how to do it before embarking on our efforts, whatever they might be.

It’s this same message that we find everywhere we look in God’s Word. One example is in God’s message to Joshua as he was about to embark on entering the Promised Land. It was, at that time, occupied by the Canaanites. Joshua had been ordered by God to take the land from them. It was a monumental task. But before he did anything, this is what God said: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For THEN you will make your way prosperous, and THEN you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8). Earlier, as the nation of Israel was about to begin their wilderness journey of 40 years, God had told Moses and the nation of Israel through Moses, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). And then this from Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.”

You see, sitting at Jesus’ feet, reading His words, learning from Him, and obeying Him, are the prerequisites for anything and everything that follows after. It’s that one thing that is absolutely necessary. There are no shortcuts. There is no better way. But how many do this? How many are, like Martha, anxious and troubled about many things, yet missing what is necessary while urgently living life. And so we live in great futility. We miss the whole point. And yet Jesus patiently waits for us to sit at His feet and learn.

In one of the saddest passages in all the Scriptures Jesus laments, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34). Here we see the heart of Jesus to do for everyone the very thing He was doing so lovingly and patiently with Mary. As He urged “Martha, Martha” to listen to Him, so He cried “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” you’ve missed the necessary part. May God help us to put our names into these same admonitions, and then choose what is necessary before it’s too late.