To Encourage You

Luke 10:42 “. . . Mary has chosen the good portion”

Mary and Martha were sisters.  Both of them loved Jesus, and “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus (their brother)” (John 11:5).  Yet, Jesus commended Mary for something she did, while He, ever so gently, rebuked Martha.  This was not Jesus’ mother Mary.  Mary was a very common name in first century Palestine.  This Mary was simply a very good friend.  The verse above is an excerpt from an account of when Jesus was visiting in their home.  The story goes like this: “Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’”  It was at this point that Jesus replied “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” 

So, what was this lesson, and why the rebuke?  Wasn’t Martha showing her love by her service?  Why was Mary, who was simply sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening to Him speak, commended, when Martha, her sister, who was actually doing something, rebuked? What’s in this lesson for you and me? 

Well, the fact is that both sisters were doing something.  Mary was occupied with listening to Jesus and participating in intimate fellowship with Him.  Martha was serving.  Why was what Mary doing the good portion, or as some Bible versions translate it, “what is better?”  Well, the critical lesson God would have us learn from this is that the most important thing, the necessary thing, the thing that matters above all else, is that we spend time alone with Him listening to Him, for everything else that we might do in service to Him must start at this point.  All service must proceed from the love of God. That’s the greatest commandment.

In 1 Corinthians 13 we are told “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”  The Christian can be consumed with serving God. They can run hither and yon, giving to the poor, preaching the gospel, teaching, and visiting the sick, but if it’s not proceeding from and directed by intimate communion with Jesus, it can so much less than it could have been otherwise. 

In Jesus’ words to the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2 and 3 we have essentially the same message in His rebuke of the church at Ephesus: “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:2-4).  Jesus demonstrated this over and over again in His own life. Here was one Who the apostle John tells us did so much in His service to the Father that “I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). We see Him day after day teaching, meeting needs, healing the sick, and doing great miracles. Yet, it all proceeded first and foremost from an intimate relationship with His heavenly Father. 

For example, near the time of His crucifixion, which was His greatest work, we are told that “He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives.”  It was there that He, as was His custom, prayed three times, agonizing in intimate communion with His Father over what He was about to do.  We are told how Jesus often sought to be alone to commune with the Father. We are told that before He called His apostles, “He went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12).  And then we have these words of Jesus from John 5:19-20: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.” And how was this possible? It was shown to Him as He spent time in intimate communion with His heavenly Father. 

You see, this is always the key.  The most important thing, the one thing that is necessary, is intimacy with God. It is time alone with our Lord, time listening to Him by reading His Word and time speaking to Him in prayer that is the place from which everything else is to proceed for the Christian.  We can make sure we’re in church every time the doors are open. We can spend all kinds of time visiting in nursing homes, feeding the poor, and serving in soup kitchens. But if in all our efforts we aren’t following the example of Mary by sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to His words, we are missing the most important thing there is.

May God help us to, first and foremost, “choose the good portion” for it is in that choice that our motives and service can truly be made right.