Worship before work

Jesus’ interaction with Mary and Martha teaches us a valuable lesson about putting God’s Word first in our lives. How many of us can identify with Martha? So much to do and so little time!

On this side of eternity, it seems like we will never be able to take a break from our busy lives. If it isn’t family activities, it is our job or personal schedules that always seem to take center stage. Even our work for the church can keep us busy with our various areas of service.  These are all tasks that need to be done, and they are not unimportant, but how often do we allow our responsibilities to keep us from sitting at our Savior’s feet and listening to him?

Who can blame Martha for wanting to have everything perfect for her Lord? Jesus didn’t scold her for this desire, but what good had her work accomplished?  Instead of feeling joy in serving her Lord, she became frustrated and angry because she wasn’t getting any help.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a faithful worker, parent, organizer, and church member. But if our service takes us away from God’s Word it isn’t benefiting us. It can actually do damage to our faith.

There is only one thing needful, and that is hearing and learning God’s Word.  God uses his Word to create faith and build us up in faith, which drives us to serve joyfully in our various vocations. What good is our service if we are not feeding our faith?  If we don’t feed ourselves food every day we will soon be too weak to take on the tasks that have been given to us.
The same is true when we fail to feed our faith with a steady diet of God’s Word.


Martha wanted to serve her Lord, and so do we, but if our service takes us away from what is truly needed we are only hurting ourselves. Let us feed on what is most needed every chance we get so that our service to God will be God-pleasing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Justified in Jesus

Image
Matthew 27:27–31 27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole cohort of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29 They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand, knelt in front of him, and mocked him by saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 They spit on him, took the staff, and hit him repeatedly on his head. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. 1) Jesus on cross picture. We are still in the five hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. With the Reformation, the Lord of the Church allowed His truth to be retold through the writings of Martin Luther. But, God also used artists to visually portray this gospel to the minds of His people. If we wanted to “picture” the Reformation in our mind’s eye, there is no better “picture” than The Weimar Altarpiece . In thi
Read more

Water into blood and water into wine

Image
Here are some thoughts that didn’t make it into Sunday’s sermon. The Old Testament lesson for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany is the account of Moses turning the water of the Nile River into blood. The first of the ten plagues God used to get the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus 7:14-24 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not
Read more

Jesus has prepared a place for you - A funeral sermon for Jim Hermann

Image
John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  2  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  4  You know the way to the place where I am going.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Did you catch the difference between what I read just now and what I read in the Gospel lesson? The Gospel lesson was from the NIV. The second verse I read was from the King James Version. If you’re older than 50, that’s the version of the Bible that you heard in church and learned in catechism class. But, even if you’re older younger than 50, you know about the mansions. “The mansions of heaven” is a term Christians use pretty often. Preachers say it, poets write it, people
Read more