One Thing Is Needful - Part 1

And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But ONE thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:41-42

How beneficial to you is it to focus completely on Jesus? It certainly was greatly beneficial to Peter when it enabled him to walk on water. Let’s notice how it affected Mary. This story is recorded in Luke’s gospel which is our text above. It tells us the story of Mary and her older sister Martha.

We see that Mary was seated at Jesus’ feet when Jesus came to visit them. Martha, the older sister, was very busy in the kitchen preparing food and making sure that everything was as it needed to be for the invited guest. Was Martha serving Jesus? Yes, she was.
And while Martha was extremely busy running all about, what was her younger sister Mary doing? In the midst of all this busyness and activity, Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, beholding His glory and listening intently to all the words He spoke. While Mary was sitting and soaking up the words of the Master, her sister Martha was beyond stressed from serving all the guest, including Jesus.

Martha was focused on serving the guest while Mary was focused on receiving from the most important guest. Let’s notice what happened after a while of this stressful serving. It led to Martha getting very frustrated. She lashed out at Jesus saying, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me alone to serve? Tell her to help me.”

In one moment of anger Martha blamed two individuals, the Lord Jesus and her sister Mary. But now notice very carefully to Jesus’ response, and you possibly may find yourself at times being in the Lord’s description of Martha. Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But ONE thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

If you studied the culture of the Middle East, you would see that it is actually correct for Mary to be in the kitchen with Martha preparing and serving food to the guest. It would be a shame for Mary within this culture to not assist Martha in preparing for the guest if Jesus was just an average guest. But He wasn’t just an ordinary guest and Mary knew it. He was God in the flesh and the greatest way you can minister to God when He is in your home is to sit at His feet and continuing receiving from Him. That’s what brings joy to the Lord. Next week, we’ll see how and why Jesus defended Mary as He did. This article will be continued in next week’s bulletin. Thank you, Jesus.