Who do we Love and Serve, and How?

Luke 10:38-42

Mary and Martha Worship and Serve

38 Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me."

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

Who do we love?  Who do we serve?  Who do we worship?  Jesus went to Martha’s house where He was welcome because she desired to serve and worship Him.  Her sister Mary worshipped His every word and loved Him so earnestly that she forgot all household duties to spend her time with full attention on hearing the Master speak of the kingdom of heaven.  Martha was too distracted with the serving to stop and hear the Master’s voice as her sister was doing and instead looked at what she prioritized as things that had to be done around serving their guest  in place of serving by what Jesus desired.  He wanted her to put aside the distractions and hear about eternal matters; it was the priority of eternity that should have overriden the busyness of her focus on circumstances and expectations that was the key matter He wanted her to see and understand.  Martha directed her frustrations of skewed expectations of her sister to complain about her to the Lord.  She asked Him almost why Jesus did not intervene as an accusation to influence Jesus to make Mary help serve Him with her.  She thought that serving was more important than worship in love from God’s perspective and not her own.  How often we can make this same mistake by putting our rules and expectations of how to serve above the devotion of love and worship of our Master we desire wholeheartedly to serve.  We are, however, called to worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24, Romans 7:6) and not in the busyness we fabricate as our own works and expect of service instead of stopping to listen and hear God’s words as He expects that we might serve in the right times in the ways laid out for us by His word and not our own Pharisitical rules as if to earn His favor by criticizing others who take the time to sit at His feet in the busyness of life and circumstance.  May we imitate Mary who chose that good part which will not be taken from her, the good of sitting at our Master’s feet to learn from Him (Matthew 11:29-30) who is gentle and lowly in heart.  May we take heed to this lesson to avoid being worried and troubled (John 14:27) about the circumstances of life whirling around us (Matthew 6:34, 24:6, Mark 13:7) and prioritize hearing God word to love, serve, and worship Him in the storms and uncertainties of life by making use of the quiet times to sit attentively at His feet to hear and trust Him in all things as we worship in our spirit and His according to His truth to live by.