“Martha was distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40)

There will always be a balance between living for God and living from God. How can you best keep the great commandment? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37)? Martha invited Jesus to her home. As the host, she was obligated to serve her guests. “She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. 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." 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 10:39-42). 

 The one thing that’s needed is intimacy with God. You need to be “strengthened with might through His Spirit in the Inner Man” (Ephesians 3:16). The question is, why do you serve God? Are you living for His glory or your sense of duty? Are you obeying your Old Man or the New Man created in Christ Jesus? (Ephesians 2:7). If you live from God, He’ll give you the power to live for Him. If you’re close to God, He’ll show you when something that is normally a good thing is not the best thing for His glory. He wants you to serve Him with “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6), not just a sense of duty. 

Here’s three things we can learn from what Christ said: 

 1) Even religious duties can be wrong when viewed from the eternal perspective. Martha may have been saved, but perhaps Mary was seeking salvation, the one thing needed. 

 2) Since Martha couldn’t sense Mary was having a “divine appointment” with Christ, perhaps Martha also was lacking the one thing needed. 

 3) The world will always compete with the one thing needed. You could gain the world and lose your soul.