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With grateful hearts, we share our thoughts on redemption through Jesus Christ and His saving blood and what it looks like in our daily walk.

We gladly welcome your comments and input.
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AND since we hold our conservative values dear, we might have a thing or two to say about politics... and we can almost guarantee it won't be politically correct.



Friday, September 14, 2007

One Thing is Needful

I want to piggyback off of Meems’ post from Wednesday. Before I do let me address my last post. I would like to say I wasn’t happy with it. I didn’t quite get out what was in my heart. If you were disappointed by it, please know that there is more to come. You will hear the best news I have ever heard in full.

Right now I feel a tug in this direction. I want to take you to a familiar passage in Luke 10:38-42. I am sure most of you have read this and heard sermons about it, but has it changed your life? This passage should change your life. It should shift all of our priorities and redirect the course of our life.

You may already know where I am going with this, but stay with me. Read like you’ve never heard this before. It’s the story of Martha and Mary. They are preparing for the arrival of Jesus into Martha’s home. Religion would say, “You better get that house in tip-top shape to receive the Son of God. The law would say, “You better mow the yard, trim the bushes, pull weeds, edge the grass, clean the garage, mop the floors, vacuum the carpets, wash the windows, go to the grocery store and on and on…”

Look at what Jesus (grace) says we should do to prepare for His arrival. In the last verse he says that there is but one thing that is needful. Another definition for needful is necessary or requirement. Jesus wants us to make sure if we don’t do anything else in life that we do this one thing which Mary chose to do. She sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His Word. A lot of times we are stressed out in life because we haven’t done this one thing. We can’t be stressed out in the presence of God. He said there is fullness of joy there and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. Guess where you are seated right now in the spirit? At His right hand. We’ve got pleasures forevermore and fullness of joy just waiting for us to enjoy. You might be saying, “How do I do that?”

It’s a simple solution that very few find. I have often complained to the Lord about how little teaching there is on spending time with God. I think the reason for that is so few really know how to. I am not going to pretend to have the market on this either. I don’t, but I have learned something valuable. How bad you want it has a lot to do with whether or not you will find God. Jeremiah 29 supports this thought. Verse 13 says that you will find God when you search for Him with all your heart. Once you find Him, you find everything because He is everything!

I tend to give up too quick when my alone time with God doesn’t go the way I expect it to. I have learned that there is a veil of the flesh that you have to rip off or get through. It’s kind of like a test to see how bad you want to enjoy your alone time with God. He isn’t going to let us do it our way. We can’t pop it in the microwave. He wants us fully engaged with Him alone. He wants all of our attention. He is a jealous God. He is jealous of anything (not anyone) else that has our attention. Proverbs tells us to attend to God’s Word.

Remember Jesus’ words to Martha. He is saying it to us today. “You are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.” If we will do the one thing, all our worries and troubles will disappear. There’s a song that says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” I want to encourage you to spend time with Him today. Block some time in your schedule for it, and keep doing it until you find Him.

Isn’t that the way we do other things we are passionate about. We continue to tinker with them until we figure them out. Keep tinkering with your private time with God. Don’t give up. He wants to be found, but He will remain in hiding until we give Him our full, undivided attention.

2 comments:

MLM said...

scott: Thanks for the post. First, don't beat yourself up because I quite liked your other post, but if there's more where that came from, then I'm all ears (or "eyes" since this is a blog).

Second, I really liked this that you wrote: "Religion would say, 'You better get that house in tip-top shape to receive the Son of God.' The law would say, 'You better mow the yard, trim the bushes, pull weeds, edge the grass, clean the garage, mop the floors, vacuum the carpets, wash the windows, go to the grocery store and on and on…' Look at what Jesus (grace) says we should do to prepare for His arrival."

I've been living by religion for a long time. And doing a pretty shabby job at it too. Amazing that all Jesus asks for is for us to spend time with Him...the one needful thing.

Then you wrote: "A lot of times we are stressed out in life because we haven’t done this one thing." Yep, I can totally relate.

Third, because I've had long talks with you about this, I know where you're coming from, but one of your last statements might be confusing for other readers. You wrote: "[God] wants to be found, but He will remain in hiding until we give Him our full, undivided attention."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're talking about levels of fellowship, intimacy, and consecration. God has already made the very open move toward us through Jesus and He still calls us today by His Spirit, so He's not really "in hiding," right? I think you're saying that there's a deeper place in God for us to go, if we are consistently willing and persistent. No matter what we do, the RELATIONSHIP with God is readily available (that's GRACE), but to have deeper FELLOWSHIP with Him, we must take some action...in this case, we must take time to sit at Jesus' feet.

Is that what you're trying to say? If not, forgive me for putting words in your mouth. :o)

Anonymous said...

Thank you MLM for clarifying. I am having a hard time fitting everything I want to say into our format. Because of a lack of space and time I am not able to address important areas that need to be discussed.

You are exactly right. I was assuming that everyone knew God is yearning to show Himself strong to us. He already gave us Jesus and with Him all spiritual blessings. He is not hiding from us initially. He's not really hiding FROM us, at all. He's hiding FOR us, so to speak, and He wants to found. Through His Word and the Holy Spirit, He's saying, "HERE I AM!!!" That deeper fellowship is ours to discover by spending time with Him. He says, "Come and I will give you rest. Draw near(er) to Me, and I will draw near(er) to you."

My point was after we have grown out of the infancy stage as a Christian, God wants to see us mature and grow just like any good parent would. The only way to do that is by spending time with Him. I wanted to convince our readers of this importance. If we don't do anything else in life, we need to do this one thing.

I also wanted to encourage us not to ever give up. I believe this is one of, if not the most important thing satan wants to stop. He does not want our private time with God to be any good. He does not want us enjoying precious, alone time with our Heavenly Father. He knows how destructive that would be to his kingdom of darkness. That's why it is so hard, and that's why there is so little teaching on it.

It was Jesus' alone time with His Father that made His ministry what it was. If you were to take that away from Him, we would probably be reading a different Bible because Jesus wouldn't have been as successful and fruitful.

On another note since Jesus spent such precious, alone time with the Father, it shows us that we can too. God is not a respecter of persons. Anything Jesus did, we can too. The question is how bad do we want it, and are we willing to do what it takes to get it? This kind of a life isn't just going to fall out of heaven and hit us over the heads. We have to pursue it. We have to take it. We have to make seeking Him the most important thing in our life and our number one aim and goal.

September 20, 2007 2:47 PM