11-23-2015

Good Morning All!!     

       Luke 10:41-42; “But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”  

    Are you one of those people who stress about everything?  If you invite someone over for dinner or an evening of entertaining, do you worry about it for days in advance?  If you are planning a trip, do you go over the details over and over?  When planning something, do you make a list and then wear the list out going over and over it?  You may just be very detail oriented or you may be somewhat obsessive.  Usually, it isn’t that big of a deal, sometimes it even helps to have someone like this on a board or task assignment.  Yet there are times when this type of detail attention can cause problems.

    Our verses come at the end of the story of Mary and Martha at a time when Jesus visited them.  Martha hustled and bustled about fixing a wonderful meal, entertaining and then cleaning up.  Mary just sat and listened to Jesus.  Martha became very upset at her sister; Martha was worried about many things but not the important thing.  Martha was worried about all the fluff and not the substance.  She was more worried about looks and feels and not with the important part; building a relationship with Jesus.

    There are many times we do the same thing in our relationships with our family and friends.  We are more worried about the fluff; where do we go, where do we eat, how do we spend our time playing and we do not worry about what builds our relationships.  We need to listen to each other and share in our joy, excitement, our fears and our pain.  When we only focus on the fluff the depth and the strength of our relationships are challenged.

     The same is true of our faith relationship with Jesus.  As we approach Thanksgiving and Christmas, where will your emphasis be, on baking and buying gifts or will it be on the joy of the Savior?  It is easy for the chaos of the world to distract us from what is truly important in our life; that we have much to be thankful for, that Jesus came as a baby, grew into an adult and then died for your sins and rose again to show that it was valid.  This is the most important thing that we trust God’s promise of eternal life because of Jesus.  The rest of the stuff is just fluff.  So we need to be careful not to be like Martha and let the cares of the world pull us down.  We need to look to Mary’s example and focus on Jesus.  We need to let the dishes go for a while and not worry about the exquisite meal.  We need to focus on our relationships with each other and especially with our Lord. Keep the necessary thing mindful.

Dear Father, too often we let the cares of the world bog us down especially when we think they are what is important.  Keep our hearts and eyes focused on you.  Keep us working on the relationships with the family and friends that you give us.  Hold u close in your arms.  In Jesus precious name we pray, amen

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret