Guest Blogger Chad Grigsby
Chad is a graduate of Williams Baptist College and Mid-America Baptist Seminary. Chad is the Pastor for Teaching & Shepherding at the Compass Church in Batesville, AR (www.thecompasschurch.net). Compass is a 2 year old church plant in North Central Arkansas focused on reaching young families and unreached peoples in their community, state, country, & the ends of the earth. Chad is married to Jessica and they have two dogs & a cat. They just celebrated two years of marriage. Chad is blogging daily through the chronological Bible at www.chadgrigsby.blogspot.com.
How doing more FOR God does not equal intimacy WITH God.
Luke 10:38-42
38 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, 42 but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Jesus was coming over. Can you imagine the amount of work that must be done to host the King of the universe? From the house cleaning to the casserole cooking, lots need to be done. This is Martha's mindset when Jesus comes to visit. She is doing everything she can to make Jesus feel at home and welcomed. She is doing everything she can to be a great host. She is working really hard FOR Jesus. All this work though has skewed her view of what following Jesus is about. At one point she asks Jesus if he cares that her sister has left her to work alone. You know that you have lost some touch with God when you are asking Jesus if he cares. No, he doesn't care, he just left heaven to come to earth to purchase the rebellious lives of people. Not only does she lose touch with who Jesus is but she starts telling Jesus what to do. She tells Jesus to tell her sister to help her out. She is obviously out of touch.
And just where is Mary in all of this? She is sitting at Jesus' feet. She is listening to his teaching. She isn't at all concerned about the things that must be done FOR Jesus. She is concerned about being WITH Jesus.
The question then is who are we in the story? I think we can rule out Jesus. We are not him. So, are we Mary or Martha? Are we concerned with doing things for God and "much serving" that we have missed the most important part of being a follower of Jesus, that of knowing him? I'm not saying we shouldn't serve Jesus. Obviously there is much to do in being his disciple. But, where does service come from? From where does doing things for God originate? Should it not come from being with him? How can we serve him if we don't know him? How can we adequately reflect his heart in our actions if we don't know his heart in our personal lives?
If we merely do for Jesus without first and foremost knowing Jesus we may find ourselves with a similar attitude of Martha toward Jesus. We may find ourselves asking if he cares. Not because we think he doesn't but because we are so out of touch with what he really cares about. If all we have is activity and no intimacy, we cannot know his heart & his passions & therefore all we see is our own misguided desires. What we care about & what he cares about will not be the same. We miss the heart of Jesus without having intimacy with him.
Also, we may start telling Jesus what to do. Because he doesn't share our passions and we are disconnected with his, our prayers may begin to sound like orders rather than petitions. We may start to sound demanding rather than dependent. We may start asking him to join a cause that we have a passion for rather than asking him what he is passionate about and getting in on that.
This is not a plea for a lack of action. Rather, this is a plea for us to walk intimately with our God, so that our actions have the aroma of Jesus on them. So that people will say of us what the religious leaders said of Peter & John in Acts 4:13. "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter & John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus."
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