Dear Family

I so enjoyed the recent challenge to my heart regarding the biblical characters of Martha & Mary as a teaching on how to love God.  Too often we have merely condemned dear old Martha for being too busy to be devoted to Jesus as Mary was, but we so missed our own attitudes very prevalent in Martha’s life.

A brief summary for those who missed it:  The issue in the Luke 10:38-42 passage is not that Martha was busy doing stuff.  The issue was that her attitude reflected that of most of us at some time—it stank!  She could have stayed in the kitchen and successfully worshipped Jesus had her attitude been one of love and devotion whilst she did her thing, just as easily as Mary could have sat at Jesus’ feet and not worshipped Him had her attitude not been correct.

Too often we are tempted to separate the mundane, everyday, ordinary stuff from our lives before God.  We see as “holy” things like our quiet times, reading the Word, going to church, meditating and so on.  On the other hand, we treat the rest of our lives, including kitchen duty, as little to do with God.  WRONG!

The Bible teaches us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, EVERYTHING we do in the body should be subject to our worship experience.  We furthermore read things like: Colossians 3:17 ^“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  and again, Colossians 3:23 ^“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men…”.

“Whatever you do” – that pretty much sums it all up, doesn’t it?

Loving God is a privilege reserved for those who do so through Jesus Christ.  How about you making momentary, daily choices, to love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.  It is only because of His favour towards us that we are allowed to love Him anyway, so let’s go for it.  Fall in love all over again!

Paul