“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,”
Galatians 3:26 NIV
How would you see yourself in the presence of Jesus?
Would you sit at His feet and listen?
Would you sit there and try and argue with Him?
Would you try to do everything you could to avoid being too close to Him so He won’t be able see who you really are?
Or maybe you would do everything you could to buy Jesus’ approval, show Him what you have to offer, and miss Jesus?
You can see examples of each of these people in the Bible. In Luke 10:38-42 we have clear examples of the first and the last, Mary and Martha. Mary saw Jesus and wanted to be with Jesus and learn from Jesus and Jesus took taught her. Martha felt privileged to have Jesus and His disciples in her house that she didn’t see Jesus. She saw all that needed to get done to please Jesus. It was almost as she didn’t feel worthy enough to be in Jesus’ presence. She was trying to make everything perfect by her own strength and was falling short. The help that she wanted from Jesus was to put her sister in her place. What Martha found out was that Mary was in the place that Jesus had prepared for her. Jesus was not going to send her away. If we look closely at this short section we realize that Jesus didn’t send Martha away either.
We don’t have an ah hah moment like Zacheius had, but it also wasn’t a blatant disregard for Jesus like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son had for his father. Martha isn’t told that what she is doing is wrong or bad but just that it is important to see Jesus, to be in Jesus’ presence and to allow Him to truly speak in to your life. Listening to Jesus starts to reorient people’s lives away from the busyness of trying to please or appease, to being loved and loving.
During this Lenten season are you taking time to be with Jesus or are you trying to do everything you can to please Jesus by avoiding Him? Doing the work that Jesus has given us to do is not bad, unless we are using it as an excuse to avoid letting Jesus into our lives. Don’t just live for Jesus, live with Jesus each day.