Martha and Mary

Luke 10:38-42 – “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary (“Mary” is the Greek form of the Hebrew “Miriam”), who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'”

Sometimes our service falls into a trap where we mistakenly think the Lord is lacking something worldly and that we need to provide it for Him. Since the Lord is the Creator of all things and the Giver of all blessings, He is not in need of anything worldly. He came into the world to win people who would obey God and desire only Him. The devoted heart of a servant is what the Lord values most in service.

Between the two sisters, Martha’s problem wasn’t the amount of her service, but that she was “worried and upset,” losing the peace she should have had in the Lord. If our work comes from our own will, no matter how well we do it, it is not serving the Lord. This leads to a “distracted mind,” and the more we work, the less peace and joy we have. Martha worked for the Lord, while Mary allowed the Lord to work on her. Martha wanted to give the Lord the results of her labor, while Mary wanted to be a vessel to receive from Him. Serving the Lord is a blessing, but only by gaining the Lord Himself do we receive the “better” or “best” blessing, because the results of our service can be “taken away,” but the Lord Himself “will not be taken away.”

Our service requires work, but work is not always service. Before we serve, we must first pray to understand the Lord’s will and then do what He wants us to do according to His will. That is true service. The struggle for many believers is that they are so busy serving the Lord that they forget to maintain their relationship with Him and lose sight of the one they are serving. No matter how many things we have to do on the outside, our inner focus should be on “seeing no one but Jesus” (Matthew 17:8). Internally, there should be only one thing: being close to the Lord. Whether we choose a common blessing or the “better blessing” depends on our own choice.

*It was this same Mary who, while Jesus was at a meal in the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany, took an alabaster jar of very expensive pure nard ointment, broke the jar, and poured the ointment on Jesus’ head.

(Edited and compiled based on the Chinese Union Version Bible and Comprehensive Biblical Interpretation)