Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Biggest Threat to Our Faith | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 10.38-41

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Before we hop into the episode, I wanted to let you know that Keith and I are starting a new six-week-long Bible study through the book of Revelation online via Zoom. So it doesn't matter where you're listening from. You can join us. We're really excited to go through this book.

Starting point is 00:00:33 we think it was designed to be a book that helps Christians grow incredible resilience and courage in the face of challenges and also to resist the temptation to collude with the empire and a different way of doing things in the world than God's kingdom. So if you want Revelation to make sense to you as an everyday person, click the link at the top of our show notes and sign up for a Bible study. It starts this Friday at noon and it'll be, I think, really good for you. I think one of our most formidable spiritual enemies might surprise you. For most of us, what keeps us from reading our Bible or praying with others or being a part of a small group or being a part of the worship service on Sunday, the main thing that keeps us from that isn't some major trial in our life. It's not a big health issue.

Starting point is 00:01:25 It's not that we doubt the truthfulness of Christianity. No, the main thing that often stands between. us and Jesus is far more common and ordinary. It's busyness. Business is one of the greatest enemies of our spiritual life. Business is the major obstacle that keeps the majority of us from growing in our faith. It's kind of ironic that the early followers of Christ could not be stopped by persecution or poverty or prison or martyrdom, but we are stopped by something as trivial. as too much to do. See, for most of us, the danger is not that we will renounce our faith.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Like if someone put a gun to our head, my guess is that most of us would say that we follow Jesus, even in the face of death. The weird thing is that the greater danger is that we become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we settle for a very mediocre version of Christianity. One guy said, hurry is not of the devil. Hurry is the devil. In Luke chapter 10, we meet a pair of sisters, Mary and Martha. You probably know their brother Lazarus. And Jesus is spending time in the house of Martha. And while he's there, Mary is sitting at his feet listening to what he says. But Martha was distracted. Now remember that word. by all the preparations that had to be made.

Starting point is 00:03:02 She comes to Jesus and says, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me. Jesus says, Martha, Martha, 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. See, in these verses, we have a picture of who we are and who we want to be. You are worried about many things Jesus says to Martha, but few things are needed, or indeed only one.

Starting point is 00:03:38 Many things, few things, one thing. Wouldn't it be great to have one thing to focus on? The one thing is to do what Mary did and sit at the feet of Jesus. Mary was sitting at his feet so that she could learn from him. Mary is who we want to be, but Martha is who we are. Martha was distracted from what was really important. The many things distracted her from the one thing. She wanted to learn from Jesus too, but she was distracted by all that she had going on.

Starting point is 00:04:13 She was just too busy to spend time with Jesus. And she wasn't busy with bad things. She was busy with good things. But here's what we often forget. Jesus prefers our company to our service. And we know that because Jesus says that Mary chose better. She chose better than Martha because she chose Jesus instead of everything else. I get Martha, don't you?

Starting point is 00:04:42 I mean, we're all Marthas. Our culture is like one big Martha. Everybody's in a hurry. And if we're not in a hurry, we feel like we are being left behind. Ask people about their life and what do they tell you? We're busy. Okay, so we're all busy, but are we busy doing the right things? It's fine to be busy, maybe even good to be busy,

Starting point is 00:05:06 but it's not good to be busy doing things that aren't that important. Why are we so busy? Maybe it's because we're trying to feed our soul with busyness. Maybe we're trying to feed our soul through accomplishment or achievement or importance. Don Hewitt was the executive producer, of 60 Minutes. He retired from the longest running television program and one of the most successful television programs. At 81 years old, you would think that Don Hewitt would be able to bask in the glory of his multiple Emmy Awards and multiple encounters with celebrities and presidents and even

Starting point is 00:05:50 kings. But by Hewitt's own admission, he feels empty. One article tells about Hewitt walking around his office and gesturing toward the walls. He had photographs of presidents, diplomats, foreign leaders, entertainers. There were handwritten notes from President Reagan and President Eisenhower. An array of plaques and posters and medallions. Huitt is quoted as saying, I'm not trying to be an egotomaniacal maniac, but look, I don't want to lower the temperature. Where do you go? What do you do that's going to be like this? What I've got? got to do is feed my soul. See, Don Hewitt said that he was busy accomplishing and achieving because that was his soul food. The problem is that it doesn't satisfy. The problem is that our soul

Starting point is 00:06:42 was made for Jesus and so when we try to stuff other things into our soul, it doesn't bring the contentment or the peace or the happiness or the joy that we want. But there's Mary. She's sitting at the feet of Jesus. And according to Jesus, she has chosen what is better, and it won't be taken away from her. I read a story about a man who didn't turn in a lottery ticket that was a winner, and therefore he lost millions of dollars. Are we that man? Does our busyness keep us from a greater treasure? Does our busyness keep us from Jesus? Because Jesus is a much better treasure than winning the lottery. We would never have a winning lottery ticket in our hand, but be too busy to turn it in. And yet we are too busy to have a better treasure than money can buy.

Starting point is 00:07:37 Jesus told Martha that Mary chose what is better. I wonder if he'd say that to us. When we choose Facebook over Jesus, Mary chose better. When we neglect time with Jesus so that we can catch up on the news, whether that's on the internet or television or magazines. Well, when we do that, Mary chose what's better. When we prefer sleeping in to worshiping, well, Jesus would tell us Mary chose better. Are you distracted? Are you too busy? I don't know. You'll have to answer that question. I can't answer it for you. All I can say is that we are foolish when we choose getting our list done or adding more things to our list instead of Jesus.

Starting point is 00:08:23 We're foolish when we neglect the one important thing for a thousand unnecessary things. If you come to the conclusion that you are neglecting Jesus the most important person in your life, then here's the good news. You don't have to try to make it up to them. You don't have to beat yourself up or punish yourself or make all these crazy promises. You know things like, well, I'll never watch football again. I mean, if that's what the Holy Spirit's leading you to do, well, great, but it sounds crazy to me. All we have to do is just come back to Jesus, sit at his feet, come back and say, Jesus,

Starting point is 00:09:04 will you forgive me for choosing other things more than you, choosing things of lesser value instead of you? Do you hear how gentle Jesus was when he spoke with Martha? He doesn't say, Martha, you're an idiot, you've lost your mind, you're a psychopath, get out. of here. He doesn't say anything like that. He just says, you're troubled and anxious about a lot of things, Martha. Why? Mary's chosen what's better. There's such gentleness in that rebuke. So I think if we hear Jesus whispering our names, if we hear him saying, look, you're anxious and troubled about many things, won't you give those things to me? You weren't designed to carry them all to begin with. bring them to me sit at my feet come and enjoy the one necessary thing look life is short we have to choose really deliberately

Starting point is 00:10:01 because life doesn't automatically arrange itself into proper priorities amidst of thousands of responsibilities and lots of options and all kinds of things clamoring for attention and all kinds of opinions about how we should use our time we've got to make the choice, to sit at Jesus' feet, to choose the one thing, the better thing. Amen. Again, if you haven't signed up for our Revelation Bible study, I think you're going to want to check it out. This is going to help take a book that's confused a lot of people and make it make sense for everyday people. We hope you'll sign up and join. The link is in our show notes. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

Starting point is 00:10:57 If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Biggest Threat to Our Faith | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 10.38-41

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