Who is to be served?

Thought for the Day: "While Jesus and his followers were traveling, Jesus went into a town. A woman named Martha let Jesus stay at her house. Martha had a sister named Mary, who was sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to him teach. But Martha was busy with all the work to be done. She went in and said, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me alone to do all the work? Tell her to help me.' But the Lord answered her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her.' " Luke 10: 38-42

In chapter 6 appropriately titled "Sour Milk" of the book "He Still Moves Stones," Max Lucado discusses the above Scripture. His words ... Two sisters. Two personalities. And as long as they understand each other, it's hand in glove. But when the one resents the other, it's flint and stone.

Flint and stone. Flint is a very hard stone. So its harder and hard. And as personalities go, it doesn't have to be just between siblings. It could be between husband and wife, co-workers, friends, church members.

Philippians 2: 14-15 in the New Living Translation says, "In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. You are to live clean innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them."


To serve God.
Your heart is in the right place in the beginning, but along the way you give in to Satan's subtle hints and start believing the work itself that you do is more important that serving God. You end up serving, or feeding, yourself, and get caught up in all of the anxiety surrounding it. We look for attention, compliments, a standing ovation. But we don't get it. In all our planning, we have forgotten the very reason we set out -- to be a light, God's light, in every aspect of our lives.

To serve God.
In the workplace, perhaps it is just a job. Perhaps dreams you had have been placed on a back burner. You are in waiting ...

No matter where we are, what we are about, if we have professed to be followers of Jesus Christ, then following Him is what we must do.

In humbleness, in love, thinking, mindful always of what He is about, not what we ourselves are about. When we forget who we are, who we belong to there is a possibility we may fall. When we become so caught up in ourselves, the feeling of resentment toward another overwhelms us. Jesus has not instructed us to go there or do that. We are to follow His lead. Following only what we think of a given situation, becoming swallowed up in selfishness, draws us more and more away from forgetting who is the servant and who is to be served. Resentment, pride. Flint and stone.

In Zechariah 7: 12, we read: "Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts."

In Ezekiel 11: 19-20, we read: "Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them and take the stony heart out of their flesh and give then a heart of flesh, That they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."

And in Jeremiah 32:39: "Then I will give them one heart and one way, That they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them."

Lucado reiterates what matters more than the type of service is the heart behind the service.

We need to remember to keep our focus on the One we are serving.

Prayer: "Create in me a clean (pure) heart O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)