Sitting at His Feet

Although I'm on a brief blogging hiatus, I decided to share this devotion since we didn't get to it on Tuesday night:
After rehearsal this week I was immediately convicted about not sharing this devotion with you all. Interestingly enough, the very fact that I didn't make time to share this devotion was an example of exactly what this passage talks about. It's familiar to all of us, but I trust that you'll hear it with new ears today as you read:

Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus'[fn11] feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell to help me." And Jesus[fn12] answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. "But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:38-42 NKJV)

As you read through this passage I'm sure you are freshly convicted as I am to make the focus of our lives worship and not service. The encouragement I have for you today in addition to that is to not limit worship to sitting at His feet by way of what we consider contemporary worship - the singing of songs, playing of instruments, dancing, etc. Let us take our definition to that of an entire lifestyle surrendered to Christ and a firm adherence to His truth. Sitting at His feet is not only about adoring Him, but about hearing His words. Look at what the passage says of Mary: she "sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word." Jesus knew that if Mary would come and hear his words and truly receive them, that she would live and give everything in life to honor Him. He knew that her focus would not be on the works themselves, but that the works would come out of His word which was deposited in her spirit to produce good fruit. That should be our primary goal in sitting at His feet: hearing His word. Sharing our heart for him and acknowledging His greatness is necessary, but let us not stop at that. We must choose to continue to the place of hearing and receiving the words of life, because that's what will truly change us and cause us to do His will.

Remember that we can prepare all that we want to for 'good works', but without sitting at His feet to hear His word we may totally miss the mark. Even as the scripture says of Martha, "she was DISTRACTED with much serving." We can become oblivious to what God is saying through our own endeavors. He might be telling you to lay something down in order to pick something else up. He may be moving us in a new direction that will cause us to walk in a greater measure of faith. Whatever truth He speaks to us, the unwavering assurance we can have is that He will not only tell us what the truth is, but will also teach us how to walk in that truth. He is faithful to guide and direct our steps as we are promised in Psalm 37:23 & Proverbs 16:9. So today and everyday, especially as we prepare all of the many facets of our ministry, let's not forget what Jesus said, '...one thing is needed...' - to sit at His feet and hear His word.