Luke 10:38-42
38 Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
Psalm 27:4, 8
4 One [thing] have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple... 8 [When thou saidst], Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.
Philippians 3:13
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
There is "one thing" in the Christian walk that is "needful", that we should "desire" and "do"... and yet, we often feel as if there are "many things". If we make a mistake we want to make it up, fill the gap, and prove ourselves trustworthy. For example, if we don't think we are spending enough time reading or studying the scriptures or praying we often feel that we need to find a way to do better next time. If we miss an opportunity to evangelize to a friend, family member, or stranger we often feel as if we have failed and attempt to conjure up a plan to succeed the next time the opportunity comes. If we happen to give in to that familiar temptation and sin that so easily besets us we think that we are now on God's bad-side and make up steps to never do it again and beg for forgiveness. It is in these circumstances we feel that we've somehow let God down because we are not meeting all the criteria that makes up the definition of "Born-again" in the biblical dictionary. We feel like an utterly defeated failure.
The truth is, we've got it backwards... We've fallen prey to our own opinions and developed our own system of legalism. God doesn't expect us to change, he wants to change us - he must change us! This is exactly why Paul stated in Galatians 3:3, "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" Salvation comes through faith, not works (Eph 2:8-9; Gal 2:16; 3:24; Rom 3:28), so then why would we think that we can work out the Christian life by our own works?! Colossians 2:6-7 state, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." We are to walk each day in the similar way we trusted Jesus Christ to save us! God must change us from the inside out. We cannot expect to change things in ourselves and somehow that will help change the inside to glorify God. God must be allowed to work in us first before we can ever behave in such a way that he would be glorified through our actions... and this is what Mary, David, and Paul all knew how to do. Instead of being like Martha, who was cumbered about with much serving, we need to make sure that we have the heart of Mary first. Once we submit ourselves at the Lord's feet with a heart-attitude of "whatever you want, Lord", then we can go and serve and glorify God.
Never forget, when we do the "one thing", the Lord will take care of the "many things".
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