Just One Thing!

In a world full of needs and cares, lights and entertainment, and every imaginable activity under the sun there is a word in Scripture that is fitting for all Christians living in the Western world in the 21st Century. At the beginning of Deuteronomy 6 we find the starting place in understanding what is to be the focus and goal of our lives. Moses writes, “Jehovah our God, Jehovah is One. You shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength…” As revelation unfolds, and Jehovah reveals Himself more and more to His people we find, what I believe to be, allusions to this great declaration.First, in Psalm 27, David declares, “One thing have desired, and that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple.” David plainly explains his life’s focus. The Lord told his people, through Jeremiah the prophet, “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 (Jer. 32:39).”

But it is not until the New Testament that we see how this is worked out and fulfilled. Our Lord Jesus Christ, immediately after teaching His people to serve others in the same manner as the Samaritan who loved his enemy, was at the home of Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus. Martha was in the kitchen serving and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Martha was doing for Jesus. She seems to be exhibiting what Jesus had taught in the account of the Samaritan. But, she was frustrated that Mary was not helping her. “Master,” she said to Jesus, “tell my sister to help.” Mary was not helping to serve. But the response of Jesus is where our attention should fall. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary and Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken away.” Mary was sitting while Martha was serving. But Mary was “sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His words.” Mary understood that there was only One thing that was to be desires. She like David could say, “One thing I have desires…that I may see the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple.”

As the NT develops with the ministry of the apostles, we find a similar statement in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In chapter 3, while explaining that we have no righteousness except the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says, “One thing I do,forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:13-14).” While you seek to serve the Lord, do your work, care for your family and minister to the needs of the saints do you first take time to spend with Jehovah Jesus? When you see the needs in the church and call others to help meet them, do you remember that there is One thing necessary? When you consider your spiritual walk with Christ, and seek to overcome sin, do you do this coming to Him? May the life of Moses, David, Mary and Paul be an example to us as we walk on the one way that God has given us through His one and only Son Jesus Christ.