Worship in Hospitality (part 1)
An easy attempt at change is to change one’s behavior. But, God is after HEART change. So, the following does speak to the changes that a repentant Martha can work on. Distracted Martha’s heart can start to focus her energy and thoughts towards worship as she becomes a better planner and organizer. Purely, by God’s grace, Martha heart will start dwelling on Christ in her as she: serves Him and others in her presence.
It is a matter of prayer and dependence on Christ that Martha can practically apply these changes in hospitality. Again, no behavior change cheaters! God sees our hearts. When people are in my home, my desire is to see them as a gift from God, to enjoy them, to treasure their words, to allow Christ to minister to them.
Part 1 is to talk about hospitality in the home where it is EXPECTED, not a suprise drop by. But, a planned dinner or meeting to host a friend or a stranger.
Scenario 1:
The meal is not prepared. You have in mind what you are making, yet all the preparations are undone. You wait until the guests arrive to start preparing. Immediately, the guests start asking how they can help you and they are hungry. The attention goes on you because you are the one with the plan. The attention doesn’t go on your guests, because now they are here to help you prepare- their meal. You are haried but trying to put out a calm vibe but it feels awkward. Dinner is served, later than anyone’s tummy wanted. Your guests ask you a few questions about your day. You answer. You are distracted now about cleaning up. Everyone is done eating, it was delicious! Everyone helps you clean up and you try to insert a few questions, because you know it is the “right thing to do”. You remind yourself that “good hosts” engage their guests. After cleaning up you may go to the living room for coffee and dessert and you find yourself looking at the toys on the floor and the hand smears on the window behind your guests head. With little eye contact, you try to enjoy conversation, yet you are distracted with much. Your guests leave. What was their experience? Did they feel- loved, engaged, pursued, served? Did your guests experience the love of Jesus? Was the experience worshipful? Did hearts resemble selfless service to Christ?
Scenario 2:
You have the meal ready, the house is clean and any tasks that would lure you are done ahead of time- so that your eyes and heart are glued to the friends in your home. The mess from dinner stays on the table and counter. The conversations are priority. You listen and pursue with questions and affections. They aren’t there to be impressed by you and your hosting and cooking abilities. Your guests are there to be served, loved, and pursued. But, even more, they are there for you to glean something from. If you view your guests as partners in the Gospel,your desire is to learn from them, not to impress them. This is a huge shift from entertaining in the home, verses true biblical hospitality. As Martha hosted Christ in her home, she had an opportunity to lay aside busy preparations, but to give herself, her attention to him. She missed it!
Oviously, no one fits squarely in either scenerio, but you get the point. In Scenario 1, the host is concerned with self, distracted, confused, and misses the gift of Christ. In Scenario 2, the host is tenderly available to the guest, open to the riches of Christ- offered up in conversation and an opportunity to serve others.
Both scenarios involve sinners- yet scenario two chooses the “good portion.”
My husband I and I often pray before people arrive that our conversations would glorify Jesus and that He would help us know how to love them well. When people leave and kids are in bed, my husband and I enjoy conversation with one another while we clean up from the evening. My heart is glad at the opportunity to serve the people in my home and it that, my heart is full of worship.
Do we see the guests being like Jesus in our home and cheerfully set at their feet, learning, serving, and enjoying them?
Do we worship Christ as we serve others in our home?
In some sense the most benevolent, generous person in the world seeks his own happiness in doing good to others, because he places his happiness in their good. His mind is so enlarged as to take them, as it were, into himself. Thus when they are happy, he feels it; he partakes with them, and is happy in their happiness.”
-Jonathan Edwards
Worshipping Christ in Hospitality:
-Loving others- equipped with divine grace
-Experiencing Christ in serving others
-Experiencing Christ through the gift of others
-Dependence on Christ
-Glory to Christ
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Love is the overflow and expansion of joy in God, which gladly meets the needs of others. Love is not merely the passive overflow, but the agressive extension and expansion and completion of JOY IN GOD, reaching any.
-John Piper
Choosing the “Good Portion”
In continuing our look at Work and Worship, I am peering into the story of Martha, Mary, and Jesus in Luke 10. I have been meditating on worship and how my actions rarely reflect an attitude of worship. Often, my attitude as I work is an attitude of self-worship not worship of Jesus- just like my sister- Miss Martha.
I am zeroing in on: Luke 10:42 “but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
So, what is the good portion?
Many time in scripture, you find “portion” being associated with heritage, right, inheritance, or simply portion of land. Here are some examples where “portion” is used:
Psalm 119:57 The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words.
Psalm 142:5 I cry to you, O LORD; I say, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
Numbers 18:20 and the LORD said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall you have any portion among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the people of Israel.
Jesus is the “portion” of Jacob, he is our “portion.” Yet, we so easily miss him. The whole Bible is unified and points us to Jesus. My whole life is meant to be about giving God glory, enjoying Him, being satisfied in Him- true worship. Yet, my distractions are set up as idols replacing Jesus. My attention, my worship is distracted.
In John Calvin’s commentary on this- he said-“Martha, by distracting her attention, and undertaking more labor than was necessary, deprived herself of the advantage of Christ’s visit.”
Martha chose to deprive herself by fluttering around distracted with much toil, and Mary chose the good portion. The portion was Christ himself.
Reminder of Grace: As God reveals His truth to me, I am comforted by Christ’s provisional grace to move in my heart, as HE SEEKS worshippers. My heart is being transformed, by grace. God is my portion, my desire, my REWARD!
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Martha, Mary, and Worship
For a few years, I have talked about a woman named Margaret. She is a fictitious woman I’ve made up, trying to understand the Martha and Mary story in Luke 10. I jokingly call the blend of both Martha and Mary “Margaret,” assuming that there must be a gal that is both a hard worker and a worshipper. My tag line in the Margaret story has been: “Sure, Mary had it right–setting at the Lord’s feet listening to his teaching–but hey! JESUS had to eat!”
But I am starting to grasp that Margaret isn’t the answer. I am starting to understand what Jesus meant when he said, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her.”
Martha:
All of my Christian life, I have heard about the differences between Martha and Mary. Often it is suggested that Martha is the stressed out sister concerned about tasks. She can’t relax because “there is much to be done.” Martha works hard but seems to lack the peace and worship that goes with working heartily unto the Lord. When God himself is a guest in her home she can’t even handle the pressure to perform the tasks. It seems as though that is all she is concerned with–the preparations. Check her out:
Luke 10:38-42 Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Martha is distracted.
Distracted. Hmmm. Who does this resonate with? Me! For sure. I often find myself BUSY with much serving. Distracted from what? Why was Martha, or any of us, distracted? We think that what we’re doing is most important: the tasks and preparations. Jesus told Martha that she was anxious and troubled about many things. What was she troubled by? I can answer for myself. When I am like Martha–when I am not worshipping in work but JUST working–I am busy, frustrated, fast, and resentful. I resent it if my husband is in the room and not helping out in some way. My heart is troubled by the tasks yet to be done. I’m ticked that I have to do it all. Maybe I’m trying to enjoy the preparations. Yet inside my heart I’m looking for any opportunity to complain that I am going it alone. How foolish and self-focused I can be.
Martha is a tattle teller.
My kids do this all the time. They get frustrated and sin in their anger with their siblings because some offense has been done. Most of the time the other sibling has not sinned against the tattler. The tattler just wants their way.
Can’t you just picture Martha quietly working, yet raging in her heart? Her rage got the best of her. She wanted Mary to help her! Mary just sat there and listened to Jesus. Martha may have started out with a pure heart. She may have had a desire to be hospitable to the Lord, make him food, serve him. So when did her desire to serve turn to sin?
Again, imagine yourself, imagine me. I am working in the kitchen. I start preparing, and my heart is delighted that I have all the ingredients to make a delicious dinner for my family. I am chopping and peaceful. My husband walks in, kisses my cheek. He goes about his business. My kids start getting loud in the living room. I stop chopping and attend to their arguments. Then the baby cries. She needs breastfed. The preparations for this amazing meal have to stop.
Enter: my depravity. Why can’t I just get that done? Why do these kids need me too? Oh, but I love my children… Why does it take so long to make a dinner! I wish I could just focus. I say a prayer while nursing my baby and another riot breaks out among the other kids. My husband deals with that one. Thank you! Ok, back to busy preparations. I turn on some music to lighten the attitude in the air, denying the war in my heart. The kids start dancing in the kitchen. I take a break to dance too. They see this opportunity to ask me for a snack. Can’t they see I am making an amazing dinner!? If I could just finish it, they would be happy! I would be happy! Why?
Question! What God am I serving?
The war that was raging in me suggests that the god I am serving is The God of Accomplishment and Tasks. I am worshipping the God of self–me.
Martha was worshipping herself, not Jesus.
At some point, Martha transferred her worship from God to Self. God was actually in HER LIVING ROOM. I can’t believe her! How could she do this??? She could’ve set at His feet too and worshipped him, yet the war in her heart raged. She thought serving busily was the right thing to do. She eventually resented her sister. This sin developed because Martha’s heart wasn’t worshipping in work.
As I just shared, I do the same thing. I tattle-tell in my heart. I complain to God for the people in the house that take me from the more important things, the tasks. Martha complained to the Lord in person. But I do it too–in my heart. I have the same divided heart, tattle-telling while thinking I am serving with a pure heart.
The easy and false remedy for this heart issue would be simple behavior change: abandon tasks and enjoy relationship. Just throw preparations and work out the door and “Let the Good Times Roll!” Chill out, play, enjoy one another, read all the time, listen to preaching, sing worship songs, and give affection to everyone all the time, without doing tasks. I don’t think that is what Jesus is saying.
Martha didn’t choose the good portion.
Jesus told Martha, “but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” He was saying Mary made a choice. This is huge.
It is common to make this about Mary’s personality, thinking of her as “relationship gal.” She sets at Jesus’ feet and she probably is the kind of gal that loves people well. It is easy to imagine the stereotype of a good time gal that works when it is necessary, but has a lot of friends and would choose going out on the town to party instead of getting five loads of laundry done and the floors mopped. We will talk about Mary later, but my point is that Martha could’ve made a choice. Do I make the right choices?
I am not promoting a legalistic work model for a woman, here. By confessing my own sin, I desire to provoke other hearts to see. To provoke hearts to see how double-minded we are when we work.
Martha had an opportunity to worship in her work. JESUS was actually in her house!!!! I so wish the story went down in Luke like this:
“Martha was busy with many preparations as she listened to the Lord. In her heart she worshipped him for His enabling her to enjoy her work as an act of service to him. Martha offered the fruit of her work in her heart and the Lord ate and was satisfied. Even as Mary sat at the Lord’s feet, Martha was not resentful but grateful to have this opportunity to serve the Lord Christ. She worshipped with her hands, with her heart.”
But alas, the Lord saw fit to have another story–the true story of Martha’s heart–her battle with work. It is my battle too. I long to worship Jesus in my work.
The Reminder of Grace is that my Lord is slow to anger and abounding in love for me. He knows my struggle. He knows my personality tendencies. He is loving me graciously in revealing to me how to work hard to His Glory and not to my own.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Work as Worship
Work as Worship
Colossians 3:23-25 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
I love the feeling of laying down in my bed at night with my husband. My body sinks in to the mattress and takes a breath. The physical feeling of rest. My days consist of almost constant work. Most of the time, my mind feels satisfied for a job well done. I find work to be rewarding. My children, husband, and home functions because of me. I feel needed and happy about that.
Here is my question: am I working heartily? Yes.
But, am I working for the Lord- truly? Maybe.
What is my reward? Well, if I am working for myself, my reward is satisfaction unto myself. My motives are to be a good wife, mom, or even a “good Christian woman.”If I am truly working heartily unto the Lord, my heart’s motives are directed unto God. So, “In Christ” I see work as worship.
Proverbs 14:1The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.
So, what does it mean to work as worship? We are created to be worshippers, so in everything, we worship. Too often, my motives, are self-worship.To listen to praise music while you do dishes doesn’t necessarily translate into working as worship. (however, your heart may be pure in doing that!) A woman who tells herself to worship in work- pushes herself to “happy thoughts” flips on the christian music, yet folly may still be in her heart. She could very well be cursing her work (under her breath) -angry that she can’t be doing something more enjoyable. Yet, her behavior is scratching at the surface of heart change.
Heart change may look like- admitting to God and others she resists work. Then, doing it out of obedience. Then again, humbly talking to the Lord about the heart resistance. When she works, she knows her struggle to worship in work is confessed. In geniune heart change, under the behavior you see the struggle. You see honesty and humility.
It is easy for me to think about Work as Worship- because I enjoy it. My disconnect is caught up in heart motivations. My depravity says, ” Do it! You feel great about yourself!” Yet, “In Christ,” I am able to work heartily knowing that the glory for a job well done, ONLY goes to God. And that I don’t work for man or myself, but my Lord. And- the only reward that changes me is the reward from God.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)God’s Contraconditional Love
” The Gospel is better than unconditional love. The Gospel says, “God accepts you just as Christ is. God has ‘contraconditional’ love for you.” Christ bears the curse you deserve. Christ is fully pleasing to the Father and gives you His own perfect goodness. Christ reigns in power, making you the Father’s child and coming close to you to begin to change what is unacceptable to God about you. God never accepts me “as I am.” He accepts me “as I am in Jesus Christ.” The center of gravity is different. The true Gospel does not allow God’s love to be sucked into the vortex of the soul’s LUST for acceptability and worth in and of itself. Rather, it radically decenters people- what the Bible calls “fear of the Lord: and “faith”- to look outside themselves. ”
-taken from the Journal of Biblical Counseling Volume 13- number 2- Winter 1995- author- David Powlison
I read this recently and am still setting in the beauty and the truth of it. The world loves to tell me messages like, “I love you unconditionally, you could never do anything to keep me from loving you!” It comforts a heart yearning for acceptance. I know that I am God’s daughter and fully loved. Yet, in my sin, not accepted. My sin is not acceptable. However, “In Christ,” I am acceptable.
But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Romans 8:10
The cross isn’t just a demonstration that God loves me, says Powlison. It loses its force as the substitutionary atonement by the perfect Lamb in my place, who invites me repentance for heart-pervading sin.
Life and freedom and GRACE is found only at the cross of Jesus. It is repentance to see sin, to confess, to walk in the light(sharing struggles with others), and experience heart change. But, what is the goal of it?
1 Peter 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
There will always be more sin to see. Lately, there is more sin to deal with in my heart that is acutally possible to understand. Yet, God promises me that I am righteous, “In Christ!”
Reminder of grace: Ephesians 2: 4But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in not your own doing; it is the gift of God!
As I ponder the riches of the Cross, I am in awe of my Lord Jesus’ gifts to me, even today. I am thankful that God’s love is contraconditional, that “in Christ,” I am accepted, holy, righteous, whole, loved, beautiful, and it is all GRACE.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)With one hand full, I TOIL for more…
Ecclesiastes 6:7-9
All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor manhave who knows how to conduct himself before the living? Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
in the Net Bible:
6:7 All of man’s labor is for nothing more than to fill his stomach yet his appetite is never satisfied!6:8 So what advantage does a wise man have over a fool? And what does a pauper gain by knowing how to survive? It is better to be content with what the eyes can see than for one’s heart always to crave more. This continual longing is futile – like chasing the wind.
I am content with about 90% of my life. That isn’t contentment is it? Do I crave more of something? My cravings are all about me: Thinner body, cleaner house, automatic doors on a car! These cravings can crowd my heart in my affections for Christ. My worship can come out of those thoughts, as the Holy Spirit prompts my conviction of a material and vanity driven heart.
My dear hubby wrote this song from Ecclesiastes on this topic 5 years ago:
http://www.marshillchurch.org/Audio/meaningless_parsons_062203.mp3
1 Timothy 6:6-8
Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.
“If I aspire to anything, it should be serve my God and King. I must to learn to seek his kingdom first.” Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)
Ministry Burning a Hole in My Pocket
I don’t save money. As soon as I get a few bucks, I know exactly where, what, and when I will get it the item at the top of the list…
I realized today- ministry is like this for me. I love staying busy. I love projects. I love helping, serving, and teaching. You know, the “important” things. Dang. My depravity leaks out again.
Thank God for a good friend, who said, “Do you think ministry won’t be there, when your kids are older?” I struggle not doing more in ministry now, because I love serving with my husband and being on the “front lines,” so to speak.
I am passionate about my children, my home, my husband, yet I get bored. Where is the next “big thing?” The next project, the next curriculum to write? Seriously, when I get bored, I write curriculum. It is hard to see that one as sin, because I am immersed in the Word. But, I am starting to see more about how discontent I can grow as my selfish ambition sides with my passion.
Is it enough for me that my savior delights in me? Psalm 41 11By this I know that you delight in me: my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.12But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.
Work or Worship?
Selfish Ambition or peaceful contentment?
Selfish Ambition or Worship
When I raise up out of my bed, the first thing I think is guilt. Guilt for not getting up sooner. yikes. Am I already feeling like a failure? I clomp downstairs in the dark, all the children still snoozing. Pilates or Treadmill, hmm.. Pilates today. I push myself hard and for what purpose? This particular goal is to lose my baby weight. IS this reasonable? Am I ambitious to accomplish goals? Or am I ambitious to worship?
Are you goal-driven or Worship-driven?
Most days, I count a day a success if I accomplish my goals, complete the list, and call it good.
Was Jesus even part of it?
C.J. Mahaney in his book, Humililty, True Greatness says to cultivate humility is to ask God for help at the beginning of the day. This is an “of Course,” to many. Not to me. I usually get a lot done (by God 100% enabling me), yet fail to ask him for help or tenderly acknowledge His provision for me. When the job is done, when the day is done, I worship. I thank God for His love, His guidance, and Grace He has given me. Yet, God held my hand the whole time, start to finish. All that I did, we did together. My sin- is shaking his hand off. My stubborn self-suffiency.
I ambitiously work all day. I enjoy work. I love serving my kids. I delight in a clean house. How often as my mind is busy at work, my hands clean, care for my children, do I worship?
Why do I work? I work to my own glory, most days.