A Visit at Martha's House, part 2

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. (Luke 10:38 NASB)

The word translated here as "welcomed" is hypodechomai. It literally means to "admit under one's roof, to entertain hospitably". We have to chase this a bit to get the full impact, so bear with me. "Hospitality" is the cordial, generous reception of guests. "Cordial" is a word we seldom use in everyday speech, so a quick look at its meaning might be helpful. "Cordial" means "warm, sincere, hearty." If we put all that together, it means that Martha received Jesus and His disciples as her guests in a warm, sincere, and hearty manner. She was delighted to have Him there!

Martha made an excellent start in entertaining Jesus. The problem quickly became one of focus. Martha turned her attention from her welcome visitor to the details of the visit, where her focus remained. In her excitement to have Jesus in her home, she became so focused on the food and the preparations for service that she, in a way, abandoned Jesus. She left Him out completely as she bustled about the kitchen, preparing the meal. 

Imagine being that busy for a moment. 

The Son of God comes to your house and, instead of sitting down to talk to Him, you leave Him in the living room and go straight to the kitchen to start cooking. He is eager to share truth with you, to enjoy your company because you are one of His favorite friends, yet you spend the entire visit working hard to cook a big meal for Him. By the time the visit is over, you are exhausted and haven't spent even a minute visiting with your Guest. The meal was lovely, but did Jesus care about the meal? Did He come for the meal? No, He came for you.

That scenario seems unlikely, doesn't it, yet every day our Lord longs to spend time with us and we are so distracted by the details of life that we rush about, compromising our time with Him by our incessant "busyness". We serve diligently, and likely do a lovely job of it, but neglect the greater work of sitting quietly at the feet of Jesus.

Does your service, your bustling busyness crowd out your time at the feet of Jesus? Do you spend more time working for the Kingdom or worshipping the King? It is a question of priority and one that matters greatly to Jesus. Let's make a conscious choice to  be still at the feet of Jesus, worship before Him, learn from Him, and serve Him with our presence. Those details of physically serving cannot be left completely undone, but perhaps less would be more if we began at the feet of Jesus. Let us choose the greater part and begin by worshipping our King.