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The Most Important Person in the Room

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments 
 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.” 
Luke 10:40-42

This well-loved passage has many of us chuckling, as we consider ourselves a bit more like a Martha than a Mary. But our fondness for the story may cause us to miss the reason Luke included it. He alone could have recalled from firsthand experience as he accompanied Paul, how a life of service could be thrown off track by busyness. Martha was in many ways a lot like Paul. She loved Jesus with all her heart and didn’t care what anyone else thought about her faith. Remember it was Martha who invited Jesus over in the first place. Yet somewhere in the middle of her determination to serve Jesus, Martha began to lose focus. With her house filled with disciples, servants and even a few curious neighbors, she forgot that the whole occasion was supposed to be about Jesus. In the midst of our serving, sometimes you and I, like Martha, also forget who the most important person in the house is!

There are other times we get caught in the “service trap”, because of the expectations of others. As Pastor Rick Warren once famously said, “God loves you, and everyone else has a wonderful plan for your life!” We mean to take time for prayer and reading God’s word, but the phone rings, a text message grabs our attention, or we decide to check our Facebook page, just one more time. Little by little our day is eaten away by distractions, and the Holy Spirit’s voice is drowned out by the banging of our own pots and pans. With our hours consumed by serving, it is easy to miss out on taking time for the only one who really knows what we should do.

Last of all, while Martha asked for Jesus to pay attention to her needs and feelings, Mary just sat at HIs feet, with her eyes on Him. When we allow our serving to overwhelm us, we may elicit sympathy from others or even cause them to jump in to give us a hand, but we lose our chance to point to Jesus. But when, like Mary we give our complete attention to Him, then we can begin again to draw others to look to Him, because He is the most important person in the room!

The Most Important Cabinet Position

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments

Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established. Proverbs 15:22 KJ

Since the recent election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the airwaves have been filled with announcements as well as speculations as to who will fill which role in the new administration. But the most important cabinet position has yet to be discussed. Who will fill the role of spiritual advisor to our incoming commander in chief? Everyone knows that George Washington was our first president, but few have read that it was Pastor John Gano who baptized him and Mason Locke Weems who pastored the little church near Mount Vernon where Washington attended. Some presidential spiritual advisors were well known such as Peter Marshall, with Truman or Billy Graham with Eisenhower, but most remain obscure. But what matters is not the star power of these advisors, but their spiritual integrity. Let us remember to pray for God to send good and wise counsellors, not only for our president but for all our leaders. Let us also pray that they will not only seek wise spiritual counsel but even more that they will seek the wisest counselor of all: the Word of God!

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That’s Why We Came Here

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. Hebrews 11:9 ESV

On election day, my wife and I arrived at our polling place by 5:45 a.m. “Now that’s an early hour to be voting,” you might exclaim. But we weren’t there to vote. we showed up because it was our job as poll workers. If you came in yesterday, you would have seen my wife Nancy, with a friendly smile, gently showing each person how to put their ballots into the machine. Since I cannot stand for long hours, I sit at a table, hand out the ballots and then explain how to fill them out. As people turn to go to the voting booths, I often add, “Thanks for voting!” After saying this for hundreds of times yesterday, I rarely listened for their replies, until one young Latino, turned to me with a big smile and responded, “That’s why we came here!”

After all the anger, arguing and overall hooting and hollering that goes on every election, we often lose sight of the privilege we have as Americans just to vote. We forget that having the chance to freely vote for our leaders, is a rare commodity in today’s world. Like Abraham, many have left homes, family, and familiar surroundings and by faith have settled here. With Veteran’s Day right around the corner, we need to not only be thankful to God for our blessings, but we should also be grateful for the veterans who have sacrificed and sometimes even given their lives for that blessing. Generation after generation of people have come from all around the world with the phrase, “That’s why I came here!” So, let’s be thankful for that right and ask God how we may use our freedom to share the message of the love of Christ with someone else today!

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