“But one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her.”

— Luke 10:42

The late motivational speaker Zig Ziglar once made an interesting comment about focus. He said suppose you took an outside stack of old newspapers, papers that would easily go up in flames with the right input and a magnifying glass on a sunny day. If you took that glass and you slowly moved it around in an unfocused way, nothing would happen. But if you carefully allowed the magnifying glass to stay at the same place—in a focused way—it could easily cause a fire (if that was your goal). We accomplish little if we remain “wandering generalities” as opposed to becoming “a meaningful specific.”

It’s easy to get distracted by many things. In modern times, we are overstimulated, over-exposed, and over-saturated—often with wordy things. In such a context, it is easy to forget what truly matters—listening to Jesus. In this passage, Martha and Mary have Jesus over as a dinner guest. Martha gets frustrated that she is doing all the work, while Mary is just sitting there listening to the Master. So Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. Instead, Jesus commends Mary for simply listening to God’s Word. We need to focus on what God has to say for us. We need to focus on His purpose for us, which may be different during different phases of our lives.

Whatever pressing activities we may feel obligated to do, it is most important that we always center our lives by spending time with Jesus. Remember this: If you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy.

Lord, thank You for inviting us to sit at Your feet and listen. Forgive us for being slaves to “the tyranny of the urgent.” Instead, help us to focus on that which is important, beginning with spending time with You…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
FIND TIME TO LISTEN TO HIM.

“I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old.”

— Psalm 77:11

The word “thank” comes from the same root as “think.” People are not thankful usually because they are not thoughtful. They don’t think about things that have been done for them and so they don’t thank people for doing that.

We are not going to be glad and joyful over something and thankful for it if we don’t think about it, and so we need to constantly remind ourselves. That’s why the Scriptures and Christ over and over said, “Remember.” “Remember.” “Remember!” We are to remember and think about these things in order that we may be thankful for what Christ has done in coming into this world for us: what He has already accomplished; what change He has made in our lives; what He has done for us over the years; how He has provided for us; what He has promised; and what we have to look forward to. We should remember all these things and thank Him for them.

It is only as we think about those things and recognize them as God’s blessings that thanksgiving grows in us. Unthankful children are always glum, down in the mouth. When you see a person whose mouth is turned down, who has a downcast, dog look on their face, they are not thankful. They are just sorry for themselves, they are miserable, and they don’t think about anything that God has done for them. Unfortunately, there is a little bit of that in every one of us, and, therefore, the Bible tells us to remember what God has done.

Dear Jesus, give me the strength of mind to remember the good and to dwell on what You have done for me. You have cared for my body and soul. You have secured my eternal salvation through Your blood. Give me strength for today to remember Your goodness…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
REMEMBER ALL HIS BENEFITS.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”

—Philippians 4:4

Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians is an epistle of joy. The words joy, rejoice, and rejoicing appear over and over again in this epistle. In the final chapter, Paul gives this command. It is an imperative: Rejoice in the Lord! Now we generally tend to say to people,” Well, I hope you will be happy.” Paul never said that. He said, “Rejoice!” That’s a command, an imperative in the Lord.

Why is that important? We tend to look upon that as some peripheral issue of not too much importance. But Paul obviously felt it to be a very important matter. I think the secret of why this is important can be found in the fact that in Nehemiah 8:10 we are told that the joy of the Lord is our strength. One thing that is true of all strong Christians, they enjoy the Lord. And so consequently they spend much time with Him, in His word, in prayer and in service to Him, and it shows in their countenance.

A great resource for the Christian is found in the hymnal. Here we have centuries of beautiful psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs written by Christians throughout the ages. As one of the hymns says, “I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free.” Jesus has made me free. With His joy you will be able to serve. With His joy, you will be able to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Therefore, rejoice!

Lord, You are my joy and You are my song. I thank You that I can rejoice before You today. When my day is hard and my song stilled, then will I praise You and You will fill my heart with Your presence and joy…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
WE CAN ALWAYS REJOICE.

“Watch out for dogs, watch out for evil workers, watch out for those who practice mutilation”

— Philippians 3:2

The Apostle Paul warned the Philippian Christians about evil workers, whom he called dogs. What they were doing was an attempt to add something to the Gospel. These are the kind of people that Paul condemned in Galatians 1. In Galatians 1 he is talking about those who are calling them to some other kind of Gospel. This is a Gospel that is antithetical to the grace of God, the grace of Christ. This is the Gospel that always has to add something more. Well, yes, salvation by grace through faith is good and nice—BUT it is not enough. You have to add circumcision, you have to add the Mosaic ritual or you have to add baptism or you have to add some kind of sacramentalism, or you have to have the baptism of the Spirit—you have to have something in addition. They are never satisfied with simply the pure Gospel of the grace of Christ.

In this text, Paul is talking about the same Judaizers. They were claiming that Gentiles could be saved through faith in Jesus—as long as they added to it circumcision (“mutilation” in Philippians 3:2). We can add nothing to the finished work of Christ on the cross. It is the Gospel of Christ as it was proclaimed by the Apostle Paul, as it was enunciated by Augustine, as it was systematized by Calvin, and it is the purest expression of the Gospel of grace that there is—salvation by grace alone.

“Oh to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.” Yes, Lord, Your grace is all sufficient and never ending. I thank You and praise You that You have poured out Your grace on me…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, HIS
GRACE HAS SAVED US.

“Now these things were our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted.”

— 1 Corinthians 10:6

What happened to people in the Old Testament provides lessons for people of all time. The fact that God will bless us and cause us to succeed and prosper if we seek and obey Him is seen clearly in the Old Testament. If the blessings or the cursings had come into the next world, which is invisible to our eyes, there could have been no example unto us at all, for we would not have known whether they had been blessed or not. And we may well have supposed that those who lived wickedly were blessed in the future life, and those that lived godly were not.

I think that one of the greatest decisions every person in this world has to make is to decide: What is the source of blessing and success and prosperity? I also think that every Christian should seek those things—and I am not talking about worldly success and prosperity per se, though God may be pleased to grant that to you, but that our life should be a success. By that I mean, we will accomplish that for which God created us for we have been made for His glory. Everyone must answer this question in his own heart: Where is the source of my blessing and my success? James tells us “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no change or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

“Come Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy praise. Streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise.” Thank You, Jesus, my Fount of every blessing. Let me always be grateful for what You give me…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE ACKNOWLEDGE
HIM AS THE SOURCE OF EVERY BLESSING.

“And he [Uzziah] did what was correct in the eyes of the Lord as everything his father Amaziah had done. And he sought after God in the days of Zechariah, the one who instructed him in the fear of the Lord. And in the days that he sought after the Lord, God caused him to succeed.”

— 2 Chronicles 26:4-5

Success is of the Lord. The Bible teaches us that promotion is from above. Now this is very contrary to the attitudes of people today who think they can force themselves up the ladder of success. The Bible tells us that promotion is from above—that it is God who blesses or withholds His blessing, and because of Him kings and nations and individuals prosper and succeed or fail to do so. Obviously, as we have opportunity we should strive to do our best with the resources God has given us to better our lives and the lives of those around us.

And we read in this passage that as long as King Uzziah sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. With his heart he sought after God, and the Lord caused him to prosper.

Those who would tell you that the Scripture calls us to be totally unconcerned with our own well-being do not understand the message of Scripture, in my opinion. But what the Bible calls us to do is to seek our wellbeing at the hand of God. That you will find from one end of the Scripture to the other, and the Bible says that God will bless us. Now in the Old Testament those blessings always appeared here in this life because these things were done for an example unto us. In the New Testament era, sometimes those blessings appear in this life, sometimes in the next. Either way, in the long run God’s blessings follow obedience.

Jehovah-Jireh, our Great Provider, thank You for sustaining our lives. Thank You for the spiritual riches You have bestowed on me. Lord, give me strength for today to praise and thank You, whether You do or do not increase my worldly goods…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE
CAN LIVE IN CONTENTMENT.

“Uzziah was sixteen years old when he began to reign, and he was king in Jerusalem for fifty-two years.”

— 2 Chronicles 26:3

Today it seems to be the heart’s desire of every teenager that on his sixteenth birthday he receives a car, preferably a long, low, sleek one with a lot of painting on it and several mufflers. Well, the ancient Jewish leader Uzziah had more than his heart’s desire when he became sixteen. They gave him the whole kingdom, and he became the king of Judah.

“Woe to you, O land, when your king is a lad” (Ecclesiastes 10:16) says the Old Testament writer. At the time Luther was brought before Philip of Spain, a young man who had just ascended to the throne, the placards that the supporters of Luther raised around the Diet of Worms cried out the message, “Woe unto that nation whose king is a child.”

And yet, surprisingly enough, to every rule there are some exceptions, and Uzziah proved to be the exception and followed after the Lord. He walked in all of the ways of his father and according to the teachings of the prophet Zechariah. As long as Zechariah was there, Uzziah sought God, and God caused him to prosper greatly. He reigned longer (for 52 years total) than any of the other kings of Judah or Israel, save one. Sadly, he did not remain faithful after the prophet died. May God give us grace to serve Him faithfully, no matter what our age may be and no matter how others may react to the Lord.

Lord, our King, in one sense it does not matter who governs us at any level because You are sovereign. We ask, however, that You would bless us with good and godly governors and with Your servants who follow the counsel of Your Word.

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, OUR
GOVERNORS CAN BE GODLY.

“The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.”

— Exodus 15:2

When we see that God delivers us, and He becomes our strength and our salvation, then He creates within us a song. Divine strength and spiritual song always go together. Nehemiah said “…the joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10), and so assurance and deliverance leads to rejoicing, and rejoicing leads to strength for holy living.

This is why Paul says that we are to rejoice in the Lord always because in rejoicing we find strength. If you are not rejoicing, you are not going to have strength for the journey in the Christian life. Is there joy in your heart? Is there joy in your home? Is there singing in both? There won’t be unless you know that God is your God and has become your salvation. The enemy of our souls cannot stand the praise of God. If you ever feel overwhelmed by evil or discouraged, start singing, even if you don’t feel like it. A song of praise will lift your heart and soul to God, and evil will flee.

God inhabits the praises of His people. The Christian religion has always been a singing religion. When you ever find yourself getting low, turn to the hymnal and sing to the Lord a new song. We sing because the Lord is our strength and our salvation.

Lord God, You created music, and You put a song in my heart. I thank You for this “heavenly language” that You gave us. I will praise You and sing unto Your holy name…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
LIFT OUR VOICE IN PRAISE.

“Let nothing be done out of strife or conceit, but in humility let each esteem the other better than himself.”

— Philippians 2:3

When Paul wrote the church in the Roman outpost of Philippi (in modern day Turkey), he had many positive things he commended them for. But Paul realized that the only flaw that he saw in the Philippian church was a tendency to divisiveness, a tendency which ultimately was going to be destructive to that church. But he did his best to point out to them the danger, the rocks that lay submerged in the path of the ecclesiastical ship at Philippi.

In order for them to be of one mind and one accord they had to acquire humility. He wrote to them, “Let each of you look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Let this mind be in you all, which was also in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:4-5).

Jesus humbled Himself by becoming a man. The Second Person of the Trinity took on human flesh. So He was fully God and fully man. Then He humbled Himself in complete obedience, living a perfect life. Finally, He humbled Himself by dying on the cross. This was a degrading form of execution reserved only for slaves and non-Roman citizens. But God raised Him from the dead and vindicated Him completely. One day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.

Humility comes before honor. Christ has shown us the way.

Lord, You who humbled Yourself so completely and received the name above all names, help me to have a true picture of You and, thus, a true picture of myself, resulting in humility…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH AND BY HIS LIGHT,
WE CAN SEE OURSELVES CLEARLY.

“The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek He will teach His way.”

— Psalm 25:9

Among the pagans, humility was not a virtue, it was a vice. I think of a man who described himself as a complete pagan. He scorned humility and all Christian virtues as being beneath the dignity of the pagan mind. His name was Adolf Hitler.

I remember one time debating a modern humanist atheist on a radio show, and someone called and asked what they should do to become a Christian. I said at first you need to get down on your knees and repent of your sins and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of your life.

Well, the host interrupted and said, “No, you should stand on your feet, be proud.” Well that’s the humanist motto, “Be proud.” You know it is hard when you’re pretending to be a god to be humble, and that’s of course what humanists believe that they are.

Lowliness of mind and humility, those are two virtues that are not seen very often. I recall reading about two men who were arguing, and finally one of them despairing of ever changing the mind of the other said, “I can see that I am going to do nothing today to change your mind, but I would prayerfully ask you to prayerfully consider if there might just be a possibility that you could be wrong.”

A constant theme of the Bible is that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Paul asks a great question that helps encourage humility: “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

O Lord God Almighty, You are so high and lifted up and yet You dwell with the humble of heart. As I walk with You, please develop in me a true humility that only You can bring.

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN BE
USEFUL TO GOD’S KINGDOM.