02/14/2022
By Pastor Vinnie Cappetta
"Everything Depends on a Sound Inner Life"
Sometimes I get so busy “doing” that I neglect my inner life. During a particularly difficult transition, I had just about emptied my spiritual and emotional tanks “doing” for the Lord. I remember telling my friend that I probably just needed some time to recover. Indeed I did. I had become “distracted” with all the work, and I needed to reset myself on the “only one needed thing” - my relationship with Jesus.
Apparently I am not the only who struggles with this. In Luke 10:38-42, we see Jesus teaching his new friend Martha this same lesson…
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
We learn an important lesson from Martha’s distracted serving…
“There is the first thing- the bringing of the inner life under the control of the Holy Spirit by the perpetual discipline which brings us back, day by day, to the remembrance and companionship of Jesus Christ. Upon that everything else depends, for if the inward life is not sound you cannot do much with the outer.”
-William Temple
