If I told you exercising is very important to me and then I told you that I do it once a week, what would you say? You would say “No way! Exercising is not important to you if you do it only once a week.” For you to believe what I said, I will have to do it every day. We all put values on things. The more time and energy we spend on something shows us that we have high value for it. How we use our time especially can show what we value the most. Olympic athletes train for hours every day for several years just to get a Gold medal. How you use your time will show anybody what you value the most.
The issue with the average believer is that they think they are actually spending time with Jesus not knowing they are stuck in a rut. Work, family, friends, and pleasure has taken all their time and the remnants are left for Jesus. Believers struggle here. The struggle is as a result of the religious teachings we have received for years. We have focused on how we should behave towards people rather than focus on becoming like Jesus through believing. Religion focuses on events while relationship focuses on experiences. Martha focused on serving tables while Martha focused on the reason food was being served which was receiving Christ into their home (Luke 10).
If you are customer service representative for a telecommunication company and as you are talking to a customer face to face, you are not courteous, you do not smile, you do show any sign of care to the person’s complaint. Even if you solve the person’s problem, the experience overall for that customer will be terrible. The person will feel bad. That is how religion is. If the customer care representative actually smiled and showed care, even if the person does not solve your problem, the person will experience happiness in knowing the person did all he could to solve it. When we give our all to God, our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength, we will begin to experience his love and his power in our lives (Mark 12:30).
There is a difference between one person saying “I am prosperous in Jesus name” and another person saying “I am prosperous. I will buy a mansion, have plenty of cars, build orphanages for children, build businesses and employ many.” The later engage his whole being into his confessions. He painted a portrait and put himself in the center of it. I can guarantee you, because of what he did, he will see the reality of it.
We need to focus our entire being on our relationship with Jesus. It makes every other thing have value and worth. The average believer publicly is dedicated. They could even win awards for best usher or best sanctuary cleaner but privately their relationship with the heavenly father is lacking. The power to heal, to raise people from the dead, to flourish financially or to have a successful marriage is lacking. The drive that will keep a worker for 8 hours in a church seems to be missing when it comes to just 30 minutes of private time with the Lord. The devil deceives us to believe that many things matter, your children’s school matter, your house rent matters, your job matters, your leisure matter, thereby making you confused. These things matter but Jesus makes the experiences of all these things worthwhile.
Focusing on many things will actually make you do very little. Jesus said: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). If you are focusing on many things, it is highly likely you are worrying. Jesus also gave the solution to our worries by saying: “But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (V. 42). This one thing was what Mary was doing. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet hearing the word. She was spending time with Jesus. This one thing will make all other things move with ease. Your life cannot be at a standstill when you make spending time in God’s presence the one thing that is more necessary than other things.
There are people who say “I am too busy. My day is choked up.” This is as a result of the many things you are thinking over and over again. Switch to one thing. Do that one thing well and it will change your life. You will think differently, talk differently and walk differently. Let Jesus be the well which you draw out water to pour on every other thing for them to grow gracefully. Make that your number one priority. Take a knife for example. What is the number one needful thing for a knife? It should be sharp enough to cut with ease. Do you know that you can do over 100 things with a penknife such as sharpening pencils, carving, cutting hair, whittling e. t. c. If the pen knife is not sharp, all these other 100 things cannot be done. It will be a struggle. If the knife is sharpened, the struggle ends.
As long as our number one priority in life is spending quality and quantity time with Jesus, victory in life will be no problem. Spending time with Jesus sharpens us for all other things will do. Struggling is not for. Success is for us.