Author: Sherry
Jesus Only
But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. – Luke 10:42
“One thing is needful.” I am glad it says, “one thing,” because a division of ends and objects is always weakening. A man cannot follow two things well. It is a great pity when a man fritters away his energies by being “everything by turns, and nothing long;” trying all things and mastering nothing. Oh soul, it is well for thee that there is only one thing in this world that is absolutely necessary, give thy whole soul to that. If other things are necessary in a secondary place, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these shall be added unto you.”
One thing is needful, and this is well arranged, for we cannot follow two things. If Christ be one of them, we cannot follow another. Is it not written, “No man can serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other or cleave to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Not only would it be very weakening to you to attempt to serve both, but it is absolutely impossible that you should do so. Jesus Christ is a monopolizer of human hearts; He will never accept a portion of our manhood. He bought us altogether, and He will have the whole of our personality. Christ must be everything, or He will be nothing. He does not love Christ who loves anything as well as Christ, neither does he trust him who trusts in anything besides. Christ must reign alone. “Jesus only,” must be the motto of our spirits. It is well for us, therefore, that only one thing is necessary, for only one thing is possible.
One thing is needful-let the rest go. What if we have not learning?-what if we have not eloquence? If we live near to Christ, we have something better than all these; if we abide in Him, and He abides in us, we shall go and bring forth fruit, and our fruit shall remain; if He abides in us, we shall enjoy heaven on earth, and be daily preparing of that eternal heaven which is to be our portion. “One thing is needful.” God grant it to every one of us! -Amen. ~C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1015.cfm
Only at the Feet of Jesus
And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word. – Luke 10:39
Only at the feet of Jesus can the divine power be gained which works in us holiness and sanctifies us practically; therefore, as you must be purified or you cannot enter heaven, you must come to Jesus’ feet. Moreover, it is at the feet of Jesus that the soul’s ignorance is removed; and since ignorance concerning ourselves and our God must be taken from us, we must be taught of Him. God is “our light and our salvation;” our light first, and our salvation in consequence. We must have the light. The spiritually blind man cannot enter heaven, he must have his eyes opened, but Jesus alone can work that miracle of grace. Neither can we receive true light except from Him, for He is “the true light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world;” none are ever enlightened, except by Him. “In Him is light-all light; and the light is the light of men.”
In order to enter heaven, it is necessary that our nature should become like the nature of Christ. This earth is for those who bear the image of the first Adam; but the new heaven and the new earth are for those who bear the image of the second Adam.. We must, by some means, acquire the nature of the second and heavenly Adam, and this must be wrought in us by regeneration, and developed by acquaintance with Him. By sitting at His feet, and beholding Him, we become changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. If we reject the Lord Jesus as our trust, teacher, and exemplar, we have no new life, we are not new creatures in Christ, and we can never be admitted within the holy gates where those alone dwell who are fashioned after His likeness. We must, then, sit at His feet…
Woe, woe, woe eternally to the soul that will not sit at the feet of Jesus! He shall be trodden beneath His feet in His anger and crushed in His hot displeasure. God grant that may never be our portion. To sit at Jesus’ feet is the one thing needful then. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1015.cfm
First, Attend to Your Own Salvation
And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word. – Luke 10:39
It is astonishing the many letters I receive and interviews I am asked to give, in order to adjust in people’s minds the doctrine of predestination and the fact of free agency; and equally remarkable is the way in which young people, and old people too, will pick out extremely difficult texts, perhaps relating to the Second Advent, or to the battle of Armageddon, and they must needs have these opened up to them before they will believe the gospel. I think it utterly useless to begin upon such things with those who are unsaved. One thing is needful, sir, and that is by no means a puzzling matter; it is plainly this, that thou submit thyself to Jesus Christ and sit at His feet. That is needful: as for the doctrines of election and the second advent, they are important, but they are neither the most essential nor the most pressing. The one thing needful for a seeking soul is that it receives Jesus and become submissive to Him, sitting as a disciple at His feet and as a servant doing His will. It is true there is the ninth chapter of Romans in the Bible, and a precious chapter it is: but the seeking sinner should take care to read first the third chapter of John, and till he has mastered that, he had better let the Romans alone. Go first to the business which concerns your salvation; attend to that, and when all is right with you, then, at Jesus’ feet, you will be in the best possible position to learn all that can be learned of the higher mysteries and the deeper truths. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1015.cfm
The Necessity
But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part… – Luke 10:42
Our text speaks of NECESSITY-one thing is a necessity. If this be proven, it overrides all other considerations. We are nearly right when we say proverbially, “Necessity has no law.” If a man steal, and it be found that he was dying of hunger, he is always half forgiven, and charity has been known to excuse him altogether. Necessity has been frequently accepted as a good excuse for what else might not have been tolerated; and when a thing is right, and necessity backs it, then indeed the right become imperative, and pushes to the front to force its way. Necessity, like hunger breaks through stone walls. The text claims for sitting at Jesus’ feet that it is the first and only necessity. Now, I see all around me a crowd of things alluring and fascinating. Pleasure calls to me I hear her siren song-but I reply, “I cannot regard thee, for necessity presses upon me to hearken to another voice.” Philosophy and learning charm me, fain would I yield my heart to them; but, while I am yet unsaved, the one thing needful demands my first care, and wisdom bids me give it. Not that we love human learning less, but eternal wisdom more. Pearls? Yes. Emeralds? Yes, but bread, in God’s name-bread at once, when I am starving in the desert! What is the use of ingots of gold, or bars of silver, or caskets of jewels, when food is wanting? If one thing be needful, it devours, like Aaron’s rod, all the matters which are merely pleasurable. All the fascinating things on earth may go, but the needful things we must have. If you are wise, you will ever more prefer the necessary to the dazzling. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1015.cfm
Be Always Learners and Lovers of Jesus
And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. – Luke 10:41,42
Let me say to those of you who can honestly declare that Christ is your sole confidence, it is possible for you to forget the necessity of sitting at His feet. You, dear brethren, are looking to His precious blood alone for your salvation, and His name is sweet to you, and you desire all things to be conformed to His will. So far it is well with you, for in this you have a measure of sitting at His feet; but so had Martha; she loved her Lord, and she knew His word, and she was a saved soul, for “Jesus loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus;” but you have not perhaps so much of this needful thing as Mary had, and as you ought to have. You have been very busy this week, and have been drifted from your moorings; you have not lived with your Lord in conscious fellowship; you have been full of care and empty of prayer; you have not committed your sorrows to your loving friend; you have blundered on in duty without asking His guidance or assistance, you have not maintained, in your Christian service, the communion of your spirit with the Well-Beloved, and, if such has been the case, let me say to you, and ask you, as you sit here this morning, to make a little stop in your Sunday-school teaching or your street preaching, or whatever else it is that you are so laudably engaged in, and say to yourself: “To me, as a worker, the one thing needful is to keep near my Lord, and I must not so suffer the watering of others to occupy me, as to neglect my own heart, lest I should have to say ‘woe is me, they made me keeper in the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept.'” To the saints, as well as to others, the one thing needful is to sit at Jesus’ feet. We are to be always learners and lovers of Jesus. Departure from Him, and independence of Him, let them not once be named among you. It is weakness, sickness, sin, and sorrow for a believer to leave His Lord and become either his own leader or reliance. We are only safe while we remain humbly and gladly subservient to Him. ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1015.cfm
Traditional Religion is not Submission to Christ
And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word...But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. – Luke 10:39,42
I take liberty to address the…religious people…They will, of course, agree with anything I can say about the mere worldling or the profligate; but, will they listen to me when I say to them, “You are very diligent in your religion, you are attentive to all its outward rites and ceremonies, you believe the articles of your church, you practice the ceremonies ordained by its rulers; but, do you know that all this is nothing, unless you sit at Jesus’ feet?” We may do what the church tells us, and never do what Christ tells us, for these may be different things; and the church is not our Saviour, but Christ. We may believe what a certain creed tells us but not believe what Jesus teaches; for our creed and Christ may be two very different things. Ay, and we may believe even what the Bible itself teaches to us or think we believe it; but, if our heart has never made submission to the Teacher Himself, so as to sit at His feet, and receive the truth obediently from Him, our religion is altogether vain. Traditional religion is not submission to Christ, but to custom. Obedience to a denomination is not obedience to Jesus Himself. How I wish that all professing Christians would bring themselves to an examination and enquire, “Do I really believe in the person of my Lord, and accept Him as my Teacher? Do I study the Word of God to learn the truth from Him, and not accept it blindly and at second hand from my minister, or my parents, or the church of the nation, or the creed of my family?” We go to Jesus for teaching, desiring in our hearts to be taught by His book and His Spirit, cheerfully agreeing in all things to shape our faith to His declaration, and our life to His rule. For us, there must be no spiritual law-giver, and no infallible Rabbi, but the Blessed One, whom Magdalene called “Rabboni,” and whom Thomas saluted as, “My Lord and my God.” ~ C.H. Spurgeon
https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1015.cfm
He Hath Said 