{"id":75,"date":"2013-05-05T05:07:47","date_gmt":"2013-05-05T05:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/?p=75"},"modified":"2013-05-05T05:07:47","modified_gmt":"2013-05-05T05:07:47","slug":"necessary-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/?p=75","title":{"rendered":"Necessary Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When Martha requested that the Lord tell her sister, Mary, that she should help in\u00a0 serving, Jesus responded by saying that while Martha was careful and troubled about many things, there was one thing that was needful and Mary had chosen that better part (Luke 10:38-42).\u00a0 There are some things that are important in life, but there are other things that are necessary–needful.\u00a0 Just to mention a few.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some think that being free to do whatever they feel like is important.\u00a0 I believe in freedom (and incidentally think that too many freedoms are being taken from us these days) because God created us that way.\u00a0 We are free to choose to obey Him or reject Him.\u00a0 Of course, there are consequences to our choices.\u00a0 What we really need, however, is freedom from sin.\u00a0 How does that come about?\u00a0 Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the Truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).\u00a0 It is a choice we make (Rom. 8:16-18).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some think that great knowledge is what is needed.\u00a0 Man so often thinks he has the answers to all his problems.\u00a0 However, the way of man is not in himself (Jer. 10:23).\u00a0 Men devise so many schemes whereby they think they can outsmart God, but it is futile (Rom. 1:21ff).\u00a0 What we really need is spiritual wisdom (Col. 1:9).\u00a0 Science falsely so-called does not offer anything but empty hope (I Tim. 6:20).\u00a0 Wisdom that is from above (James 313-18) recognizes the importance of Jesus’ words (Matt. 7:24-27).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Also, so many look for a higher standard of living.\u00a0 They want more money, a better car, a bigger house, more prestige and every other material item which they can grasp.\u00a0 But instead of a higher standard of living, we need a higher standard of conduct.\u00a0 Christ left us an example, that we should follow in His steps (I Pet. 2:21-24).\u00a0 We should walk worthy of the Lord (Col. 1:10) and do unto others as we would have them do unto us (Matt. 7:12).\u00a0 Our conversation should be as it becometh the gospel (Phil. 1:27) and not like the world (II Cor. 6:11-18).
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 These and so many other lessons can be learned about what is important and what is necessary or needful.<\/p>\n

Eric L. Padgett<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When Martha requested that the Lord tell her sister, Mary, that she should help in\u00a0 serving, Jesus responded by saying that while Martha was careful and troubled about many things, there was one thing that was needful and Mary had chosen that better part (Luke 10:38-42).\u00a0 There are some things that are important in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,19,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctrine","category-needed","category-word-of-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76,"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/76"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtvchurchofchrist.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}