Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Being still is not only sitting and waiting, it is remembering who God is.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the Creator of the Universe.  And yet, we so easily forget the One we serve, the One we say we’ve surrendered our lives to (if we have placed our faith in Him), the One who has everything under control.  Sometimes when I hear God speaking to me I hear, ‘Christy? Seriously? Will you just chill out? Remember who I Am.’  And if I put Him in His proper place, every other care begins to fade away, it pales in comparison to the One who loves me, made me, and keeps me.

In March of 2016 I was busy.  Busy taking classes online for Worship Ministry, busy with a full time job, busy helping take care of my mom who had breast cancer, busy with prison ministry.  And then James and I both got hit with a strange flu bug that put us in bed for a week and I was made to be still.  I scratched out the lyrics that would soon come together into a song.  You see, I was fretting about all the things I needed to do and then some.  These are the things He brought to my heart and mind which became the chorus of Be Still.

Be still and know God’s in control

Be still and know He’s making you whole (Philippians 1:6 says that He who began a good work in you will finish it to completion)

Be still and know He’s all that You need

Be still and know and fall at His feet (just like Mary of Bethany, like Peter when Jesus called him to be a fisher of men, just like the prophet Isaiah – woe is me!)

He WILL be exalted among the nations, He WILL be exalted in the earth.  Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.  He is worthy!  May we be reminded who He is.

SONG: BE STILL

Busyness – it’s consuming at times.  I think we feel like if we’re not doing something or being productive then we’re being “lazy”; the world has definitely spun things that way, work hard, be successful, get all the stuff.  In our Christian circles we can sometimes feel like we’re not contributing to the Kingdom…like it depends on us.  Or we think we have to be “enough” that’s what the world says “you are enough” Well, I am not enough and I’m never gonna be enough, that’s why Jesus came! He is enough! (I need His enoughness – that’s not a word but please feel free to use it in your day-to-day conversations. I dare you.)

5 years after writing Be Still, in the Summer of 2021 I wrote a song called Jesus Is.

But backing up to 2020, my husband, myself and our ministry partner, Johnny, were doing prison ministry together and at the beginning of 2020 we had almost 200 prison services on the calendar.  By the end of March, the prisons were shut down because of Covid and we were made to be still.  Once again, I was made to be still.  Over the next couple months our prison ministry was making plans, looking at new possible board members, ministry partners, etc and God was showing me things and my darling husband said, “maybe we just need to step away from this?”  I was shocked, what an outlandish thing to say!  But nevertheless, James and I began praying, what do You want us to do, Lord?  We laid prison ministry down and I thought I might just curl up and die.  I had put so much of my identity into that instead of remembering that my identity is in Christ alone and I just needed to be obedient to whatever He called me to.  In this time of stillness, when the entire world was sat down and made to be still, there were so many hardships, people lost family members, jobs, depression ran rampant and so many other heartaches occurred.  It was during this time that God so sweetly reminded me, Jesus is enough.  If the whole world falls apart, Jesus is enough.  I don’t have to have anything else, ministry, songs, even if the people I love leave this earth, I have Jesus.  He is my greatest and most precious gift. He’s in control…He is enough!  He needed to be and deserves to be number 1 in my life.  I needed more time with Him.  It was time in His presence that He spoke to my heart, there He gave me a new song to sing and He continues to…when I seek Him.

He is el rois, the God who sees me.  He created me, chose me, and loves me.  And I want to keep choosing Him, the better thing, over and over.  Keep reminding me, Jesus. 

SONG: JESUS IS

I’ve been calling this message “From Present to Presence” (His Presence)

There’s a reason one of the 10 Commandments is to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy…and that doesn’t mean to just take a day off.  It’s to keep it holy, a dedicated time to be still and in the presence of God.  Jesus gives us example after example about getting away and alone with the Father.  He longs for that time with us and who are we to deny Him that?

We can get so busy that it’s hard to make time for anyone, even Jesus.  And even when we do, we aren’t present.  We’re really thinking about the to-do list, the next thing, or checking a box.

Jim Elliott, the missionary turned martyr, once said “Wherever you are, be all there.”  And that includes our time with Jesus.

The Lord is omnipresent, He is everywhere all the time, He is here right now wanting your attention and your affections.  Will you give it to Him?

Let’s get into the Word.  Turn to Luke 10:38, we’re going to read 38 through 42.

“While they were traveling, he (Jesus) entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted (troubled and anxious) by her many tasks (or much serving), and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.”

The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice (chosen the better thing), and it will not be taken away from her.”

So here is Martha, she is physically present with the Lord but we can tell she isn’t Spiritually present with Him.  She’s even trying to boss Jesus around by telling him to make her sister help. 

*It’s important to note here that Jesus only admonishes her for being anxious or distracted not for being active and serving.  He so sweetly answers her “Martha, Martha”.  I think it’s significant that Jesus says her name twice, can’t you just hear Him endearingly saying “Martha, Martha” hear what I am saying to you, I want to spend time with you, come be in My presence. Will you put all other things aside?  Jesus is meeting Martha there and offering her the cure for her weary heart – Himself.

Back in verse 39 it says Mary sat at His feet and listened to His teaching, the Greek word for “listened to his teaching” is e’kouen, you can tell me if I pronounced that right later, but it means she was continually listening to the Master, that it was her custom to do so.  And what does Jesus say about that? That it is necessary, we need it, that it is the better thing, the right choice AND that it will not be taken away.

What we learn by being in the presence of the Lord will not be taken away from us, it will stay with us.  I’m guessing Mary learned a lot and that Jesus is wanting that for Martha and for us and He invites Martha and us to come sit at His feet, undistracted and Be with Him, learn from Him, draw near to Him.

Turn over to John 11, let’s start with verses 1 through 5.

Now a man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”  When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”  Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.

Skip down to verse 17 “When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.  Bethany was near Jerusalem.  Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.

As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house.  Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”

“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her. Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”  Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.  Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”

Now here’s Martha, full of faith.  Right here, right now, she is fully present with Jesus!

Let’s turn over to John 12:1-7

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead.  So they gave a dinner for him there; Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him.  Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair.  So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.  Then one of the disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray him), said, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief.  He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.  Jesus answered, “Leave her alone; she has kept it for the day of my burial.”

Here’s Martha again serving dinner, do you think she had the gift of hospitality?  But notice, there is no mention of her being anxious and troubled or distracted.  I believe she is present, using her gift of hospitality and serving her King but in a whole new way.  She’s growing in the Lord!

And Mary, she anoints Jesus. He says that she is preparing Him for His burial.  How would she know to do that?  Do you think it could be something she learned while being in His presence?

I can’t really serve others or do effective ministry without first spending time with my King.  It is necessary, it is the better thing and it will not be taken away from me.   

Do you want peace in your days, a stronger faith, a more abundant life?  Spend time with Him, undistracted, phone down, time with Jesus.  We have to be present to be in His Presence!

Being still is the beginning to being in His presence. Remembering who He is, the God of the Universe who loves us, sent His Son to die for us, that He is enough!…He is worthy of our undivided attention and focus. And once we’re there…in His presence, let’s linger there, listening, learning, and worshiping Him. 

“Christy, Christy, will you come be with Me?  Will you be still and sit in my presence?”

“(put your name here)”, will you come be with Me? Will you be still and sit in my presence?”

This was a message I gave at a Revival on June 1, 2023 at Elsberry, MO.