And whatever you do, whether in Word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3:17
Mandy shares her reflections on this verse…
That’s a great verse. It sounds so altruistic. But think about it for a second…whatever you do in word or action…do it all in the name of Jesus and thank God for the opportunity.
So what does your day look like? What do you do, what do you say, who do you see, where do you go? If you actually wrote down a list of how your day unfolds and then gave yourself a score between 1 and 10 on how you glorified and honoured Jesus Christ, along with your level of thankfulness toward God…how do you think you’d rate?
Can I just say, without having written such a list and ranking, that I think I’d score pretty low. Not because I do anything bad or questionable, but because I think that most Christians segment their lives with regard to their faith. We’ve been taught, because of Greek philosophical influence on Christianity over the centuries, that we have times in our day for prayer, time for reading the Bible, time for fellowship and time for study, etc. The rest of the time is our time. We eat, sleep, work, buy groceries, time for play and time for love.
The Hebrew mindset, something religious Jews are mocked for, is that every moment of every day belongs to God and He must be included in it and honoured. When they wake, they pray. When they eat they pray. When they walk they pray. When they bathe, work, clean, love, fellowship…everything is done with prayer and the acknowledgment that God is with them.
To our mind, they’re over the top. Of course, we don’t have to adopt their designated prayers and rituals, but it’s more of a mindset of ensuring that Jesus Christ holds the central position in our lives, no matter what we’re doing, where we’re doing it or who we’re doing it with. Everything we do and say should belong to Jesus, should honour Jesus and from that, our hearts and minds will be overflowing with gratitude to the Father.
