Colossians 3:22-24 — Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
Yesterday I wrote about the idea of “fainting away”. It occurred to me, as I sat at my desk today, that I had another cure facing me. At Christmas Myra presented me with a nice desk clock carrying the text — “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for The Lord …”. It’s a restating of Colossians 3:23, which is the second verse at the head of this devotion.
How we deal with work, especially when it is repetitive work with no obvious end and not much in the way of obvious material reward, is a spiritual issue. We all have masters … employers now, but in Paul’s time perhaps even owners. We do not necessarily choose our masters, and we work at their direction and have little choice but to receive whatever payment they offer, but how we work should be independent of those conditions. How we work shows who we are and we are Christians! As Christians we should be ashamed if how we work shows an attitude of the heart that is unworthy of our heavenly Master.
These verses from Colossians provide instruction and encouragement. We are to obey in all things, and to do whatsoever we do “heartily”. What we do is not the point. Even results are not important. What God is looking for is an obedient heart and nothing else. There’s another thing too. Many of the people Paul was writing to were slaves … There was nothing they could inherit and nobody they could inherit from. Now however, Paul tells them, they will receive an inheritance from Christ. From Paul, that is a very specific promise. He speaks often of the Kingdom of God as the inheritance and here he is saying that those who claim Jesus as Lord will have a place in His Kingdom.
When we talked about this passage, Myra asked an interesting question. Is the work Paul talks about “spiritual” work like praying, or witnessing, or Bible study? The answer’s interesting too! No, it’s not … He’s talking about our normal every day work. No matter how “special” or how dull — or even hard– it is, our daily work is to be a labor of love — a labor that, as Paul notes in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, is produced by love. This is a beautiful thing … We become Christians. We are known for our love. We express our love through our work. Working with all our heart, we give joy to Jesus!