Head-Heart-Hands — The Emotional Side of Christianity - Friday
Today’s Verse
Colossians 3:17
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. (NIV)
Do you remember how old 3D glasses used to work at the movies? I’m not talking about the fancy plastic ones they give you now that you have to return—I mean the red and blue paper ones that barely stayed on your face and you got to take home as a souvenir. I remember keeping those glasses and using them on those decoding activities. There would be blue and red words written on top of each other, and impossible to decipher either message on their own. But when you put the red lens over the message, suddenly the blue words are visible. And when you put the blue lens over, the red words become visible.
Sometimes, I think we can get tricked into thinking that we can separate the ‘secular’ things in our life from the ‘sacred’. What happens at work stays at work. No one at church has to know what goes on at school. We show up bright and early for Sunday worship and put on a brave face, but then we go back home that evening and fill our time with whatever we please. When we put our secular activities and sacred activities into boxes like this, we are scrambling up our lives—like the blue and red words running over one another.
We think that because we have them categorized—one as blue and one as red—we can keep secular and sacred separate. We’ll still be able to read both of them, won’t we? As we live out our lives this way, the words get more jumbled and harder to decipher. We realize we need that decoder to even read a word.
Paul calls us in this passage to do EVERYTHING in the name of Jesus. There are no ‘secular’ activities and ‘sacred’ activities. We are called to live as if every activity were sacred. From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, from our early breakfast to our midnight snack, from our day at the office to our night out—our words and actions are to give glory to the Lord. When every moment is treated as sacred, there are no blue words and red words running over each other. There are just words—no decoder needed.
REFLECTION
So how do we do that? Take the time to dwell on God’s glory, glorify Him rather than self, do things in the name of the Lord, and be thankful for the blessings He has given you.
We would do well to heed the words of John the Baptist in John 3:30: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Our lives should be marked by that idea: God must be glorified in all things, not me.