WEDNESDAY 6th
Colossians 3:18-25
NIV (v24) – ‘. . . since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.’
ESV (v24) – ‘. . . knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.’
Verse 23 is very similar to the verse we looked at yesterday, and our text for today follows on from it ‘Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, . . . since you know that you will receive . . .’
We all work and do for the gain we can get, either the salary at the end of the week, or the pleasure of accomplishing and this is right, but we also always need to remember that in all our doing and in all our saying there is one who is watching and listening over it all, and the day will come when we will receive an eternal inheritance, an eternal reward, and although we do so much of what we do to survive this life, we also do in light of eternity. Therefore, everything I shared yesterday is also applicable to today’s verse. In the previous verses, vv18-21 Paul has covered what we call the secular,(although they become spiritual in a Christian home) the marriage relationship, the family setting and the workplace, he places three words in verse 10 which should make us sit up and think very seriously about all these three areas, of marriage, family and work, he says ‘fearing the Lord’, now he is not speaking of a fear that is dread, but a fear that is a respect for God, an awe and a reverence for who he is and the part he should be playing in these areas. It is a fear that causes us to take notice that God is seeing all and therefore we should allow him to oversee all, be in the centre of everything – marriage, family and work, because the way we outwork these areas will have a reflection in our eternal reward.
The best way to sum it up would be this way, is God being honoured in my relationships or marriage, is God being honoured in my family, is God being honoured in my working practise, and we could add as some are not married or maybe do not have a family, or maybe are no longer working, is God being honoured in all that I do and with all that I am. For it is Christ we are serving, whether in the spiritual or in the secular.
I have mentioned the inheritance when we were looking at Ephesians, sufficient to say that we need to be seeking to ensure that in every way possible we are doing all we can to ensure we receive the inheritance God has prepared for us.
Those of us who have gone through the process of having to deal with loss and the ongoing challenges of seeing that a will is dealt with as it should be, know that it sometimes causes complications, maybe even strife as each one who is due an inheritance wants to make sure they get all that they are entitled to, we need to be of the same mind concerning our eternal inheritance, striving to work, striving to do, whether in word of deed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing it is not for earthly gain but for eternal glory, his glory and for the inheritance of reward which he will give.
And there will be no injustice in heaven!