Once again quiet time catches my attention from various sources as God merges them into a coherent thought. Let us start with two quick pieces of scripture, the first from Colossians and the second from Matthew.
ESV Colossians 3:22 Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
NEB Matthew 15:7 What hypocrisy! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 "'This people pays me lip-service, but their heart is far from me; their worship of me is in vain, for they teach as doctrines the commandments of men."The first was brought to my attention through the Michael Card book A Better Freedom. As a reminder, the books premise is that we are all slaves, we just get to choose who will be our master and that a better life, a better freedom is found when we choose Jesus as our Master. The chapter today was about eye-slaves. This is a term we do not have in English, there is a single Greek word ophthalmodoulia, we need a phrase to translate it, "working only while being watched," the Greeks needed but the one word. In essence an eye-slave is one who only works while being watched. Paul is encouraging the slaves in the Colossae not to be eye-slaves, but the encouragement is to all of us as Christians. When we choose Jesus as our Master we must make sure that we are not eye-slaves, that is only living God honoring lives when people are watching. We must live our lives in a way that makes it easy for people to believe in Jesus 24/7, all of the time, regardless of being in public view or completely alone.
As further support for how important this is for how we live as Christians, we turn to the Matthew passage where Jesus is chastising the Pharisees for only giving lip-service to God. He is accusing them of worshipping God in word only while their hearts are far from God. He says it is not enough to just give lip-service to God, we must give Him our whole hearts and when we do He will transform them and make us whole. It is out of that transformation and wholeness that we can live our lives as devoted followers and not just as eye-slaves giving mere lip-service to God.
In this day and age where we have so many public figures professing their Christianity, whether it is praying after scoring a touchdown, or wearing a cross around a celebrity neck, or making a Presidential spectacle out of going to church, it is so important for all of us ordinary Christians to make sure that we are neither eye-slaves nor lip-servicers because we are the ones that truly impact the lives of people around us for the Kingdom. People see these folks on television and at times become suspect, but as they watch us live out God honoring lives, lives that by definition and design are meant to make it easy for others to believe in Jesus, their hearts become strangley warmed to the joy that is life in Jesus.
Will you join me today in living lives that are neither lip-service nor eye-slavery but are intentional about making it easy for others to believe in Jesus?
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
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