Colossians 3:23-24 Part 1

"And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, Knowing that from the Lord you will recieve the inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ."

Oh man, this verse has really been tested for me today. I decided that I was going to let me 4-year-old niece spend the night last night and normally we have a lot of fun while she is here. But today, NO WAY. She has been a bear all day. Then I open my Bible and read Colossians 3:23-24 and I think God just decided to smack me in the face. In this verse the Lord tells us that WHATEVER we do we are to do it HEARTILY. That means this... whatever we do we are supposed to do it:

1. In a cordial manner; with warmth and sencerity.
2. Thouroghly; completely
3. With zest or enthusiasm
4. With great appetite or enjoyment
5. with gusto and without reservation

Now let me tell you, today has been a test with watching my niece heartily. I don't think at one point durning this day have I followed God's command by watching my niece heartily.

1. I have not done it in a cordial manner. I have snapped at her mulitple times for not listening to me. I have snapped at her for lying to me. I have snapped at her for not picking up her mess. (am I sounding like a bad aunt yet?)
2. The thouroghly an dcompletely thing, well that doesn't really apply in this case because I am watching her and the only way that I can watch her is throughly and completely. The only way that I couldn't is if I left her in the house and ran off to do something else. Which, trust me, I would never do.
3. With zest or enthusiam...ummm...nope. Mark that one off the list because I have actually been a little bit grumpy with it.
4. I am not getting much enjoyment out of it because she is simply driving me nuts. So another one crossed off the list.
5. This falls under the above mentioned enthusiam. So I guess this one gets crossed off the list as well.

So from the looks of it I haven't really followed God's command of doing EVERYTHING HEARTILY. The only part of heartily that I can say that I have done right is the throughly part. But God doesn't want me to do part, He wants me to do ALL! He wants me to do it COMPLETELY! Gosh, this verse has really smacked me in the head today.

What about you? Can you say that EVERYTHING that you do you do HEARTILY. Not just part of it heartily or even doing it partially heartily. God doesn't want us to do anything halfway. It is hard to do something that we don't enjoy doing or want to do heartily. We want to complain, grip, and grumble about it. But God doesn't want us to do it that way. He wants us to do it completely and with excitement and happily. It is hard to do but, we just have to change our mindset. We need to look at it as an opprotunity to practice one of God's commands. An opprotunity to please the Lord and to maybe even spread His word.


There is another way to look at this verse and I will discuss it later. But for now we need to learn to do EVERYTHING HEARTILY. Who knows, maybe that crappy job, or that crappy meeting will look a little bit better when we start seeing it as an opprotunity to put one of God's commands into action.

I am going to have to put these verses into practice tonight as I am going to go teach AWANA's. For those of you who don't know, I teach the JV class at AWANA's along with help from my mom. Well, there is one boy in there who is a little autistic. When he doesn't get his way he has to creat a scene. For the rest of the night you will only hear about his problem. There are a couple of other kids in the class who egg him on a little, okay a lot. So some nights this can get really frustrating. Frustrating to the point that there are nights when I don't want to go. Frustrating to the point that I sometimes hope that this kid will not be at AWANA's. However, I must remember that God wants me to do everything heartily. Therefore, I need to suck it up, go to AWANA's and look at it as an opprotunity to share the Word of God to this boy. I need to pray over the situation before I get there and just realize that God has put me there for a reason. No matter how many times he might tell me he hates me and doesn't want to have anything to do with me, no matter how many times the other kids might pick on him and take his shoes and throw them across the room, no matter how frustrating the situation might get. It is all an opprotunity to share the message to these children.

So the next time you are thrown into some situation or job that you don't like, just remember Colossians 3:23-24 "And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, Knowing that from the Lord you will recieve the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ."

Say a pray and give the situation over to God. (and maybe pop a couple of Advil before you go)

Part 2 coming up later!