Colossians 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
Is the Truth Working at Home?
I’ve come to the conclusion that it is easier to be spiritual when you don’t have kids. Now, I’m joking a little bit, but what I mean is that it is easier to appear like everything is good to people outside of your home if you don’t have children than it is when you have children that are a reflection of your words and actions at your most unguarded moments at home. Thus, I have come to the conclusion that truth that isn’t working at home, isn’t working. Now, the truth always works, but I’m simply saying that if I am not working the truth at home, I am not working the truth. I am not allowing God to have His way through my life.
Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” This comes on the heels of admonitions from God to have mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Verse 13 says, “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another.” God also tells us to have the peace of God in our hearts and in verse 14 to “put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” If there is anything we need in our home, it’s the superglue of supernatural love, God’s love through us.
Now all these virtues are things that we want, but I need to begin allowing God to work these through me first of all in my own home. That is why this passage addresses wives in verse 18, husbands in verse 19, children in verse 20, and fathers in verse 21. The bottom line is that a religion that is not working at home is a religion that is not what it ought to be.
Our goal ought to be to be loved and respected the most by the people that know us the best. I had rather be loved and respected by my 10 year-old than to be admired by some prominent person in a church somewhere, because my 10 year-old knows me the better. I can only do what I ought to do as I allow the Word of God to dwell in me and enrich my life and spread from my home to the world at large.