Isaiah - Verse By Verse

Walk thru Eph #139

versebyverse | April 17, 2008 20:20

Thought:  To me, life's deeds are transformed when the motive behind them is to please the Lord and earn a reward from Him.

Question:  Do I know that life is a series of opportunities to "do good"?

Scripture:  Ephesians 6:8 (NIV):  "because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free."

What is our motivation in "serving wholeheartedly, as if you were serving (verse 7) the Lord"?  Are we indeed serving the Lord when we serve other people?  Indeed, our motivation is God, and yes, we serve the Lord when we serve other people.  How?  Is God dwelling "in" other prople?  Yes, in some and near others.  But that is not quite the point.  The point here is, to me, that God records all our behaviors and deeds.  Everything we do is kept track of.  We are accountable for everything not because of what we owe people but because of what we owe God.  We owe God ourselves, utterly and completely, because He died to redeem us and we are bought with a price and are not our own any longer.  And if God commands us to serve employers or "masters", then we should do that, not because they may be worthy to serve, but because God said to do it.  If God says we should jump off a bridge to certain death, we owe Him our obedience--we should do it.  Whether we understand why or not is not necessary.

Here, however, Paul states that we do know why we ought to serve our "masters" (employers.)  It is because we "know" that God rewards good behavior.  He rewards all good behavior of Christians, whether they have higher social status as employers (masters), or lower social status as slaves (employees).  So we learn here that earthly social status matters little!  What matters is how much real good we do.

This verse strikes me as an awesome truth and strong challenge.  It firmly girds our confidence that good behavior does not fall by the wayside unnoticed or unappreciated.  God is watching and tallying the "scorecards."  Also it motivates us to invest ourselves toward goodness.  Anything done that is not good wastes time, destroying that opportunity to do good.  We are continually offered the chance to act wisely.  God gives us this "gift":  the opportunity of the moment.  In this context the opportunity of the slave is to ever obey and serve his master, knowing God Himself is served by his humility, kindness, self-sacrifice and contribution of time and effort.  This is the Christian way.

Prayer:  Father Almighty, keep right purposes before my eyes:  that I am here to do good, no matter what my station may be.  And thank You, Lord, for coming rewards!  Amen.

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