Grace / Life with God
Loving People in Real Life
Paul tells people who are already loved and forgiven how to treat each other. There's plenty to do close to home.
In Colossians 3, Paul calls Christians God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved. Then he tells them to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. He wants those qualities to characterize the way they treat each other. ()
The order matters. He's talking to people God already loves. They can learn to be kind because they've received kindness. They can forgive because the Lord has forgiven them.
That's what grace looks like when it gets into an ordinary life. Somebody has been good to us, and we have something good to give.
The people close to you count
It's easy to imagine doing some great thing for God while overlooking the person you live with. Paul gets pretty specific about home and work. He speaks to husbands and wives, fathers and children, slaves and masters. The relationships his readers lived in every day mattered to Jesus. ()
When I preached it, I asked the wives, "Wouldn't it be lovely if that man would just cooperate with you?" And I asked the husbands, "Don't you wish your wife just looked up to you and doted on you?" That's what God tells each of you to do for the other. Cooperate with that man. Dote on that woman. Paul tells each one to do the thing that doesn't come easy, and it's good news for everybody in the house.
There's plenty there for us to understand. How do you talk to the people who have to live with you? Does somebody who depends on you expect kindness or expect to get chewed out? Are you fair to the person whose paycheck you control?
God cares about those people. The way you treat them matters. Your life with Jesus includes what happens at the kitchen table and at work.
Kindness takes some attention
Compassion begins with recognizing that somebody has a need. Patience means we give a person time when dealing with him takes more effort than we'd like. Gentleness affects how we speak and what we do with whatever power we've got.
A lot of this is ordinary enough that we might overlook it. Somebody's trying to explain something and needs you to listen. A new person doesn't know how things work yet. A kid has made a mess and already knows you're bigger and louder than he is.
Kindness there might mean asking a question before assuming the worst, or explaining something without humiliating anybody. It means using whatever strength you've got to make another person's life better.
Paul tells the Colossians to act wisely toward outsiders and to speak graciously, knowing how to answer each person. That takes account of the actual person in front of us. () Everybody's different. Tori can take it like a champ. I get rednecked with her, she gets rednecked right back, and then we're done and it's fine. If I did that to Mandy, she'd cry for a week. I was born a bull in the china closet, so I've had to work at this.
Forgiven people can deal honestly with failure
Paul tells believers to bear with one another and forgive whatever complaints they have against each other. His reason is that the Lord has forgiven them. ()
We've all needed mercy. Remembering that helps when somebody else needs patience from us. We can be honest about a wrong without deciding the person who did it is beyond help.
We also need to be honest about our own wrongs. If you've hurt somebody, admit it plainly. Apologize without making him listen to a speech about why it was mostly his fault, and do what you can to repair the harm.
Grace makes that possible. Your whole worth doesn't depend on winning the argument or looking blameless. You belong to Jesus, who knows you need forgiveness. You can afford to tell the truth about yourself.
And when somebody has hurt you, kindness doesn't require pretending cruelty is fine.
Your ordinary work can do real good
Paul tells the slaves in Colossae to do their work with their whole soul, with gusto, as for the Lord and not for people, because it's the Lord Christ they're serving (). You can substitute employees. We all know the guy on the line who gets after it when the manager comes out. As soon as the manager walks away, he's loafing and letting everybody else pick up the slack. Don't do that. You wouldn't want it done to you, and it's the Lord Christ you're serving. He sees all the time.
There's good to do in all of it: keeping your word, caring for your family, helping somebody who needs a hand, and being glad for somebody else's success.
We're God's craftsmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works (). There are people to love and things worth doing in the life you've already got. His grace gives you a reason to get on with them.
— tobe