Ephesians 6:6 - Audience of One

"...not according to eye service, as people-pleasers, but rather as slaves of Christ, doing the want of God out of soul..."

-Ours is a far different standard.  Polar opposites.  I do not do what I do to in order to be seen by men.  All this that I do is compelled by the love and example of my Savior, Who rescued me from death and bought me with His blood.  And tho I run surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, a mixed bag of cheers and jeers and indifference, I fix my eyes on Jesus, Who has His eyes fixed on me.  The apple of His eye.  I do all that I do to please Him, my true Audience of One.  I strive with every step and fiber of my being to live into what He wants.  For truly He is worthy of nothing less than all of this.  All of me.  At least, that's the idea.

-And yet a sad state of affairs, this.  According to eye-service.  I try to hide my shortcomings and shortfalls, while at the same time wanting to show off my successes and well-dones.  These I so want others to see, to be noticed and recognized by those around me, for them to be pleased with me, and this is how I feel better about myself.  Pleasing people, my peers, fellow pilgrims.  Such a vicious cycle, this - a trap and a lie of monumental proportions.  To expect the fallen imperfect selfish people around me to provide what I need in order to feel good about my work and about my own fallen imperfect selfish self is the height of absurdity.  Understandable, but I must march to a different drumbeat.  When I raise the bar and raise my sights and (begin to) do all that I do to please my Lord Jesus Christ, I am not only freed from the tyranny of being enslaved to the vagaries of the broken ones around me, I am empowered to live into the reality for which I was made.  I was made for this, to enslaved to Jesus Christ, to serve Him, to do whatever and all that He wants, and in the end, one day, to hear Him say, well done.  Well done, My good and faithful servant.  This is what my soul longs to hear.  The passing fleeting opinions of those around me carry momentary light weight in the here and now, but they are vapors, devoid of any real meaningful impact, except as the cheers (and jeers) may spur me on my course and as the race I run may point them also to the One Who also sees them and made them to find their highest satisfaction in Him. #AO1

Ephesians 6:5 - The Boss is watching...!

"The slaves, be obeying the lords according to flesh with fear and trembling in sincerity of your heart, as to Christ...’

-As to Christ.  As to Christ.  Just as if He were watching (which of course He is).  As if He could see everything I do and knew every motive of my heart (which He does).  I have one all-encompassing Lord in heaven - in a rather spiritual and metaphysical and very real and eternal sense He is the One with Whom I have to do constantly.  But physically speaking (in the flesh), I have others (who my Lord in heaven has placed) in authority over me, whom I must obey.  Obedience - listening under (to) them - looks much the same as it does for a child towards his parents.  Except even as an adult who serves under the authority and at the pleasure of another person, I find myself again in a place of brokenness.  (Like a child) I don’t always listen to them, or do what I am told.  I am all-too wont to try and mitigate the miseries of work - a true son of Adam trying desperately to minimize the consequences of the fall.  I am tempted to cut corners and monkey around and mail it in when (I think) the boss is not looking.  Or I roll my eyes and give it less than my all, a half-baked half-hearted one-cheek effort for a fallen superior.  Supervisor/manager/boss - they’re all imperfect.  Truth is, I’m not fooling anyone - everything I do "in hiding" is gonna come out some day, you can count on that (Luke 8.17).  But our bar is higher, true Christian, so much higher than that.  We serve the Lord, and He sees.  Constantly watching (over) us, we are the apple of His eye!  He sees us and cares about us.  And He cares about how we do what we do, because whatever we do, we do unto Him (cf Matthew 25.40, Matthew 25.45, Colossians 3.23, 1Corinthians 10.31, Colossians 3.17, 1Peter 4.11).  Yes.  Work.  Is.  Worship.  In every endeavor, including our work, He is worthy of everything we got, nothing less than our all.  We live and work in the constant presence of almighty God - we must get this thru our thick skulls, and let this truth transform our work.  It should not matter one hill of beans who is our boss or whether or not they are present and accounted for.  Christ is here, He showed up to work today, or whatever I am doing wherever I am doing it, and He is watching.  That simple, awesome truth should inspire circumspect awe - fear and trembling - and genuine, sincere obedience.  Because I am (or should be) doing it all for Him.

And now for something completely different:

Late one night, a burglar broke into a house that he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say; “Jesus is watching you.”

Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. “Jesus is watching you,” the voice boomed again.

The burglar stopped dead in his tracks. He was frightened. Frantically, he looked all around the room. In a dark corner, he spotted a bird cage and in the cage was a parrot. He asked the parrot: “Was that you who said Jesus is watching me?”

“Yes,” Said the parrot.

The burglar breathed a sigh of relief, then asked the parrot: “What is your name?”

“Clarence,” said the bird.

“That is a dumb name for a parrot,” sneered the burglar. “What idiot named you Clarence?”

The parrot said, “The same idiot who named the rottweiller Jesus.”

Ephesians 6:4 - On family priests and familial infidelity

"And the fathers, do not be angering your children but rather be nourishing them in instruction and admonition of [the] Lord.’

-The command for dads here is to be doing the exact same thing for their kids that they are to be doing for their wives - be nourishing them constantly, regularly, daily even.  Be feeding them and helping them to grow, not just physically, providing food and other necessaries, but spiritually, feeding their hearts from the Word of God, teaching them about Him and instructing them how to follow and live for Him and admonishing them to do so and to love Him with their whole heart.

-Sadly, in the aftermath of the fall, this relationship is also broken and cursed.  Dads tend to not nourish their children, spiritually, if at all.  They’ve simply abdicated their responsibility, all too often way too absent.  Mom, or the grandparents, are left to do the heavy lifting.  The Sunday School teacher and the youth group leader wind up doing whatever nourishing takes place.  Dad is gone, altogether abandoning his kids (and wife), or he is barely present, rarely home or engaging with the kids, more inclined towards work and golf and tv and other forms of familial infidelity.  And when he is home, when he does engage, it is all too often with too heavy a hand, harsh, impatient, uncompassionate, and angry - venting the rage residing in his heart, spawned there by his own dad before him.  Wounded dads wounding their own kids, a vicious cycle played out and repeated in many a home.  Your own dad surely messed up.  He hurt you somehow.  He lashed out from his own place of woundedness.  He was absent.  He was unengaged.  He was shut down emotionally.  Maybe he was gone altogether.  But there is hope.  The cycle can be broken.  And it begins with me.  One dad, taking up the mantle of priest.  Yes, I am the spiritual leader of my family, my wife and my kids.  I nourish their souls with the Word of God.  I first feed my own soul, feasting regularly on God’s Word, sitting at the feet of Jesus and lingering before the throne of heaven, finding sustenance for my soul and for that of my entire family.  And then I set the table and prepare a feast for them.  Man up, men - let the Lord take and heal your own woundedness and let Him shore up and overcome your brokenness, let Him feed you and nourish you and empower you so that you can engage with your kids and your wife and regularly help lead them heavenward from a place of Christ-like humilty and gentleness.  Yes, just like Jesus (Matthew 11.29).  Be a glimpse of Jesus for them every day.  Help them learn about the Lord every day, by your words and by your example.