Mind Your Own Business

Read I Thessalonians 4:1-5:3

Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business
and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.
Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you
live, and you will not need to depend on others.”
(I Thessalonians 3:11-12)

Thoughts… In Paul’s day, some of the believers were so convinced that Jesus was going to come back at any moment that they simply quit life and waited. They quit showing up to work, they quit earning a living, they quit taking care of stuff around the house. Why bother? Jesus was coming back. So they just waited. And they became a burden for everybody else. Others had to do their work. Others had to provide food for them. Others had to take care of the things they were supposed to do.

We have words for people that: Irresponsible, irritating, lazy. And they are a terrible witnesses for Christ.

I haven’t seen too many people in our day who have quit life and are just sitting around waiting for Jesus to return to rescue them from their daily chores. But I have seen a fair number of people who are terrible witnesses for Jesus. Not so much because they don’t give an adequate verbal witness—they talk a good game. They just don’t play it.

There are too many believers whose lives don’t match their language. Seekers can’t see Jesus in them because their lifestyle get in the way of their language, their work ethic clouds their witness, their nosiness and noisiness are incongruent with their beliefs. They cut corners, do sloppy work, show up late, gossip, gab and complain — “working as unto the Lord” is not something that describes them. Sinners can’t see the purity, reverence, industriousness and excellence of their Christian faith simply because those Christ-like values are consistently missing from their actions.

Paul is saying that our behavior at all times must generate respect for our Lord, and the preferable behavior is just to quietly, humbly and excellently let our actions declare our devotion to Jesus. People are watching us, and whatever they see in our lives day in and day out paints a picture of our Jesus.

Hope you are painting a masterpiece!

Prayer… Lord, help me today to so live that when people look at me, they will see you…and be attracted.

One More Thing… “You are living proof of a loving God to a lost world.”