“You are serving the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:24
This word is spoken to servants and to slaves. Among the toiling multitudes, the journeymen, the day laborers, the domestic servants, and the drudges of the kitchen, the apostle found, as we find still, some of the Lord’s chosen. To them he says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ" (Colossians 3:23-24).
All of Life
This saying ennobles the weary routine of earthly employments and sheds a halo around the most humble occupations. To wash feet may be servile, but to wash his feet is royal work. To unloose the shoelace is poor employ, but to unloose the great Master’s shoe is a princely privilege. The shop, the barn, the scullery, and the smithy become temples when men and women do all to the glory of God! Then “divine service” is not a thing of a few hours and a few places, but all life becomes holiness unto the Lord, and every place and thing, as consecrated as the tabernacle and its golden candlestick.
“Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see
And what I do in anything
To do it as to thee.
All may of thee partake
Nothing can be so mean,
Which with this tincture—"for thy sake"—
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine
Who sweeps a room as for thy laws
Makes that and th’ action fine.
“The Elixir,” George Herbert
