WHOM DO YOU WANT TO PLEASE?

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. Serve the Lord Christ. 

Colossians 3:23-24

I missed graduating from college with honors by .001 grade point average. If I had gotten one letter grade higher in any class I took in my four years I would have graduated with honors. That means my first semester if I had appreciated art just a bit more and gotten a C instead of a D I would have made it. As it turned out, missing honors never made a difference over the course of my life anyway.

After discovering Colossians 3:23-24, I have reflected on that shortcoming in my freshman year a number of times. I was not trying to walk in those days on the basis of those verses, and I wonder now how many blessings I missed. Concerning Art Appreciation 101 I was certainly capable of getting a much higher grade.

But honors from man are not the point. Pleasing Jesus is. The verbs in Colossians 3:23-24 are imperative, so doing them is not optional if you love Jesus (see John 14:15). Less than my best is not an option now, no matter what I am doing. 

How about it? Are you doing your best for Jesus in all things?

(By the way, I still don’t appreciate man’s art much, but I have developed a greater toleration for some of it.)

Jeffrey Eno