Good morning people who honour God by honouring those who work for you.

Colossians 4:1 NIV Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

It is just as right for employers to act with integrity as it is for employees to act with integrity. In fact, these verses from yesterday apply equally to both:

Colossians 3:23-24 NIV Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Employers must know that they are serving the Lord in their business. How they treat their employees must be done in a way that pleases God. This is the right way of thinking. Employees should love working for Christian employers. If they don’t, something is wrong.

Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair.

If you are an employer, do you pay your employees what is right and fair? Do you do what is right for them and for the government?

Getting away with giving as little as possible is not the kingdom way.

Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

This connection reminds me of Jesus’ instruction to forgive others on earth so that our heavenly Father will forgive us (Matthew 6:14-15). How we treat people is important to God. How we treat people affects how God treats us.

If you are a Christian who employees people, I pray that you are known as a delight to work for. I pray that people are pointed towards the goodness and kindness of God as a result of working for you.

Good morning people who do your job as unto the Lord.

Colossians 3:22-25 NIV Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.

While we don’t have slaves and human masters anymore, we do have employees and employers, and the same principles apply.

How we work for others is important to God.

It is easy to separate work from ministry. On one hand, this is correct. The Bible says that Jesus began to minister at the age of 30 and yet He had been a carpenter before this. That said, I am convinced that Jesus served his father Joseph faithfully as a carpenter, and while he made tables and chairs, He did it as unto His heavenly Father.

And this is the point in this Scripture today. To serve well at church and to slacken off at work is to not understand how Father sees our life as a service to Him and a witness to others.

This Scripture highlights the motivation of our heart in all we do. Paul instructs people to work for the Lord even when people aren’t watching. Therefore, it’s not about being noticed for the purpose of advancement, but rather, it is about doing everything as unto the Lord.

There is either a reward or consequences for how we work in our place of employment. Therefore, let’s position ourselves for reward. We do this by working for the Lord with sincerity of heart and reverence for God.

Good morning people who seek to represent your heavenly Father to other people.

Colossians 3:21 NIV Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

This is an important BIY.

Fathers, we have such a responsibility to lead our families towards God. We are called to lead in a way that our wives and our children see the Lord more clearly.

We are told to not embitter our children. The word embitter is the phrase provoke to anger in the KJV, and it means exactly what it says.

The last part of the verse says: or they will become discouraged. The word discouraged means spiritless, that is disheartened. We want our children to flourish and thrive; to be full of God’s joy and life. How we treat them can greatly affect this.

Permit me to be honest about my earlier years as a father. I loved the Lord and I loved my daughters. However, due to my own desire for things to be perfect, I focused on them behaving right more than I focused on developing their personal relationship with the Lord. I focused on rules being followed, and as a result, I was too hard on them.

While I can’t replay my years as a parent, I have learnt from this, and today, by the grace of God, I pray I can encourage some of you Dads (and Mums) to set and keep the right focus and priorities as you lead and love your children.

I would focus on developing my children’s personal relationship with the Lord more than anything else.

I would model more kindness, gentleness and patience.

I would have more fun and not be so rules focused.

And I would ask my heavenly Father to help me more accurately represent Him to my children.

Let me leave you with one verse that I would keep before me more as a parent.

Philippians 4:5 NIV Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 

Good morning people who please the Lord by how you treat your parents.

Colossians 3:20 NIV Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Against popular secular culture, children do not know best. Leaving a child to their own devices is crazy, and not instructing them and training them in the way they should go, is negligent. If a child’s will is never crossed, parents aren’t doing what God instructed them to do.

Proverbs 22:6 NKJV Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

For children who are reading this BIY, I want to commend to you the privilege of being trained up in godly ways. I also want to point you to the last part of Colossians 3:20: Your obedience to your parents pleases the Lord. If you want to please the Lord, obey your parents in everything.

Here’s another promise in the following Scripture:

Ephesians 6:1-3 NIV Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

The longer I live, the more I see God’s pattern and the life and blessing that is attached to doing things God’s way. We often kick against the part required of us, while overlooking or minimizing the part God promises to us.

Finally today, I would like to suggest that honouring your father and mother does not have a used by date. While we might not be under the same compulsion to obey our parents in everything when we are older and leading our own families, we should still pursue actively honouring our parents all the days of our lives.

If you are a child, how is your obedience to your parents in everything?

For all of us, how well do you honour your father and your mother?

Good morning people who help other people walk in holiness and righteousness.

Colossians 3:19 NIV Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Ephesians 5:25-28 NIV Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 

Let me be clear: Most marriages fail because husbands don’t love their wives as Christ loves the church. Yes, at times, the problem is a lack of submission from a wife, but this too most often stems from a husband who is not living as God instructed.

Husbands are to love their wives sacrificially.

Christ didn’t lord it over the church; Christ literally laid down His life for the church. This is how husbands are to love their wives. Fighting for our rights is not the Christlike way! Being harsh is not the Christlike way! Humility and sacrifice is the way of Jesus, the head of the church.

Husbands are to love their wives spiritually.

Regrettably, this can often be one of the weakest areas for some husbands. God’s instructions through Paul in Ephesians 5:26-27 is for husbands to prepare their wives to stand before the Lord holy and blameless. This does not mean telling her what to do and how she should change. In context, this means exactly what it says:

Cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 

A husband should love and lead his wife in God’s Word.

Modelling intimacy with God in His Word and initiating time together in God’s Word is the husband’s responsibility, not the wife’s responsibility.

By the way, the same is true with prayer. It’s time for husbands to lead the way in prayer – this is in the home and it is in the church! It’s not a personality thing; it’s an obedience thing.

A husband should love and lead his wife into radiance in the eyes of God.

One day, we will all stand before the Lord. Oh, what a glorious day that will be!! I want to stand before Him and see His smile on me, not because I was perfect, but because I was a man who was intimate with the heart of God. And I want to confidently stand before the Lord knowing that, as a husband, I helped my wife do the same.

God wants healthy marriages, and healthy marriages are only possible if we do things God’s way.

I highly recommend you invest into your marriage by reading my Mum’s book, ‘Bulletproof Your Marriage’