COLOSSIANS 3:23

I've known about this verse for very long, and although I knew it's important to take note of it and apply in our daily lives, I realize now that perhaps I may not have fully grasped the true meaning of it. Perhaps, what it always only meant to me was that I should focus on pleasing God -- and not men. And although I think there's truly nothing wrong with that, I think I may have missed out on the rest of its implications.

For one, the verse says "whatever you do," which means that in every single thing we do, no matter how mundane or unrelated to God as it seems, we should work at it wholeheartedly for Him. But what about our hobbies, or the things we do out of leisure? Well, I still can't quite answer that. What I know, though, is that we should examine whether or not these hobbies work for or against our growth as followers of Christ. So, maybe each time we watch something or do something fun with our friends, we should always consider how it's going to affect ourselves in our walk with God, as well as whether or not it will be something that pleases or displeases Him.

Secondly, it says to "work at it with all your heart," which tells us to give whatever it is we're doing our best shot. We ought to do it by being the best version of ourselves through God's great help. There is nothing too small to be worked at with all our hearts. Even something as small as making a good sandwich, I believe, applies to this verse. Like it says in the bible, 1 Corinthians 6:19 - "Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God?". But, how do we fix ourselves a sandwich our best shot? For me, I think it's as simple as making it taste good but at the same time, healthy and not artery-clogging - nourish our body with what we eat and not trash it.

The verse ends with "as working for the Lord," which obviously means that we should do everything for the glory of God, right? But why is it that actually doing it seems so difficult once we're finally out there trying to do it? I think the answer is pretty simple: It’s because we have too many masters, instead of having just one, and that is God. But we’re such people pleasers, aren’t we? I think whether or not we admit it, we’re all bound to want to please ourselves or other people first before wanting to please God. Now that’s the hard/tricky part. Although I think it’s not absolutely wrong to want to please people, it becomes problematic to do so when we put others before God, or when we use the world’s standards first in measuring our success in the things we do before we use God’s.

I realize it all boils down to setting our priorities straight.

Who is our main master, really?
Who do we look to when it comes to what we do and how we do them?
And whom do we do them for?