Colossians 4:5-6 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Christianity is not a part-time job. "Make the most of every opportunity." "Conversation be always full of grace. . ." "Know how to answer everyone."
As Christians we are instructed to view every encounter, every conversation, every interaction as an opportunity to either directly or indirectly share what Christ has done for us or model Christ-like attitudes and actions. On our own, this is an impossibility. But with God, it is possible.
Refer back to yesterday's blog- "Pray continually." That is the key to today's verses.
When I was a teenager in Bolivar, MO, I attended First Baptist Church. We had an outstanding youth pastor. While I cannot remember his last name, I believe his first name was Bob A story us has stuck with me all these years.
He recounted the time when he was younger and working in the meat department at a local supermarket.
There was a particular butcher who he remembered as being a very angry, disgruntled man who did not befriend anyone in the store except for Bob. Bob was involved in his church youth group and tried to live his Christian life outside of the church walls. He remembered the angry butcher treated him with more respect and even a level of kindness. The other meat cutters swore, told dirty jokes and had little use for God, but Bob would tell of his church youth activities, trips, etc.
A game that was played by the meat cutters was to take a butcher knife and slam it down as close as possible to the fingers of another. This was consistently met with a string of curses and deragatory remarks.
Bob told us of a time when the angry butcher slammed his butcher knife close to Bob's fingers and how his reaction was anything but Christian. Bob let loose with a string of curses that equaled anything uttered by the seasoned meat cutters. He said the butcher just stopped, looked him directly in the eyes and said, "I thought you were different." That was the last time the butcher treated him any different than all the other meat cutters at the store. Even though the event was many years in his past, the memory still haunted Bob.
We will make mistakes. Some of those mistakes can be corrected. Others cannot. But our goal needs to be to "make the most of every opportunity and let our conversation be always full of grace".
Pastor Hosea encourages his congregation to be in the Word 7/24. Paul reminds us that the Christian life is 24/7.
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