Seed & Harvet

Ps.39:^4-5 (Voice) “Eternal One, let me understand my end and how brief my earthly existence is; help me realize my life is fleeting. You have determined the length of my days, and my life is nothing compared to You. Even the longest life is only a breath.”

Eph.6:^5-9 (NRSV) “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.”

How does this apply to us? Some of us reading this today have domestic staff working for us and some of us are the domestic staff. God is saying to the domestic staff, serve your masters as though you are serving Jesus Christ. God is also saying to those of us that have domestic staff, treat your staff knowing that Christ will treat you the same way you treat them. That is big! If we just pause here and think, a lot of us will discover that we need to make huge changes in our relationships with our domestic staff. The good thing is, you can start making those changes now. Treat your domestic staff the same way you want Jesus Christ to treat you. Why? The reason is we are also Christ’s servants.

The question is how have you been treating your help, your driver? How do you treat the people that work with you? Do you talk down on them and treat them like crap? God is saying you have to change that. Do I get an Amen? You must change it because if you do not, then you are setting yourself up for heaven to maltreat you. I want heaven to treat me well with favour and kindness and I am sure you do too. God says if you maltreat your domestic staff, the people that work with you, you are not putting yourself in a good position.

However, Eph.6:5-9 is one of the passages of the Bible that I have struggled with most. I struggled with the fact that God was acknowledging slavery, and this is not talking about domestic staff. These people were actually slaves! Slavery has done unbelievable damage to humanity. Some people, some churches were quoting this scripture during the apartheid, holding it over people’s heads while they subjected them to slavery. I struggled with it; so I began to search, study and ransack the Bible for God’s heart about slavery. Tomorrow, I will share my findings with you.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, I ask for the wisdom to consistently sow good seeds in my vertical and horizontal relationships, in Jesus Name. Amen!