Today’s New Covenant nugget is from Colossians 4:5-6 (NLT)
Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.
This verse starts by addressing how we need to conduct ourselves when we are among unbelievers, and then it encourages us to let our conversations be ‘gracious and attractive’ toward ‘everybody’.
How we live and conduct ourselves in front of others requires wisdom and grace…
The Passion Translation says, ’Let every word you speak be drenched with grace and tempered with truth and clarity. For then you will be prepared to give a respectful answer to anyone who asks about your faith.’
As we interact with unsaved friends, loved ones, fellow believers and family, we need both wisdom and grace. Our conversations need to be attractive gentle, loving, ‘drenched with grace’, respectful, and tempered with truth and clarity.
Sometimes believers tend to be less gracious toward family members (including sons and daughters) that are either unsaved, or living in compromise. It is easy to not focus on your conduct when you are familiar with a friend or a loved one… “I can just be me in front of them”… however, it is very important to ‘be the best you’, even toward those that you are close to. The closer we are to people, the greater our influence towards them becomes.
We need to receive wisdom and grace from the Lord for our conversations and our lives to be attractive. I heard someone say, “I am going to be real and not fake”. Being fake is wrong, but positioning yourself as happy and blessed ‘in faith’ is good! Making sure that your conversations are drenched in grace, respectful, and tempered with truth and clarity at all times and in front of everybody is wise.
When I am around others, saved and unsaved; even when I am around my wife… I put on joy, peace, love, graciousness, kindness and gentleness by faith… I put in on like I put on some cologne… on purpose, for the benefit of others. Even if I am feeling a little down or challenged, I cast that care to the Lord, I shake it off and I present myself as attractive by faith.
I want every moment of my life to draw people closer to the Lord. I want to be an example of Jesus to my children, my wife, my family and to all who I interact with, including the cashier at the supermarket checkout. We cannot do this in our own strength, but we can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us. We can walk in wisdom, in love and in grace by grace through faith by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus Name!
In His amazing love, Nick
