Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Colossians 3:23-24

All dressed up in your virtues? Looking for the perfect place to go to shower love on everyone? Look no further than your daily routines. Wherever you go, you live worthy of the Lord by working at whatever you do with all your heart. Now isn’t that just too simple?

Or maybe it’s way too difficult. Keeping on your virtues at all times in the midst of your family and friends and co-workers is the hard part. They are the ones who see your bad moods, your frustrations, your worldly ambitions. They are prey to your tempers and anxieties. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience are too often foreign in our inner circles.

Paul gives the basics of virtuous living to the Colossians (3:18-4:1), but it is the Proverbs 31 woman who floats into view. She sure got it right, didn’t she?  

A description of her godliness begins: A good woman is hard to find (Proverbs 31:10, MSG). Hmm! Living a virtuous life is not so easy; still, we are to set our minds on virtue rather than vice. 

Pay attention to her actions as she goes about her day: she “works with eager hands”; she “opens her arms to the poor”; she is “clothed with strength and dignity”; she “speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction is on her tongue”; “her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also” (Proverbs 31:11-30).

And her secret? She “fears the LORD” (31:30). She is awestruck at His glory. At home, at work, at the city gate she works wholeheartedly for Him. Earthly praise is pittance compared with her heavenly inheritance. Working at virtue with all your heart takes on a whole new dimension when you consider it service to the Lord.

The Lord certainly values a good woman highly: She is worth far more than rubies (31:10). The clarity of a ruby gives it value; so too the clarity of your virtues. According to Wikepedia, the Sunrise Ruby sold at auction in May 2015 in Switzerland for US$30 million. You mean more to the Lord than that ruby, as does your wholehearted living.

Nancy P