“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)
This isn’t the way I usually think of ambition. If I’m feeling ambitious to live for God, at all, I want to do BIG things: Witness to thousands. Build an orphanage with my bare hands. Memorize the New Testament in the original Greek.
But Paul wants us to think of a long-term strategy to help unbelievers to notice Christ in the way we live every day – not just in the BIG things we do to “change the world.”
Lead a well-rested life (not a silent one). Pay more attention to how you’re living than how everyone else is living. Get a job and do good work so you can be a giver and not a taker.
Doing the opposite may lead people to think following Jesus leaves us exhausted, judgmental, lazy, foolish, and broke.
Think: What’s your plan for your life? Will it help you to lead a restful, wise, and working life that will be respectable to those who don’t know Jesus?
Pray: Ask God to help you to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands in a way that earns him the respect of outsiders.
Do: Make a quick list of 3-4 Christians you respect. Notice how these qualities do (or don’t) fit into their lives.