Be Ready

DEVOTION
1 TIMOTHY
BE READY
1 Tim 6:1-2
6:1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2 Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.
NIV
Surely I am no slave to any man, believer of non-believer alike. Our society forbids such relationships between people. But to bring this into the world I live in would be to see this in light of employer, employee conduct. When I have worked for others, when I have been an employee, I believe I have always respected those who were in authority over me no matter if they were believers or not. Even to talk about them in any disrespectful manner would be wrong according to these words. There have been some occasions when I might well have been in the wrong in regard to that issue. But I have spent much of my life not being an employee but rather an employer, or at least self employed. I do know of believing people who absolutely need to refrain from speaking disrespectfully about those who employ them. Is it my task to point out this standard? Is this one of those cases when I see a brother in sin, I should go to him? Maybe it is already stopped. Maybe those do not speak in that manner any more. But if I am witness to such behavior, should I speak up? I think so, in love, because I love. I suppose if I am aware of others in that situation I must teach and urge them to live in a manner which abides to this standard. At this time in my life, I still have no employer and thus it is difficult for me to apply this to my own life, at least right now. In retrospect, I must seek forgiveness from my Lord for those times I failed to meet this standard when I was an employee. I do think I worked as hard as any man could for them, but I might not have respected some of those who employed me over the years. Back and forth, past and present I bounce, and who knows what the future will be, although I doubt I will ever be an employee again, I am too old for that now, yet God still made have plans he has not shared with me yet. So I think I should just keep this tucked into me heart and stay ready to obey or teach and urge, which ever that will be.