The Scale Doesn’t Lie | Farm Sunday Devotional

I make sourdough bread, which means I live by a kitchen scale. Water, salt, flour, starter, weighed out every single time. And here’s the thing that still gets me: two things that look like they’d balance by eye can weigh completely different once they’re actually on the scale. What looks even isn’t always even. In the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, Paul challenges the believers in those churches to “walk worthy.” Worthy of…

• The Gospel of Christ
• The calling with which you were called
• In a manner worthy of the Lord
• In a manner worthy of God

In this phrase “walking worthy” that Paul uses, the idea of “walking” describes how a person lives their everyday life, their routines, habits, attitudes, and behaviors. And the word Paul uses for “worthy” refers to scales used to weigh two objects so that those items are equal in weight and are balanced.

Together, what Paul is saying to these believers, and to us, is that our Christian walk and life are to measure up and be in balance with Christ, the standard by which our lives are measured. Now you might be saying to yourself, if my life is placed in the divine scales of God, how would my life ever be in balance with Jesus Christ? And that friends is the beautiful part of Paul’s challenge to these believers. Paul is not saying we can earn God’s favor by challenging ourselves to have good attitudes, better behavior, or keeping our affections in control. No, what Paul is saying is that when we are placed in the divine scales with God, our life measures up with God because Jesus Christ places His thumb on the scales to rightly balance us with God through His forgiveness, His mercy, and His grace. We measure up with God through Jesus Christ, and by nothing we do on our own. And because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, we can walk worthy with Him in blessed assurance. This week, let’s obey the calling to walk worthy of the Lord, with our attitudes, our actions, and our affections measuring up with Jesus Christ.