Impossible

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  Colossians 3:17

I got to thinking about that phrase, "in the name of the Lord Jesus".  "In the name of" can mean a two primary things, "for the sake of" or "by the authority of".  Those don't sound like much, until you add Jesus' name and add in whatever you are doing, like some holy madlib.

For instance, "I'm writing this for the sake of Jesus." I'm writing this by the authority of Jesus."  I'm not sure I'm comfortable using the term in the second sense.  I feel uncomfortable putting words in Jesus' mouth. 

But "for the sake of", well, as uncomfortable as it is, I think it is exactly what this Colossians scripture means.  It gives much more weight to our actions.  

And to our words.  WHATEVER YOU DO IN WORD means that you'd have to play this Madlib game with what you say in traffic.  Can you say, "Get back in your own lane, ya jerk!" for the sake of our Lord Jesus?

It may be unrealistic for us to analyze our lives this way at every moment, but it is worth giving it a thought now and then.  If you have to do a particularly annoying or difficult task, try shifting your thoughts from "this is boring" to "I'm doing this for the sake of Jesus Christ".  It might change the task, it might even change you.