Growing up in the south, manners were as much a part of life as breathing in and breathing out. Every time one of us was invited somewhere, my mother would tell us to remember our manners and be a good guest. She would say, “Remember who you are and who you belong to.” I always made certain I said my “yes, ma’am, no ma’am, thank you and please.” I didn’t want to reflect poorly on my parents, because if I did, they would hear about it and then I would hear about it and face the consequences.
The more I pondered this, I started thinking about how the same concept applies to the Christian walk. We are all aliens. We are not home yet, as Stephen Curtis Chapman sings. We are only here for a season. We need to remember who we are and Who we belong to. Our goal should be to make our Father proud of us by our words and our actions. We all want to hear our Father say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” [Matthew 25:21] when we arrive home.
We’ve been shown how to behave through the Word of God. We shouldn’t do things like everyone else. We are called, as the apostle Paul, to be “set apart” [Romans 1:1; 1 Peter 2:9] If we’ve forgotten our manners, maybe we need to spend some time reviewing them through the study of God’s Word.
It isn’t always easy to take the high road. Often times we aren’t just battling the enemy in a situation before us; sometimes we are battling ourselves as well. It is during these times, we must cry out to the Father for help. It is during these times we are truly set apart in the way we live and how we deal with conflict or problems. We become the living example of 1 Peter 1:16b “Be holy, because I am holy.”
So, mind your manners and make your Father proud!