Copyright 2010 Theresa Harvard Johnson
1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 (AMP): 9Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.
10And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more. 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, 12so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
There is a preoccupation in the body of Christ with gossip – the forming of assumptions and discussing the lives of others. People of God, we must learn how to focus on our own affairs. Unless you’ve been given Godly access, authority and permission under the guidance of Holy Spirit to access a person’s life as they open the door for you or as Father opens the door for you through counsel, intercession, prayer or other means – we must embrace this simple biblical principle: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.
What is this quiet life the Apostle Paul speaks of? That answer is easy to identify, but not always easy to follow. The temptation and the desire to KNOW what is going on in other people’s lives – and to discuss it – is overwhelming for some people. This “QUIET LIFE” is defined in the scriptures above as living a life:
(1) Being watchful over your OWN affairs. It is living in that place of intercession and prayer in which you are focused exclusively on working out your OWN soul’s salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord. Its foundations can be traced all the way back to an Old Covenant principle that is accurately retold in Matthew 7:5 AMP which says, “First, take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the plank out of your brother’s eye.”
In this, please understand that the Lord wants us to focus on “our individual” purpose and destiny in Him. In other words, “DO YOU!” Be that YOU in CHRIST you were created to be by following the guidelines he has given you for YOUR LIFE. In doing so, we have a way of meeting up with those assigned to us with whom we fit. The outworking of our own walk with the Lord is ENOUGH to keep us busy without stepping UNINVITED into the affairs of others.
(2) Working with your hands. As this marinated in my spirit this morning, Father reminded me of this Old Covenant proverb: Ecclesiastes 4:4-5 BBV which says, “And I saw that the cause of all the work and of everything which is done well was man's envy of his neighbour. This again is to no purpose and a desire for wind. 5 The foolish man, folding his hands, takes the flesh of his body for food.” My God! When we focus our efforts on the affairs of others in an ungodly way, we become fruitless fools without an understanding of purpose.
Our own efforts in Christ suffer because we are off-focus! This taking of the flesh is an act of SELF CONTAMINATION & DEFILEMENT! Thinking on the wrong things will destroy the PEACE in the life of a believer, causing them to be chaotic in the Kingdom – even to the point of competing and finding themselves in a place of preoccupation concerning the affairs of others. It is imperative that WE WORK with OUR HANDS according to those things entrusted to us. The question of the hour is rooted in John 6:28: “What must I DO to work the works of God?” We have to make this personal! Remember, we are talking about MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS here for those who are meddlers and gossipers.
Saints of God: DO WHATEVER IT TAKES IN FATHER NOT TO BECOME DISTRACTED WITH THE GOINGS ON & DOINGS OF OTHERS! To mind your own business and live a quiet life IS TO FOCUS ON WHAT IS IN YOUR HAND – your salvation, your family relationships, your need for freedom from sin, your desire to be a Son of God, your heavenly mission and purpose, etc.
Look at the last part of verse 10. By minding your own business, you will GAIN RESPECT BY OUTSIDERS — those who are not even in the BODY of Christ or who may not be associated with you. By minding your own business, you will not be OBLIGATED to anyone… but dependent solely on God. This is a discussion all by itself. When we mind our own business, we walk under a CLOUD OF PROTECTION that NO MAN can touch. When we MEDDLE in the affairs of others we open ourselves up to suffering as a murderer or a thief (1 Peter 4:15-16).
We need to declare that we want TO LIVE A QUIET LIFE!
In pursuing this quiet life, we will have to shut off some things… cut off the noisemakers in your life! Just this week someone called me about a PERSONAL MATTER in my life that WAS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. I had to answer curtly and get off the phone from that MEDDLING SPIRIT. You see, we can’t pursue the QUIET LIFE and then have unnatural curiousity and preoccupation about the lives of others.
People of God, if you place value in reality television, tabloid newspapers, gossip chains in the church and other activities that DUMP that gossiping, meddling power in your ear — you are not pursuing the quiet life. In fact, you are setting yourself up for a very hard fall.
Father desires to protect us in our communion with Him.
1 Peter 4:15-16 (AMP) defines, “15But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or any sort of criminal, or as a mischief-maker (a meddler) in the affairs of others [infringing on their rights].”
There's so much in this scripture! But I want to close with this:
Did you know that you have RIGHTS in the congregation of the saints? I’m talking about the right to privacy and confidentiality. I'm speaking of the right to work out your soul's salvation between YOU & GOD ALONE. The right to make decisions about your personal fellowship and associations. Oh, this is true!
You have BOUNDARY RIGHTS concerning your soul! I don't mean this in a selfish, ungodly way — but in a GODLY RIGHTEOUS WAY! Do you know that you have the right to DEFY the mischief maker, the meddler, the birds of prey in the midst of the congregation?
As BRETHREN, we do not have THE AUTHORITY to infringe upon the rights of others in the body of Messiach (Jesus Christ)! The world does this daily in its own societies, but we are not to do so. There are HOLY BOUNDARIES in the realm of the spirit that has been given to us by God. When we MEDDLE & GOSSIP as BELIEVERS – we are breaking these Holy boundaries.
