Posted on September 8, 2026 by Rev. Jonathan Conner
Godly Living
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This is now the fifth part in our series on Doing the Faith. Christianity, as we’ve shared, is something we do. Salvation is what Jesus does, but the faith is something we do, something we live out in words and actions.[1] The words inform the actions, and the actions reinforce the words. Thus far we’ve covered worship, Bible reading, devotions, and prayer. In this article we come to some of the specific actions of our day-to-day living.
The apostle Paul writes, “[L]et your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ…” (Philippians 1:27). The phrase manner of life is one word in Greek. It carries with it the connotation of citizenship, of living thoughtfully, consistently, or orderly in light of that citizenship. In other words, it means letting that citizenship inform our actions. Two chapters later Paul, using a Greek word with the same root, celebrates that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).
This heavenly citizenship drives us to live thoughtful, consistent, orderly lives, lives that demonstrate the reality of our citizenship. Before we discuss how we do this, we need to appreciate the need to do this. In other words, THIS IS IMPORTANT! If I could attach flashing lights to this reality, I would. Far too many people claiming to be Christian give next to no thought to the call to live out their heavenly citizenship in orderly lives. For the sake of the gospel of Christ, that needs to change.
The obvious question before us is how? How do we live thoughtful, consistent, and orderly lives that communicate our heavenly citizenship to the world and reinforce our commitment to that citizenship?
In this article we’ll consider four very specific answers to that question. In the next article we’ll answer four more.
We start with our eyes. Scripture simply, but profoundly, observes,
The hearing ear and the seeing eye,
the LORD has made them both.
— Proverbs 20:12
Our eyes (and our ears, which we’ll discuss next) are marvelous gifts from God, gifts that must be stewarded wisely. We will consider that stewardship in relation to our neighbor and in relation to our soul. How do we steward our eyes in relation to our neighbor? Maybe we should ask the question this way: “What do our eyes owe our neighbor?”
Perhaps this is a question you haven’t considered before. Before we discuss what your eyes owe your neighbor, then, let’s first appreciate the doctrine of vocation. We live in relation to one another: father to son, daughter to mother, pastor to people, students to teachers, etc. These vocational relationships owe something to each other. Paul writes about this in Romans 13 where he says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).[2]
In short, we owe love to one another. That debt of love is paid in different ways in different vocations. In the coming paragraphs we will consider how our heavenly citizenship shapes and forms the love we extend to one another.
To return to our eyes, our eyes show love to our neighbors through eye contact. When communicating with them, we look them in the eye. This seems like a simple concept, but how often have our eyes been distracted by our screens, whether it be the phone we pull from our pocket, the smartwatch we glance at on our wrist, or the big screen we continually turn to on the wall? Turning our eyes from our neighbor (whether that be our spouse, our children, our friends, or even our coworker) to our screens prioritizes a two-dimensional device over a three-dimensional person standing in front of us. There are certainly times when we must step away from a conversation to answer an urgent call or text, but these must be the exception, not the rule.
The always-on, always-present screens frequently fracture our attention, interrupt our conversations, and weaken our relationships. If we are going to let our manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, we must begin to see what our eyes owe our neighbor. We must tame our screens and give attentive eye contact to our neighbor.
We must also understand the eye’s connection to our soul. We might think of the eye as the portal to our soul, as an access point to our mind. What you choose to view with your eyes shapes your soul. David, who had learned the hard way of the eyes’ power to influence the soul (recall his rooftop voyeurism of Bathsheba bathing that lit up sinful desires in him), wrote,
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
— Psalm 101:3
A worthless thing is a thing that is good for nothing, a thing that has no good. This is not just a matter of a thing having no practical use (a leaky bucket, plastic trinkets, floppy disks, etc.). This is about the good of God. A worthless thing is something that undermines or cheapens something God has called good. Our eyes, which must be understood as belonging to Heaven, cannot be given to images that twist or distort, mock or malign, the goods of God.
As a citizen of Heaven, you may discover there are certain movies or programs that you can no longer watch, not if you desire to be a good citizen of Heaven, and not if you desire to keep your eyes from being lured by something that cheapens the goods of God. You may discover that social media is telling lies to your eyes, so you may need to stop putting those lies before your eyes as a good citizen of Heaven, as one who is aiming to honor the Gospel of Jesus.
It’s no accident that the church has historically given attention to the visual presentation of its worship spaces, from cathedrals to stained glass, from mosaics to art, from its altars, pulpits, and fonts to its candlesticks, paraments, and banners. The church invites the gathered to open the window of their soul to hints and suggestions of Heaven and to the three-dimensional promises of Heaven God gives at the pulpit, font, and altar. The church understands the truth of the eye and the needs of the soul. They are connected. So the church, in an effort to help the redeemed do the faith, has given attention to the goods of God and how these goods are visually presented to them.
We may ask similar questions, as we did with our eyes, about our ears. How do we steward them in relation to our neighbor and in relation to our soul?
What do our ears owe our neighbor? Have they not been given to hear, to listen, to our neighbor? Are our ears telling our neighbor that he or she is heard and valued? Are the earbuds in our ears telling our neighbor he or she is important? Or are our ears listening to our own thoughts so that we are planning our response while our neighbor is talking, looking for an opportunity to switch the conversation back to us?
We’ve all been in conversations where it feels like the other person’s usual response is essentially, “That reminds me of me.” In those conversations, we do not feel heard. In our conversations, then, we must ensure that we give our ears to our neighbor. We owe them our ears. It’s one of the ways we live out the reality of our heavenly citizenship.
As with our eyes, we must also pay attention to our ears’ connection to our soul. What we choose to hear shapes our soul. The fatherly voice of wisdom in Proverbs tells us,
[Make] your ear attentive to wisdom
and [incline] your heart to understanding…
— Proverbs 2:2
These words lead us to ask, What voices are we inviting to catechize us? If I may speak directly here, it is disturbingly easy to discern who has been catechized by Fox News and who has been catechized by NBC. People sound like mimicking parrots echoing the voices their ears have heard. It’s also obvious who has given their ears to Facebook and pop culture. They echo what they hear, the words, the ideas, the ideologies.
I’ve spoken and written before on the need to pay attention to the voices we are inviting to catechize us. Many of us mindlessly begin our mornings by inviting social media or news media to catechize us, inviting these voices to influence us, even shepherd us. To live as thoughtful citizens of Heaven, this needs to change. The first voice we should be inviting to teach us in the morning is God’s voice in Scripture. As I’ve shared before, this doesn’t have to be a major time commitment, but it does need to be a commitment (following Jesus is a commitment!).
I’ve called it Word before World (and then complemented it with The Regular Return). Inviting God to speak to us first and being intentional about listening to Him speak in His Word at set points during our day. This is about being very intentional with our ears. What voices will they choose to hear first thing in the morning? And what voices will they choose to hear throughout the day? As citizens of Heaven, citizens living intentional, orderly lives in light of that citizenship, we must give mind to our ears. To whom are we giving priority of place?
Like our eyes and ears, our hands live in relation to our neighbor. And like our eyes and ears, our hands owe love to our neighbor. Consider the way Scripture speaks:
Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
— Ephesians 4:28
God commanded Israel, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:11). And the author of Hebrews echoes this idea: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have…” (Hebrews 13:16).
God has given us hands to work and to serve. Work is a sacred task aimed at bringing order and beauty out of chaos, supporting oneself and one’s family, and blessing our neighbor as we have opportunity. As I wrote that sentence, I couldn’t help but wonder how different our communities, families, and churches would be if people didn’t have game controllers in their hands for between 10 to 13 hours per week (the average time per week Americans play video games), if their hands weren’t limp for the 23 hours per week they’re watching TV (the average time per week Americans watch TV/stream videos), and if their hands weren’t holding and scrolling social media for 10 hours per week (the average time per week Americans scroll social media).
Do the math. That’s over 40 hours a week—a full-time job—doing obeisance to (bowing before) a screen. Doesn’t that seem excessive? I can’t help but ask, what order are we not bringing to our communities, what infrastructure, what events, what betterment groups? What beautiful things are we not creating, what music, what art, what literature, what theater? What people are we not helping, not visiting, not encouraging?
And how is this affecting our own souls? How do inactive hands, or hands fully absorbed in self-serving, self-entertaining actions, affect our souls? I suspect much of our mental health struggles would evaporate if our hands got busy creating order and beauty and serving our neighbors. I further suspect our spiritual life would deepen and mature. What we yearn for is hands filled with purpose (the very thing perpetual distraction and entertainment can’t provide).
And Scripture speaks clearly and emphatically of that purpose:[3] Set your hands to work creating, ordering, beautifying, and serving.
Your mouth lives in relation to your neighbor. In fact, it lives in debt to your neighbor. Your mouth owes love to your neighbor (as we heard from Paul in Romans 13). Consider the way Paul writes about our mouths in Ephesians 4:
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
— Ephesians 4:29
Because our mouths exist to build others up, no corrupting talk should come out of them. None. I would make a list of these words, but I don’t believe it’s necessary. I believe we know which words are corrupting words. The word Paul uses for corrupting talk is the same word Jesus uses when He describes a tree’s bad fruit (Matthew 7:17-18). It’s rotten, good for nothing.
Paul says the words that come out of our mouths should not be rotten and good for nothing, but edifying. The idea here, as with our hands, is order and beauty. God has given us mouths to create order and beauty as we build others up. Order and beauty honor the Gospel and bless our neighbors; chaos and filth do precisely the opposite. If your words are causing chaos and flinging filth, stop using those words. Immediately and permanently.
And let us do away with the laughable excuse that filthy words “just slip out.” Words don’t slip out of our mouths any more than bullets slip out of guns. Triggers must be pulled, and that takes intention. Responsible gun owners abide by certain rules because they know the power of their gun. They know the damage errant bullets can cause. We must have the same concern over our mouths.
Guns have safeties. Our mouths need safeties too. In fact, David, in Psalm 141:3, essentially prays for God to place a safety on his mouth:
Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth;
keep watch over the door of my lips!
— Psalm 141:3
As responsible citizens of Heaven, we must put a safety on our mouths.
I have sometimes conceptualized corrupting talk[4] as a no-go. We do this with lots of things. Screaming fire (when there is no fire) in a public gathering is a no-go. Picking your nose during a job interview is a no-go. Violently smacking an infant is a no-go. These are things we have resolved in our minds never to do. Period.
Corrupting (worthless, rotten) talk needs to be placed in the same mental category. It’s something Christians who are striving to live lives worthy of the Gospel of Jesus will not do. Ever. It’s a no-go. This is essentially what James wrote in his epistle:
With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
— James 3:9-10
Using our tongue to destroy or cause chaos is a no-go. God has given us our mouths to praise and confess Him and to bless and build up our neighbors. This is how we do the faith and honor the Gospel of Jesus.
Eyes, ears, hands, and mouth—these are physically and tangibly involved in doing the faith. These build up our neighbor (or tear him down), nourish our souls (or poison them), honor the Gospel of Jesus (or mock it).
Training our eyes, ears, hands, and mouth to honor the Gospel of Jesus and to bless our neighbor will help us live thoughtful, consistent, orderly, even beautiful lives that communicate our heavenly citizenship to the world and reinforce our commitment to that citizenship.
Let’s get to it. Let’s do the faith.
— Pastor Conner
Read Part 2: Reding Our Bibles
[1] We need to clarify that “the faith” is distinguished from the saving faith that God’s Spirit creates and grants through Christ’s Word and Sacraments. The faith, in this context, refers to our living out the reality or the implications of the salvation Christ has won and given to us.
[2] You can also read about these vocational responsibilities in Luther’s Table of Duties in the Small Catechism.
[3] See the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 and God’s commission to steward/order creation. For a deeper dive into this subject, study the Lutheran doctrine of vocation. See Gene Veith’s God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life and Timothy Keller’s Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work.
[4] Paul also speaks of “filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk” (see Ephesians 5:4 and Colossians 4:6).
Rev. Jonathan Conner is a contributor and speaker for Lutheran Family Service in the areas of mental health, godly living, and parenting. He is a regular guest on the podcast Issues, Etc., and the multi-part series Kids Have Questions. Pastor Conner is a graduate of Concordia Seminary St. Louis and currently serves as the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Manning, Iowa.
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