Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
-- Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV)
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians:
He does not say "work as if God were watching," but "as for the Lord." The distinction is everything. One is pretense. The other is reorientation. The man who works for the Lord does not alter his labor when the room empties. The man who works as though God watches still imagines he might be alone.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship:
The disciple is not called to be a hero. He is called to be obedient. Obedience requires no audience. It requires only the command and the will to follow it. Where the disciple seeks witnesses, he has already abandoned the call for something cheaper.
Abba Moses of the Desert, Sayings of the Desert Fathers:
A brother came to Abba Moses and asked him for a word. The old man said: "Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." The cell reveals what the marketplace conceals. In solitude a man discovers whether his virtues are his own or merely borrowed from the gaze of others.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ:
If you cannot continually keep yourself in recollection, at least do so at certain times -- at least morning and evening. In the morning make your resolutions, and in the evening examine yourself as to what you have done this day -- in word, deed, and thought. Set yourself like a man against the assaults of the devil. Bridle gluttony, and you will more easily bridle every inclination of the flesh.
If every person who matters to you were removed from the equation -- every boss, every peer, every friend whose opinion shapes your labor -- would you still do what you did today, the way you did it?
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI.30:
If you do the task before you always with your whole self, with careful deliberation, with energy, patience -- without being deflected by any secondary consideration -- keeping that divine inner self intact and untroubled, as though even now you might have to give it back -- if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature and with heroic truth in every word and sound -- you will live well. And no one can prevent this.
St. Clair, MI: -- 🌦️ Patchy rain nearby. 69°F now, high near 73°F. Winds SE at 4 mph. Humidity 94%. Sunrise 6:26 AM, sunset 8:46 PM. Carry a layer; the rain may not amount to much but the damp will.