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PROGRAM D-7239

Work is worship. I’ve tried to unpack exactly what that means for you in your everyday work world.

We’ve seen that God is a worker, and we are created in his image, so therefore we are created to work. Work is God’s idea, and without work our lives would be like a ship without a rudder. As originally created, work was totally joyful and easy and welcome. But once sin entered the picture, work fell under a curse, and from that point on, work has had its challenges. It’s often hard and tiring and it’s often full of thorns and thistles—unpleasant situations and people—as God told Adam in Genesis 3. In fact, God described sin-cursed work as painful toil, by the sweat of your brow.

But there is good news, because Jesus became a curse for us, as we read in Galatians 3, and redeemed us from the curse of the law by his death, burial and resurrection. So, we don’t have to be under the control of that curse. That means we can have a redeemed attitude toward our work, and we can do it as unto the Lord, not unto men. And that changes everything. That’s how work becomes worship.

Did you ever think that you may be in the job you are in right now because God wants a light in that dark place? Jesus said he purposefully left us here to be in this world but not of it. He never intended for us to be isolationist Christians. He wants us to be sprinkled throughout our culture, as appropriate, so that our lights can dispel the darkness.

You may be in the job you’re in for one person—one person there that you can help; one person you might lead to saving faith, or plant seeds that blossom later in that one person’s life. The parable of the lost sheep tells us how much God values one lost person, and that could be why you’re in a tough job. It may not look like much according to this world’s value system, but in heaven that one person has incredibly great value with God.

So I encourage you to ask God to give you the right attitude toward your job and see your work as worship.