The Word Before Work (Jordan Raynor)

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Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up. (Proverbs 12:25)

Let’s face it: We are overwhelmed with worry and anxiety, perhaps more so than we are willing to admit. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed personally and professionally. The problem has gotten so bad that the World Health Organization has labeled anxiety the “health epidemic of the 21st century.” Much of this can be explained by the fact that there appears to be more to worry about than ever before. Outside of our offices, we are confronted with global stressors such as terrorism, financial insecurity, moral decay, and a ridiculously divisive political climate. At work, anxiety hits even closer to home as new product launches, tighter deadlines, difficult bosses, inadequate compensation, and the demand to always “level-up” in our careers all punish us with worry. In short, Satan offers us no shortage of things to stress us and distract us from the work the Father has created us to do.

So, what does God’s Word suggest we do about the mounting stress in our lives?

The first thing we must do is confront rather than ignore anxiety. Scripture speaks quite a bit about anxiety, and therefore, recognizes its existence. We must do the same. Anxiety is a human condition resulting from the fall. Tragic as it may be, it is a reality of life. Pretending our anxiety doesn’t exist or attempting to sweep it under the proverbial rug are extremely unhealthy and dangerous ways to engage with stress. Instead, we need to be honest and self-aware, confronting the reality of anxiety in our lives.

The Apostle Paul offers some insight into how we can do this. In Philippians 4:6 he says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” He says that life is going to be full of opportunities for worry. But rather than being overcome by anxiety, we are to confront our worries head-on. When stress and worries arise at home or in the workplace, our first reaction should be to recognize them in prayer to the Lord. He has graciously offered himself up as our outlet for stress relief and He has promised that He can handle all the things we cannot. As the Psalmist declares, “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

So, as we experience anxiety this week, let us be quick to confront it and take it to the Lord in prayer.

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Series: The Creator in You 
Devotional: 5 of 5 

The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23) 

In this short series, we’ve seen that God works and called us to work on his behalf. But why? To what end? How exactly does our work matter to God? 

There are many answers to that question. Our work is part of how God sanctifies us, how he meets the needs of others, and one of the primary ways we win the respect of non-believers. But perhaps most foundationally, our work matters because it is part of how we show the world what God is like. 

As we saw last week, God created us in his “image” (see Genesis 1:26). And what’s the point of an image? “The point of an image is to image,” John Piper says bluntly. “Images are erected to display the original. Point to the original. Glorify the original. God made humans in his image so that the world would be filled with reflectors of God. Images of God. Seven billion statues of God.” 

Got it. So we were created to image or reflect God. But reflect what specifically about God? Well, up until Genesis 1:26, we know only one thing about the image of God—that he is a God who creates! So it naturally follows that one of the primary purposes of our lives will be to reflect his creative, working character to the world. 

And when we do that—when we live and work in line with God’s character—we bring our Father joy. Psalm 37:23 says that “The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” 

Did you catch that? God doesn’t just delight in watching you go to church or study your Bible. “He delights in every detail” of your life! He smiles watching you serve clients, prepare meals, and coach your team in ways that reflect his character. 

Rick Warren says, "The smile of God is the goal of your life." How can you make God smile today? By reflecting his image as you work. 

Here’s how I put it for my kids and yours in The Creator in You: “Because when you work or you make something new, you are doing what God has made you to do. You are showing the world what your Father is like—a God who creates to bring people delight. And when you show others the Creator in you, you bring joy to the world—and to your Father too.” 

Go and work the way God would work today, knowing that as you do, you are bringing delight to your Father! 

P.S. Want the kids in your life to understand the truths we’ve explored in this series? Pick up a copy of The Creator in You (https://www.amazon.com/Creator-You-Jordan-Raynor/dp/059319313X/)

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Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God. (John 12:42-43)

We’re in a series walking through 5 simple things all of us can do to put ourselves in a better position to share the gospel with those we work with. We’ve already explored the first two: Be so good they can’t ignore you and be a friend. But those things clearly aren’t enough. At some point, you have to identify yourself as a Christian!

A few years ago, I stepped down as the CEO of a tech startup to focus full-time on creating content like these devotionals. Given the nature of my new work, I naturally started talking about my faith much more publicly on social media. In response to those posts, more than a couple of customers and co-workers from my past tech startup life messaged me and said, “Oh wow, I had no idea you were a Christian!” 

How tragic. 

Here’s the deal: We shouldn’t expect to have opportunities to share the gospel with our co-workers if we have yet to raise our hands and say “I’m a follower of Jesus!” 

What does this look like practically? How can you identify yourself as Christians in a natural, non-threatening way that doesn’t cause your co-workers to avoid making eye contact with you? Here are 3 simple ideas:

1. Ask everyone you come in contact with today, “How was your weekend?” And when they inevitably ask how your weekend was, talk about the incredible time of worship you participated in at your church.
2. Ask your co-workers what they’re reading. And again, when they reciprocate the question, talk about a book you’ve recently read about the Christian faith.
3. Add something to your LinkedIn or Instagram bio that makes it explicitly clear that you’re a follower of Jesus.

None of these things, in and of themselves, are likely to lead someone to faith in Christ. But they are certainly steps in that direction! If you’re a good friend and exceptionally good at what you do, the people you work with will care about what you believe about Jesus. But first, you have to tell them that you believe!

May we not be like the Pharisees who believed in Jesus but refused to “openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out” of their social circles. Find small ways to acknowledge your faith in Christ today!

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But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)

Bodily resurrection was a big deal to Paul. So big that Paul dedicated the longest section in his letter to the Corinthians to this topic. 

Why does physical resurrection matter so much? Because without it, Paul says our faith is “useless.” And I would argue our work is as well.

Unfortunately, the false teaching Paul was combatting here is still alive and well. Today it appears in our caricatures of heaven as a glorified retirement home where disembodied souls float around doing nothing but relaxing and singing for all eternity. That false vision is a distortion of what theologians like Randy Alcorn call “the intermediate Heaven…where we go when we die…until our bodily resurrection.” “Until” is the keyword there. The intermediate or “present heaven” is just a stop along the way to our final destination—the new earth—where God will dwell with us in our physical resurrected bodies.

What does the promise of bodily resurrection mean for our work? At least two things.

First, we can look forward to using our resurrected bodies to work without the curse for eternity! The Lord revealed this clearly to Isaiah when he said, “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth….[My people] will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit….They will not labor in vain” (Isaiah 65:17a, 21, 23a). Floating souls don’t “build houses” and “plant vineyards.” People with physical bodies do! And that’s precisely what this passage says we will do forever—work where there will “no longer be…any curse” (Revelation 22:3).

If you love your work today, this promise should be thrilling to you—far more thrilling than the idea of playing harps for millennia on end. And if you loathe your work today, this promise should be thrilling as well, as you can look hopefully to the day in which your work will be perfect, blissful worship.

Second, if we believe that human bodies can be resurrected from the dead, surely we can believe that our physical work can carry on on the new earth. In Revelation 21:5, Jesus says, “Behold, I am making all things new”—not just our physical bodies. Could it be that “all things” includes the novel you’re writing, the table you’re building, or the road you’re paving? Maybe! Scripture certainly offers hints to that end. Revelation 21:24-26 says that “the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into” the new earth. A parallel passage in Isaiah 60 lists some of the honor or “riches” of the nations as “the ships of Tarshish,” “herds of camels,” and “gold and incense”—all artifacts of human culture.

The work you will do today healing people, serving cups of coffee, or designing a new building matters because the material world matters to God. “Therefore,” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

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Series: 4 Biblical Ways to Escape the Comparison Trap
Devotional: 3 of 4

We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, a sphere that also includes you. (2 Corinthians 10:12-13)

We’re in a series exploring four biblical ways to escape the comparison trap—our tendency to weigh ourselves against others until we feel improperly superior or inferior to them.

We’ve already explored two ways to escape the comparison trap. First, confess your pride. Second, thank God for the goodness he has shown to you and to others. 

Today’s passage shows us the third way to escape: Ask yourself if you’re even playing the same game as the person you’re comparing yourself to.

The context of today’s passage is that the Corinthians were comparing Paul to some false preachers (see 2 Corinthians 11:5). Commenting on this passage, one theologian explains that apparently, “Compared to secular orators, Paul was not as entertaining, dramatic, or engaging.”

But Paul refused to compare himself to those other preachers. Why? Because he wasn’t even playing the same game as they were. They were there to preach “a different gospel” (see 2 Corinthians 11:4). Paul was there to preach the one true gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, he said, he would “confine [his] boasting to the sphere of service God himself [had] assigned to [him].”

You and I do the opposite of Paul all the time. Let me give you just one personal example.

My friend Cal Newport writes incredible business books like Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. And he writes for a very broad audience—for Christians and non-Christians alike. 

A couple of years ago, I found myself falling into the comparison trap and growing jealous of Cal. By God’s grace, I realized how ridiculous this was, because “the sphere of service God himself has assigned to” me is far narrower than Cal’s. 

I am called to help Christians connect the gospel to their work. And so, my total potential audience is way smaller than Cal’s. So it makes absolutely zero sense to compare myself to him! Because we aren’t even playing the same game.

Lebron James wouldn’t compare himself to Tiger Woods. Similarly, you and I should realize the foolishness of comparing ourselves to others with different callings.

If you’re comparing yourself to someone else today, Paul shows you one way to escape. Ask if you’re even playing the same game. If you’re not, knock it off. If you are, access some of the other escape routes we’ve already explored in this series or the final one we will unpack next week.

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Series: Work in Heaven
Devotional: 5 of 5

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads….And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:4-5)

Today concludes our series exploring 5 biblical truths about work on the New Earth. Here they are again:

• Truth #1: We who are in Christ will delight in our work for eternity.
• Truth #2: We will be rewarded with varying degrees of responsibility based on how we live and work today.
• Truth #3: We can expect some continuity between our work now and our work on the New Earth. 
• Truth #4: We will have unlimited time to do the work we want to do for God’s glory.
• Truth #5: We will reign with Christ intimately forever and ever.

I saved the best truth for last. Because it is that foundational truth—that we will finally be with God fully—that makes all the others so wonderful.

But read Revelation 22:5 again. We won’t just be with God. We will work and reign with him, which is exactly what he intended from the beginning (see Genesis 1:26-28).

On October 22, I’ll be publishing a picture book called The Royal in You to help you and your kids catch a vision of just how glorious this eternal vocation will be. As I say in the book…

The best part by far is King Jesus will be there,

making everything new with His peace, love, and care.

God says He won’t rule this world all on His own—

He’ll send princes and princesses out from His throne.

So don’t think for one second that Heaven is boring,

because we’ll be reigning, creating, and exploring!

Not just for our joy, and surely not for our glory,

but to love and to worship the One who is worthy.

It’ll be so much better than your wildest dreams—

ruling heaven on earth next to Jesus our King.

How should we respond to that vision of our eternal tomorrow today? Here are three ideas. 

First, seek God’s face until you see his face. Not just when you’re studying your Bible before work. But right now. At your desk. Before your next appointment. Be relentless in seeking communion with him all day every day.

Second, play a mental tape of what King Jesus might say about your work today. Hebrews 6:10 says that “[God] will not forget your work.” And my guess is that those memories will fuel many of our interactions with Christ on the New Earth. What might Jesus say about how you worked today? Play it out mentally as a means of cultivating your hope and faithfulness. 

Finally, baptize your imagination of work on the New Earth as a means of spurring your heart to worship. You can do this by memorizing some of the Scriptures we’ve read in this series, completing some of the practices, or by picking up a copy of The Royal in You. 

But don’t miss this: worship of Jesus should be the response to all of that imagination. Eternity is not ultimately about us. It’s not ultimately about enjoying the work of our hands. It’s about worshiping “the One who is worthy!” I pray this series has helped you worship him even more enthusiastically.

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“I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” (Daniel 6:26-27)

The context of today’s passage is what makes it remarkable and worthy of particular attention. Not long after King Darius issued a decree that “anyone who prays to any god or human being” other than him would be thrown into the lion’s den (Daniel 6:7), here he is commanding that all his people must fear and revere “the God of Daniel” (Daniel 6:26).

What led to this extraordinary change? Most obviously, the miracle of God protecting Daniel from the man-eating lions. But as I hope you’ve seen throughout this series, there’s a second miracle that likely led to Darius’s conversion, and that is the miracle of Daniel’s exceptional work.

As we saw a few weeks ago, one of King Darius’s predecessors found Daniel “ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom,” and thus drafted Daniel into the king’s service—his first job at the palace when he was just a teenager (see Daniel 1).

Roughly five decades later, it seems as if King Darius shared the same opinion of Daniel. In Daniel 6:3 we learn that “Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that [King Darius] planned to set him over the whole kingdom.”

So distinguished was Daniel that when he disobeyed King Darius’s law, the king was “distressed…he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him” (Daniel 6:14).

It’s pretty remarkable to see a king fighting this hard to save a servant who broke his own law. After all, the king had 120 other administrators in his service (see Daniel 6:1). But something was different about Daniel. So exceptional was Daniel’s work that the king made a fool of himself fighting to save Daniel’s life.

One of the most notable characteristics of Netflix’s company culture is what they call “The Keeper Test.” In an effort to keep their “talent density” high, Netflix managers are encouraged to consider whether or not they would fight to keep a member of their team if that team member were to quit tomorrow.

Today’s passage shows us that Daniel is the ultimate passer of The Keeper Test. It also serves as a beautiful reminder of how the ministry of excellence can be used to lead unbelievers like King Darius to the Lord.

Here’s my question for you as we close out this series: Would you pass The Keeper Test in your work? Would your boss, customers, or investors fight as hard as Darius fought for Daniel if they knew your demise was at hand? If so, press on, being encouraged by Daniel’s example that excellent work can lead people to a knowledge of the one true God!

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Series: 2 Corinthians on Work
Devotional: 3 of 7

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

If you’re not careful, this well-known verse can be easily misinterpreted to mean that the only thing of eternal significance at work are the souls we come into contact with.

But based on what we see throughout Scripture, we know that can’t be right. Isaiah 60 makes it clear that some of the things we make today will physically last forever. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said that some of their work would “survive” God’s judgment (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). And of course, Jesus’s own ministry was just as much about redeeming the “seen” material world as it was about the “unseen” spiritual one. He turned water into wine, multiplied food, and spent as much time healing physical bodies as he did preaching to immaterial souls.

OK, so if Paul is not telling us to ignore the material world of work, what does 2 Corinthians 4:18 mean? The answer is found in the context of this passage. In verse 17, Paul says, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” Paul’s not saying that the seen material world is bad and the unseen immaterial world is good. He’s saying that in light of the unseen eternal rewards awaiting those who persevere in the Lord, the “troubles” we can see in this life are relatively inconsequential.

So, what troubles are you experiencing because of your faith today? Are you choosing to make less money so you can be at home to disciple your kids? Are you ostracized at work for sharing the gospel with your co-workers? Have you lost your job for calling out injustice within your company? The troubles these things produce are real and seen. But they cannot compare to the unseen “glory that far outweighs them all.” Fix your eyes on that hope today!

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Series: 2 Corinthians on Work
Devotional: 5 of 7

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15)

The dictionary defines a “yoke” as “a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull.” When two animals are yoked together, they have no choice but to move in lockstep as they work. They are bound to the unilateral actions of the other. 

In the context of human relationships to be unequally yoked with unbelievers is, in the words of one commentary, “to be in a situation...that binds you to the decisions and actions of people who have values and purposes incompatible with Jesus’ values and purposes.”

With that in mind, it’s clear that Paul is not saying we aren’t to befriend, work with, or purchase products and services from non-Christians. This interpretation would contradict much of Paul’s other writings (see 1 Corinthians 5:9-10, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, and Titus 2:9-10). Paul is saying that it is unwise to be yoked—that is conjoined with, in lockstep-with, joined-at-the-hip with—unbelievers, whether in business, marriage, or any other partnership.

Why is this unwise? Because we have already been yoked with Christ (see Matthew 11:28-30)! Jesus is the one we are meant to move in lockstep with. Adding a third party who is trying to steer in a direction different from Christ’s is destined for conflict.

If you are unequally yoked with someone at work, pray for God’s wisdom as to how to become unyoked. But if you are largely independent of the actions of the non-Christians you work with, praise God for the opportunity to work in ways that “will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” to them (see Titus 2:9-10).

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Series: Working in Exile
Devotional: 3 of 5

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:11-12)

We’re in a series exploring five biblical principles for working in exile. Today, we come to our third principle, straight from Peter’s letter “to God’s elect, exiles” (1 Peter 1:1):

Principle #3: Christians are called to live “such good lives” that non-Christians have nothing credible to say against us.

Though he lived hundreds of years before Peter penned the words of today’s passage, Daniel (of lion’s den fame) offers a terrific case study of what this principle looks like in practice. Like you and me, Daniel worked in exile—specifically as an official inside the Babylonian government. And he modeled the goodness Peter describes in today’s passage on at least three levels.

First, vocational excellence. Daniel 6:3 tells us that Daniel “so distinguished himself” among his peers that King Darius “planned to set him over the whole kingdom” of Babylon. Daniel was a master of his craft. That’s the first dimension of the exemplary goodness he displayed while working in exile.

Here’s the second: personal integrity. When Daniel’s co-workers heard that their boss was planning to promote Daniel, they “tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel…but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy” (Daniel 6:4). Daniel didn’t just possess good technical skills. He possessed good and godly character.

The third dimension of Daniel’s goodness was his submission to authorities—even authorities who hated his God. After searching for “corruption” in Daniel and any act of disobedience to the Babylonian king, finally his peers gave up saying, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God” (Daniel 6:5).

Next week, we’ll explore that “unless it has something to do with the law of his God” caveat in depth. But today, here’s what I want to encourage you to do: Pretend that your co-workers, like Daniel’s, wanted to discredit you and your witness. How would they do it? What would they point to?

Would they point to the way you talk about others behind their backs? Or how much you drink when you’re out with your colleagues? Or the bit-too-friendly relationship you have with a co-worker of the opposite sex?

Whatever it is, repent for the sake of the gospel. “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong,” no accusation can stick.

Get the full audiobook here: https://amzn.to/3EUY6fp

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Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" 
Devotional: 1 of 7 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3) 

The bookends of today’s passage are familiar to us. Countless children’s books and sermons have repeated the words, “In the beginning God created” and “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” But it’s been a while since I’ve heard someone preach on the fact that “the earth was formless and empty.” What’s going on here? 

Well, according to Moses (the author of Genesis), “in the beginning” the world was amorphous and chaotic, wild and unwieldy. And the rest of Genesis 1 shows God bringing form to the formless void. Establishing order where there was once chaos. But pay attention to how God brought order to the world: Through his words. As soon as Yahweh said, “Let there be light,” creation began to take shape. 

Of course, when sin entered the world, chaos returned, creating the need for order to be restored once again. And how would the world be put back into order the second time around? Yet again, through the word of God, or more specifically through Jesus Christ, “the Word [who] became flesh.” 

In a way, the entirety of Jesus’s ministry was about the Word restoring order to creation. He brought hope to the poor, calmed an untameable storm, and raised the dead to life. But of course, the work of restoring creation is not yet finished, because Jesus said he would continue to restore creation through you and me (see John 14:5-12). 

The Apostle Paul said that “the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19). Creation is groaning, longing for God’s people to bring order to the world. As Tim Keller says, “Just like God, as image-bearers of God, humans are commissioned to bring order out of chaos.” 

How will we do this? The same way that order has been brought about since the beginning: through God’s Word—by each of us being not just hearers of the Word, but doers of it, allowing God’s Word to order our lives, our work, and our world once again.

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Series: Christmas Vocations Part II
Devotional: 2 of 4

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When King Herod heard this he was disturbed. (Matthew 2:1-3)

 Those last words are one of the great understatements in all of Scripture. Herod was more than “disturbed” by the news of Jesus. He was apoplectic because this new “king of the Jews” represented a direct threat to his throne.

Herod knew there can only be one king in a kingdom. Either you are on the throne or someone else is. There is no in-between—no compromise whatsoever. Which is why, after hearing of this threat to his career, Herod unleashed one of the most grotesque campaigns of violence in history (see Matthew 2:16). 

But Herod isn’t the only king we see in today’s passage. We’re also introduced to the Magi—the “three kings of Orient are” we sing about every Christmas. While Herod responds to Jesus the King with ruthless violence, the Magi display the polar opposite response: total and complete worship (see Matthew 2:11).

Two sets of kings. Two totally different responses. 

The question, of course, is how do you and I respond to the newborn king? Certainly not like Herod. But I’m not sure we respond like the Magi either. Our temptation is to profess faith in Christ but not make him the true Lord of our lives. We want Jesus as a consultant, but not really as king. Because if he is king, then you and I are no longer our own.

How do you know if Jesus is your consultant at work instead of your king? I could list dozens of signs, but here are just five I think you and I struggle with the most:

1. You ask Jesus to approve your plans, rather than guide your imagination and planning from the get-go
2. You rarely show allegiance to your King and talk openly about your faith with your co-workers
3. You consult Google and industry gurus more than God’s Word and his Holy Spirit when making hard decisions
4. You embellish the truth about how well things are going at work for fear of bruising your pride if you were obedient to God’s call to truthfulness
5. You’d rather be seen as tolerant and loving than holy and loyal to your King

Feeling convicted? Welcome to the club. Here’s the good news: You and I have a king who “is faithful and just to forgive” when we try to stage a coup against his kingship (see 1 John 1:9). Thank him for his forgiveness today! And may his grace and mercy lead us to be even more intentional about keeping the One True King as the sole occupier of the throne of our lives and work.

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Series: 7 Biblical Principles for Resolving Conflict at Work
Devotional: 7 of 7

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Ephesians 4:32) 

If you’ve been following the biblical principles in this series, your efforts to make peace with those you’re in conflict with will likely go well. But they very well might not.

How are we to respond to those who are unrepentant and unmoving? Depending on the situation, you may be called to pursue mediation, arbitration, or public accountability (all three of which are addressed biblically and helpfully in Ken Sande’s excellent book, The Peacemaker).

But regardless of whether your situation calls for one of those more escalated responses, I can tell you one response we are all called to in every situation: “Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13).

Commenting on this verse, Dr. N. T. Wright says: “it is utterly inappropriate for one who knows the joy and release of being forgiven to refuse to share that blessing with another. [Furthermore] it is highly presumptuous to refuse to forgive one whom Christ himself has already forgiven.”

Amen. But hey: I know how impossible it can feel to forgive someone who has wronged you at work. If that’s you today, hear these words from pastor Tony Merida: “When your tank is empty, remember the tomb is empty!” The price Christ paid to forgive you was cosmically greater than the price you must pay to forgive your neighbor. Go and forgive likewise.

Today’s passage brings us to the 7th and final principle we’ll explore in this series. Here it is in context of the full list of 7 biblical principles for resolving conflict at work: 

1. Praise the Prince of Peace for the grace and mercy he has shown you (Matthew 5:9)
2. Make the First Move to resolve any conflict (Romans 12:18)
3. Resolve to Overlook or Address the offense that has caused a lack of peace between you and someone else (Proverbs 19:11, 27:5)
4. Pluck the Plank from your own eye before you address the offense of another (Matthew 7:3-5)
5. Prepare Your Heart to bless the person you are in conflict with (Psalm 51:10)
6. Address the Conflict with Grace that flows out of the grace you’ve been shown by Christ (Colossians 4:5-6)
7. Forgive Freely as Christ has forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32) 

Believer, you and I are called to be “salt and light” in our workplaces. How did Jesus say people will taste our proverbial saltiness? Check out Mark 9:50: “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, 

and be at peace with each other.” 

Pursue peace as a means of preserving your saltiness for God’s glory this and every day!

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But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

In reading Paul’s letters, one thing about the Apostle jumps off the page to me: Paul worked incredibly hard. You can see this in today’s verse as well as 1 Corinthians 4:12, 2 Corinthians 6:5, Colossians 1:28-29, and 2 Thessalonians 3:8.

Why did Paul work so hard? Because as Paul makes clear in today’s passage, hard work is part of a believer’s reasonable response to the gospel. “[God’s] grace to me was not without effect,” Paul said. And so, he “worked harder than” all the other apostles.

Just like Paul, part of our response to the gospel is to work diligently on behalf of our Savior’s agenda. That’s why Paul commands us in Colossians 3:23 to follow his example and “work heartily as for the Lord.”

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul goes even further, suggesting that the very reason why we were saved was to work hard on behalf of our King! Paul writes that “we are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand.”

Now, I hear what you’re thinking: Jordan, when Paul says “good works” he was talking about giving money to the poor, not writing an elegant line of code, right? Wrong. Of course “good works” implies charitable and evangelical things, but the meaning of ergon (the Greek word for “good works”) is much broader. One commentary says it means “work, task, [and] employment.”

Paul couldn’t be any clearer: God didn’t save us so that we would sit back and wait around for eternity. God saved your life so you would spend it for his glory and the advancement of the gospel.

Now, we need to make one thing clear. We do not work hard because we need to. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9, “it is by grace you have been saved…not by works.” No amount of hard work will make us any more or less loved by our Father. But ironically, it is that security that leads us to want to work hard, not to earn our salvation, but in response to it. 

Tim Keller offers a beautiful picture of this. He writes: “Imagine a father watching his beloved son play baseball for the team his father coaches. As he sits in the dugout, he loves his son fully and completely. If his son forgets his father’s instructions and strikes out, it will not change his love for him or approval of him one bit. The son is assured of his father’s love regardless of his performance. But the son will long to hit that home run. Not for himself—to gain his father’s love—but for his father, because he is already loved.”

Believer: You can never lose the love of your heavenly Father. May that security motivate you to work hard today for his glory and the good of others!

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Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times. (Mark 4:3-8)

Between my research for Called to Create and Master of One, I have interviewed nearly 100 Christians who are world-class masters of their crafts. When I’ve asked these people to describe how they discerned their “calling” or their “one thing,” their responses are remarkably similar. Nearly all of these masters tended to ask three questions throughout this process:

1. What am I passionate about?

2. What gifts has God given me?

3. Where do I have the best opportunity to glorify God and serve others?

I know what you’re thinking: “That’s nice, but what does it look like for those three things to come together?”

I think it looks like the divine multiplication described by Jesus in The Parable of the Sower.

In his excellent book, Culture Making, Andy Crouch points out that this is essentially “a parable about parables—an explanation of the whole parable-telling strategy.” What Crouch means is that parables are a lot like seeds, in that the sower must be liberal in scattering them to large and diverse crowds in hopes that their truths will take root in the hearts of a few listeners. Viewed in that light, Jesus’s words not only offer us insight into how his Word is received, but they also provide a beautiful picture of how we should think about finding and focusing on our calling.

When you first start to try to answer the three questions above, you have little idea what your vocational “one thing” might be. So, you scatter seeds widely by trying a lot of different things professionally. Some of those “seeds” will fall on rocky places and some will fall among the thorns; but with enough experimentation, some seeds will fall on good soil that starts to show signs of divine multiplication where the Lord is clearly multiplying our work “so that it bears thirty, sixty and a hundredfold beyond what we could expect from our feeble inputs.”

That’s how masters describe discovering the intersection of passions, gifts, and opportunities. That’s what we’re looking for in our “one thing.”

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Series: The Work Beneath Your Work
Devotional: 4 of 4

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:28-33)

I began this series by asking you two questions:

1. What is the work beneath your work? 
2. How does the gospel free you from that work? 

We’ve already explored two of the most common answers to that first question: performance and avoidance. Today, we look at one final work beneath our work: fear.

This may be the most universal of all that we’ve explored. Entrepreneurs overwork themselves for fear that if they “don’t put in the work,” they won’t be able to provide for their families and their teams. Employees overwork for fear of losing their income and health insurance.

Now, some of this fear is healthy. 1 Timothy 5:8 says that “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

But fear is terribly unhealthy and sinful if it controls you. If it plagues your thoughts. If it leads you to overwork or not faithfully “stand in for God,” and say hard things when they need to be said to your boss or customers.

How can we be freed from fear—from this work beneath our work? The same way we are freed from performance and avoidance: the person and character of Jesus Christ.

In today’s passage, Jesus promised his followers that if we “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” he will meet our every need. Why can you trust this promise when your job is on the line? Because God provided for your ultimate need of spiritual redemption even when it cost him the life of his Son. If God kept that promise, surely he will keep his promise to provide you with food and clothing. 

If the work beneath your work is fear, let that truth free you today. But maybe the work beneath your work isn’t fear, avoidance, or performance. Maybe it’s something else that I don’t know.

But here’s what I do know: Until God’s glory and the good of others is the predominant motivation for your work, you will never be satisfied. You will never be able to truly rest. You will never find sustainable fuel for the good works God has called you to do.

So do the hard work of identifying the work beneath your work. And meditate on the gospel of Jesus Christ that frees you to work solely for his glory, the good of others, and your joy.

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Series: Christmas Vocations Part III
Devotional: 3 of 4

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham…Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. (Matthew 1:1,17)

Matthew has many vocations in the gospels. But in the first chapter of his gospel, we see him playing the role of a genealogist who takes his readers all the way back to Abraham to trace Jesus’s family tree, so that we can be confident he is the Messiah. 

I’d encourage you to read Matthew’s genealogical work in full in Matthew 1:1-17. But there are two profound insights we can glean just from the excerpt I shared above. 

First, God is always faithful, but he is rarely fast—at least by human standards. The Jewish people had been waiting thousands of years for God’s promised Messiah. Some had surely given up hope. But Matthew goes through painstaking genealogical detail to show God’s faithfulness over time.

Commenting on today’s passage, pastor Tim Keller once said this: “[God] may seem to be working very slowly or even to be forgetting his promises, but when his promises come true (and they will come true), they always burst the banks of what you imagined.”

What promise does God appear to be slow to keeping in your work? Maybe you’re still waiting for God’s promise of “wisdom” (James 1:5), “peace…which transcends all understanding” (Philippians 4:7), or “good” to come from your layoff (Romans 8:28-29). Whatever it is, Christmas reminds you that God will always keep his promises, even if it takes far longer than you’d like.

Here’s the second insight I want you to glean from today’s passage: Jesus is the “seventh seven” that brings about ultimate rest in your work. Matthew highlights six groups of seven generations from Abraham to Jesus, marking Christ as the beginning of the “seventh seven.” This echoes Leviticus 25, where the seventh seven—a jubilee year—freed slaves, forgave debts, and provided rest for all.

As Keller explains, “The seventh seven, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, was a foretaste of the final rest that all will have when God renews the earth. Matthew is telling us that [true] rest will come to us only through Jesus Christ….In Jesus you stop having to prove yourself because you know it doesn’t really matter in the end whether you are a failure or a king. All you need is God’s grace, and you can have it, in spite of your failures.”

Maybe you would call 2024 a huge “success.” Or maybe it was a massive “failure” by the world’s standards. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. In victory or defeat, you can say “it is well with my soul” because the seventh seven has come to set you free from sin and death and to adopt you into the family of God. Rest in his love this week!

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Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

There’s an old saying that goes, “He’s a Jack of all trades, and a master of none,” used to describe someone who is good at many different things but not excellent at any one of them.

I don’t have a problem being a Jack of all trades, but I do think we Christians ought to have a big problem with being described as “masters of none.”

Why? Because the essence of the Christian life is to glorify God (or, in the words of John Piper, “reflect his greatness”) and love our neighbors as ourselves. How do we fulfill that call through our work? By doing our work masterfully well and being “imitators” of God’s character of excellence (see Ephesians 5:1).

The opposite of mastery is mediocrity, and mediocrity is nothing short of a failure of love and a misrepresentation of our Father.

Dr. Anders Ericsson, “the world’s leading expert on experts,” is famous for discovering that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of “purposeful practice” to achieve mastery of any craft. Given this, it’s no wonder we are a society full of masters of none.

I’d venture to say that most of us feel like we are making a millimeter of progress in a million directions with our lives and our careers. We are good at many different things, but we aren’t excellent, masterful, or exceptional at any one of them. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed, spending way too much time focused on minutiae rather than mastering the work God created us to do.

So, how do we find the work we can do most exceptionally well in service of God and others? What is the solution to being a master of none? The solution is becoming a master of one.

It’s believed that the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none,” is a misquote of Benjamin Franklin, who actually encouraged his readers to be a “Jack of all trades, and a master of one.” Whether or not Franklin uttered this phrase is irrelevant. The fact is that in order to best glorify God and love others through our vocations, we must do our work with excellence. And we can’t do our most excellent work until we discern the work God has created us to do most exceptionally well, and then, once we’ve found it, focus on becoming a master of that craft.

As we enter this new decade, let us all passionately pursue mastery of the work the Father has given us to do, for his glory and the good of others.

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“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 (NIV)

In the booming Chicago of the 1860s, there lived a young Christian family of six whose patriarch was a prominent lawyer and investor. All was going well for the young man and his family until the Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of his real estate. The loss was significant, but it paled in comparison to the tragedy the man would experience just two years later when his wife and daughters were in a shipwreck as they sailed from New York to England. All four daughters died in the crash. Upon arriving in England, the mother telegrammed her husband in Chicago. “Saved alone,” she said.

The husband left Chicago right away, sailing off to England to meet his grieving wife. We don’t know much about his journey across the Atlantic, but I have to imagine the man spent his days alone, grieving his loss and questioning his God. I can see him staring out the window at the sea, reading the biblical account of Job, a man like him who had been blessed with so much, only to see it all taken away from him in the blink of an eye. We don’t know much about what happened on that ship, but we do know this: As the ship crossed over the spot where the man’s daughters were now resting in peace, Horatio Spafford wrote these words:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul

Spafford had a hope that wasn’t rooted in himself, his ability to push through his suffering, or even the fact that his wife miraculously survived the crash and was waiting for him across the sea. No, as his classic hymn shows us, Spafford’s hope was rooted in something far deeper: Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. As he wrote in verse two:

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul

As he was sailing across the ocean mourning the loss of his children, Spafford was writing about the cross. Why? Because his hope was rooted in a God who understood his pain, a God who watched His own innocent Son die on a cross and used that event for His glory and our eternal good.

The trials you and I face personally and professionally will almost certainly pale in comparison to Spafford’s. But our source of hope is the same. If you lose your job, if you’re late to ship your newest product, if you’re forced to lay-off an employee, even if your endeavor fails entirely, you can look to the cross as Spafford did and say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.” Romans 8:28 reminds us that “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” As we go about taking risks to create culture, failure and adversity are inevitable. But we, like Spafford, have hope that God is working everything for His glory and our good.

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Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. (Ephesians 4:28)

Even if you’re not known to steal to make ends meet, this passage still offers a lot of wisdom for our work. The key is found in Paul’s choice of the word “useful.” If the only reason for our work was to generate enough income to “share with those in need,” then why would it matter if our work was useful to the world? It wouldn’t. We’d be free to do any work so long as it generated enough financial resources to serve the poor. But with just one word, Paul is reminding us of one of the main themes of all his letters: That the work you and I do today has many God-glorifying purposes.

We have been exploring some of those purposes throughout this series. In Ephesians 1, we learned that our work is a means of pointing to the marriage of heaven and earth. In Ephesians 2, we learned that our work is a means of doing “good works” for others and glorifying God in the process. In Ephesians 3, we learned that our work is a means of demonstrating God’s “immeasurably great” power working through us.

All of these are purposes for work beyond sharing with the poor. In other words, a theology of work exists independent of a theology of charity. That said, we simply can’t ignore the fact that one of the purposes of work is charity—to “share with those in need.”

When we do our most exceptional work, we will often be rewarded with financial excess. One God-honoring use of that excess is to share it generously with those who have none—an especially timely message given the terrible economic times we are living in. The poor need our help, and we the Church are called to give it. We can debate what form that help takes, but we can’t argue Scripture’s command that those who are gainfully employed are to care for the poor.

But again, we must be careful. Too often we fall for the lie that charity is the only way to “do ministry” through our work. The context of Ephesians and the rest of Scripture show us that that’s not true. While caring for the poor is a wonderful, God-glorifying purpose for our work, let’s never forget that our work is “useful” in and of itself.

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For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored three biblical truths about time and productivity:

• Truth #1: Our longing for timelessness is good and God-given
• Truth #2: Sin has ensured we will all die with unfinished symphonies
• Truth #3: God will finish the work we leave unfinished

But here’s the thing: Even though God doesn’t need us to be productive (see Truth #3), we often need ourselves to be productive in order to feel a sense of self-worth. 

So before we go any further, I want you to stop and let this truth sink in: The gospel frees us from the need to be productive. 

The good news of the gospel is that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And because we did nothing to earn his grace, there is nothing we can do to lose it. No matter how productive you are in this life, your status as an adopted child of God will never ever change. In the words of the great preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “A Christian is something before [they do] anything.”

Ironically, it’s that truth that leads us to be wildly productive. Why? Because working to earn someone’s favor is exhausting. But working in response to unconditional favor is intoxicating. Once you realize that God accepts you no matter how productive you are in this life, you want to be productive for his agenda as a loving act of worship.

This is what the apostle Paul was getting at in Ephesians 5. After expounding upon the gospel of grace in Ephesians chapters 1-4, Paul reminds us of our status as “dearly loved children” of God in Ephesians 5:1. What is our response to our adoption as sons and daughters of God? Paul answers that question in Ephesians 5:15-16: “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

Paul is saying that part of our response to the gospel is to “redeem the time”—to manage our time as carefully and wisely as possible. In other words, the gospel is our ultimate source of both rest and ambition.

The question now is straightforward: Where can we look for practical wisdom as to how to redeem our time? The answer is to God’s Word generally, but more specifically to the life of Christ—the eternal God who became a time-bound human being. More on that truth next week!

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Series: Wisdom for Work from the Exodus
Devotional: 5 of 7

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. (Exodus 8:1 ESV)

A few weeks ago, we saw that it was the horrific working conditions of the Israelites that was the impetus for their exodus from Egypt. But if we’re not careful, we can mistakenly believe that God freed his people so that they could spend all their time worshiping him through song and sacrifices in the wilderness.

But that’s not at all what we see. Seven times between Exodus 4:23 and 10:3, the Lord states his purpose for delivering his people. Over and over again he declares, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” Commenting on this passage, one theologian says that “God did not deliver Israel from work. He set Israel free for work.” But work as he had originally intended it. 

This sets up a theme we see throughout Scripture: Salvation isn’t an end in itself. It is a means to an end—namely being with God and working for his glory rather than the glory of man.

That’s why God saved the Israelites, and it’s why he has saved you and me. This is precisely what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 2:8-10 when he says that while we are saved “not by works,” we have been saved “to do good works”—not to just sit around and wait for Christ’s return.

Can I be real for a second? This is what drives me absolutely crazy about the (largely) American End Times industry. Rather than busying themselves with the “good works…God prepared in advance for us to do,” many Christians spend their days sharing fear-mongering Facebook posts speculating about the details of Christ’s second coming—all in the name of Jesus’s command to “keep watch” for his return in Matthew 25:13.

But the context of that passage is crucial. Immediately after he instructed his disciples to “keep watch,” Jesus launched into the “Parable of the Talents,” the story of a Master (representing Christ) who puts his servants to work while they wait for his return (see Matthew 25:14-30). 

From the Old Testament to the New, God couldn’t be any clearer: We aren’t saved to sit on our hands, but to work with them. The good news of the gospel is not just that you get to go to heaven when you die, but that you get to partner with God in cultivating heaven on earth until you die.

How? By weeding out the injustices you see in your industry. By creating businesses, films, and novels that offer glimpses of the beauty of the kingdom. And by serving as a faithful ambassador of your king in your place of work (see 2 Corinthians 5:17-20). Work hard to those ends as a response to your salvation today!

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Series: 2 Corinthians on Work
Devotional: 7 of 7

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6-8)

The Association for Psychological Science describes a “scarcity mindset” as “people seeing life as a finite pie, so that if one person takes a big piece, that leaves less for everyone else.” The opposite is an “abundance mindset” which “refers to the paradigm that there is plenty out there for everybody.”

In today’s passage, the Apostle Paul is calling believers to live their lives with a mindset of abundance. Why? Because we worship the God who owns “the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10) who will ensure that “at all times” we will have “all that [we] need” to do his will. If we believe that, we will be willing to sacrifice for the good of others, knowing that God will not allow our needs to go unmet. 

This means you can sacrifice the spotlight on a project, knowing that God will give you all the attention you need to carry on “in every good work.” It means you can sacrifice time to help a struggling colleague, knowing that God will redeem whatever time you need to finish your to-do list. It means you can give generously to meet the needs of others, knowing that the Lord will not let you go hungry.

Commenting on today’s passage, Jen Wilkin says, “Our lives should demonstrate that there is no such thing as scarcity when you are a child of God.” Amen. With the truth of this passage in mind, bring an abundant mindset to your work that enables you to sacrifice greatly for the good of others today!

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Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. (Psalm 115:1)

After decades of working diligently toward his life’s goal, William Wilberforce witnessed the British Parliament vote to abolish the slave trade in 1807. Twenty-six years later, in 1833, Parliament would vote for full emancipation, freeing slaves throughout the British Empire. Wilberforce received the glorious news on his deathbed and went home to be with the Lord three days later.

The British people credited Wilberforce as the man chiefly responsible for the historic event, but Wilberforce was quick to deflect the glory back to God, recognizing that he was merely an instrument in the hands of his Maker.

When the nation was on the cusp of abolishing the slave trade in 1807, Wilberforce wrote, “How popular Abolition is just now! God can turn the hearts of men.” God undoubtedly used Wilberforce’s once-in-a-generation skills as an orator to “turn the hearts of men,” but Wilberforce was giving ultimate credit where credit was truly due. In the words of one Wilberforce biographer, “He was fully determined to give God the glory when the glory at last would fall.”

Much of Wilberforce’s humility was rooted in his understanding of what we explored a few weeks back, namely that God didn’t need Wilberforce specifically to eradicate slavery. Almighty God could have chosen anyone to carry out His will. Wilberforce viewed his work as a privilege to partner with God in the redemption of creation—of playing his part to eradicate evil from this corner of the world.

Emancipation in Britain eventually paved the way for abolishing slavery elsewhere, including in America. This accomplishment alone makes Wilberforce one of the most productive people in history on behalf of “the gospel of the Kingdom” (Matthew 24:14). And yet, Wilberforce “went to the grave sincerely and deeply regretting that he hadn’t done much more.” Even Wilberforce died with what Catholic theologian Karl Rahner called “unfinished symphonies.”

Wilberforce’s ambition to do more through his work wasn’t out of a misplaced attempt to earn God’s favor or work for his salvation. It was in response to the gift of salvation God had given him decades before. In response to the gospel, Wilberforce’s friend John Wesley encouraged him and others to “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.”

Let that be our anthem today!

Like Wilberforce, God can use our work—whether we’re in politics, business, education, or the arts—to redeem His creation. Let us be wildly ambitious to steward our time and talents well to that end!

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Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)

Your phone is blowing up. Your calendar is out of control. Your to-do list feels never-ending. Your mind won’t stop racing. And when you wake up in the morning, you’re immediately confronted with the subtle hum of anxiety that follows you throughout the day.

Sound familiar? Today, more than ever before, we are restless. I would argue there are three major factors contributing to the restlessness of today’s Christian. First, we (like the rest of the world) are spending so much time consuming entertainment, social media, apps, and games, that these good things that were meant to be life-giving have actually become life-sucking. Second, we aren’t taking the time to “enter [the Lord’s] gates with thanksgiving,” leading to discontent and a restless drive to achieve and accumulate more. And finally—and this is a particularly challenging struggle for ambitious professionals—we are failing to take the time to regularly remind ourselves of the gospel and how our identity in Christ frees us from the need to constantly do more.

It may sound overly simplistic, but if our problem is restlessness, then the solution must be resting from the sources of that restlessness. In order to find true rest and peace, we must regularly break from the relentless demands of this world and our work. We must make time to simply give thanks for what God has given us, rather than always striving for more. And we must temporarily exchange the things that drain us (email, smartphones, etc.) for the things that bring us life (friends, family, God’s Word, etc.).

Fortunately, the Bible has a model for this kind of rest: Sabbath. Now, up until a few years ago, Sabbath was a noun to me, not a verb. It was an ancient word for a day of the week, not something modern Christians actually practiced. For a long time, Sabbath sounded more like a legalistic chore to me than a gracious gift that would solve my restlessness. But through careful study of Jesus’s words, I have completely changed how I think about Sabbath-like rest. Now, I can’t imagine my life without it.

Next week, we will look at what Sabbath is not for today’s Christian, debunking many of the myths I (and maybe you) have long held about the ancient practice. And then, in our third and final devotional in this series, we will look at what the Bible says Sabbath rest can be and what it can look like practically for us today.

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Series: Mere Christians in the Bible
Devotional: 4 of 5

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. (2 Thessalonians 3:6)

We’re in a series exploring wisdom for our work from some “Mere Christians of the Bible”—believers who did not work as pastors or donor-supported missionaries, but as shepherds, winemakers, and more. That would have described most of the believers at the Church of Thessalonica, whom Paul rebuked for idleness in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 2 Thessalonians 3.

Why were these mere Christians idle? The Theology of Work Project suggests they fell for “a common, but false” idea that “Christ’s coming into the world has radically diminished the value of everyday labor,” and that some believers were “using some aspect of Christ’s teaching—whether it was his second coming, or his commission to evangelize the world—to justify their idleness.”

But Paul rejected this outright. As he made clear in nearly all his epistles, mere Christians keep watch for Christ’s return not by sitting on our hands but by working with them.

If you’re reading The Word Before Work, you likely don’t need to be told to work hard. But even the hardest working can slowly slide into subtle slothfulness. How can you and I avoid this? Here are three ideas.

#1: “Tape the audience.” The rapper Biggie Smalls once gave some surprising direction to his videographer. Instead of filming him, Biggie said, “Every time a song drops, tape the audience. I wanna see their reaction.” Because Biggie was committed to working hard in service of his customers. 

Avoid idleness by metaphorically “taping the audience” of your work by regularly asking your boss or customers for critical feedback, shadowing end users to see where your product creates friction, or tracking the customer engagement metric you’ve been avoiding for fear of what it might say.

#2: Audit where you’re busy but not productive. Review tasks you completed 30-60 days ago and ask, “Did this move the needle?” With some distance, you’ll spot where you’re frantic with activity that’s leading to nowhere.

#3: Make a grand gesture to break bad habits that tempt you to idleness. Last year, I struggled with apps that tempted me toward subtle slothfulness. After setting and failing to keep “screen time limits,” I made a grand gesture and spent $50 on this device that solved my problem overnight.

Whatever works for you works. But do whatever you must to avoid the slow slide to subtle slothfulness. Strive, as Paul did, to “strenuously contend with all the energy” you have—for the glory of God and the good of others (Colossians 1:29).

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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

I ended last week’s devotional with a question: If the gospel compels us to “redeem our time” (see Ephesians 5:16), where can we look for practical wisdom as to how to manage our time well? 

That question brings us to the fifth and final truth of this series: By studying the life of Christ, we can know how God would manage his time.

I know, this is a wild idea, so give me a minute to unpack it.

John 1:14 tells us that God, the author of time, “became flesh” in the person of Jesus Christ. During his time on earth, Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, meaning that he experienced the same day-to-day challenges as other mortals. He had a business to run, a mother and father to care for, hunger to manage, and the need for sleep. Oh yeah, and he faced the same twenty-four-hour time constraint as every other human being.

OK Jordan, Jesus had a finite amount of time on earth. But surely the demands on his time can’t compare to what we experience today, can they? Absolutely they can! Pastor Kevin DeYoung says that “If Jesus were alive today, he’d get more e-mails than any of us. He’d have people calling his cell all the time….Jesus did not float above the fray, untouched by the pressures of normal human existence.” 

DeYoung’s words bring to mind Hebrews 4:15 which says that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses.” In the person of Jesus, the Word became flesh, ensuring he could empathize with all of our weaknesses, including our efforts to steward 24 hours each day.

OK Jordan, but do the gospels really have anything to say about how Jesus spent his time on earth? Now we’re getting somewhere! Yes, they do—quite a bit in fact. But in order to see it, we must adjust the lens through which we read the gospels.

Pastor John Mark Comer has written extensively about how modern Christians read the gospels almost exclusively for their theology and ethics. “We read [the gospels] as cute sermon illustrations or allegorical pick-me-ups or theological gold mines,” Comer says. “…not bad, but we often miss the proverbial forest for the trees. [The gospels] are biographies.”

And what do biographies show us? The lifestyle and habits of their subjects. The gospel biographies are our opportunity to see not just what Jesus said or what he did but how he walked, so that we can walk through life and manage our time the way he did. 

OK Jordan, then how did Jesus walk? How did he manage his time? That is the question we will explore in the next series here on The Word Before Work which kicks off next Monday. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it!

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Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 31:1-5)

We’re in a four week series studying the life of an obscure biblical character named Bezalel, extracting applications for our own work today. Last week, we saw the significance of Bezalel—a creative—being the first person said to be “filled with the Spirit of God.” This week, we’re looking at this same passage from Exodus 31 from a different angle.

Exodus 31:1-5 is one of many sections of Scripture that debunk the myth of “the creative genius.” In our culture today, we are enthralled with entrepreneurs, YouTube celebrities, and other culture makers who build empires seemingly through grit and creativity alone. But as today’s passage reminds us, while grit and talent may be part of the equation, in the end, all creative success is graced by God.

Bezalel didn’t create the Tabernacle out of nothing. He started with God’s creative Spirit, “with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.” Furthermore, Bezalel was given the raw materials of gold, silver, bronze, stones, and wood. All of this—all of these good gifts—were graced by God. As James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”

Bezalel’s creative endeavors didn’t start with grit. They started with grace. The same is true for you and me.

Now, does that mean grit plays no role? Absolutely not! Colossians 3:23 commands us to “work heartily as unto the Lord.” It wasn’t enough for Bezalel to be graced with these gifts of skill and resources. He had to roll up his sleeves and do the work to put those gifts of grace to use!

I’ve said before that Christ-followers must wrestle with a unique tension between “trust and hustle”—on the one hand trusting in God to provide, while on the other hustling to put our God-given energy and skills to work. Another way of saying this is that we, like Bezalel, must embrace both grace and grit—accepting gracious gifts from our Father (such as talent, materials, and opportunities), while also demonstrating grit to steward those gifts well.

But let’s never forget that even our ability to “be gritty” is a gift of grace. In the words of Moses, “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

Let this dichotomy of grace and grit humble and motivate each of us as we engage in our work today!

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Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’s body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). (John 20:11-16)

Two weeks ago, we looked at Jesus’s first appearance to humankind at the very beginning of time. Last week, we looked at his second on that first Christmas morning. Today, we examine the third.

You’ve probably read the above passage dozens, maybe hundreds of times. And if you’re like me, you’ve likely always thought of the fact that Mary mistook Jesus as “the gardener” as some odd but insignificant detail of Scripture.

But no word of Scripture is placed there by accident, and as renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright recently revealed to me, this detail is no exception. It appears that John is pointing to something quite remarkable indeed.

To see it, we must first go back to Genesis where God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden to work and “fill the earth.” Sin did not yet exist, but work did, making their work of gardening worship in its purest sense.

But of course, just a few verses later, sin does enter the world. Work is still worship, but it is now also arduous. Sin has also ushered in the necessity for Jesus to come that first Christmas Day and sacrifice his life three decades later.

But everything begins to change on Easter. The resurrection resets the world as Jesus inaugurates the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. And in his first appearance to humanity, Jesus reveals himself to Mary looking like a gardener. Why? Here’s what Wright says in his book Surprised by Hope: “In the new creation, the ancient human mandate to look after the garden is dramatically reaffirmed as John hints in his resurrection story, where Mary supposes Jesus is the gardener. The resurrection of Jesus is the reaffirmation of the goodness of creation,” and I would argue, work itself.

By appearing as a gardener, Jesus is deliberately pointing us back to Adam and Eve, the world’s first gardeners and workers. He’s showing us that our work as citizens of his coming Kingdom is not just about “saving souls” or helping more people gain entrance to the Kingdom (as important as that work is). Jesus is showing us that it is time to garden again, working to till the earth—to “fill the earth” with signposts to the Kingdom that began to spring to life that first Easter morning.

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When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (Luke 2:15-20)

In just a couple of weeks, we will celebrate Jesus’s second appearance to all of humankind that first Christmas morning.

As you fix your eyes on the baby in the manger, I would encourage you to expand the aperture to view the rest of the scene. Take a moment to focus not just on the newborn king, but also on the home he was born into and what that meant for Jesus’s future work.

From the very beginning of time, God knew that He would have to send Jesus to earth to ransom us. Knowing this—and knowing the ultimate purpose of Jesus’s life on earth—the fact that God chose for Jesus to grow up in the home of Mary and a carpenter named Joseph should stop us in our tracks.

God could have placed Jesus in a priestly household like the prophet Samuel or John the Baptist. He could have grown up in the household of a Pharisee like the Apostle Paul. But instead, God placed Jesus in the household of a craftsman, doing work that likely looked very similar to the work you and I do today.

Biblical scholar Dr. Ken Campbell has pointed out that the Greek word tektōn that most of our Bibles translate as “carpenter” in Mark 6:3, would more accurately be translated as “builder,” someone who “worked with stone, wood, and sometimes metal” to create new things. According to Dr. Campbell, Jesus and Joseph essentially operated a family-owned small business, “negotiating bids, securing supplies, completing projects, and contributing to family living expenses.”

Sound familiar? It should. In first-century Jewish culture, it was likely artisans and craftspeople like Jesus and Joseph whose work looked most similar to ours.

That truth gives great dignity and meaning to the work you and I do to rearrange creation each day. If you ever doubt that your work matters or that your calling is just as significant as that of a pastor or “full-time missionary,” remember Christmas. Remember that that little baby would grow up to roll up his sleeves and remind us of the goodness of work.

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Series: 7 Biblical Principles for Resolving Conflict at Work
Devotional: 3 of 7

A person’s insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11)

We’re in a series exploring seven biblical principles for resolving conflict at work. Here’s the third…

Principle #3: Resolve to Overlook or Address the offense that has caused a lack of peace between you and someone else.

You may be surprised to learn that Scripture commends overlooking certain offenses, but it’s there in black and white (see Proverbs 19:11). And I think we see evidence of this in the life of Christ. 

Take Jesus’s exchange with the “rich young ruler.” After Jesus pointed to God’s commands such as the ones to “not murder,” and “not commit adultery,” the young man said, “All these things I have kept from my youth” (see Matthew 19:16-22). To which Jesus must have thought, “Really?”

While this man may not have technically murdered or cheated on his wife, Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount made clear that no human (save Christ himself) is capable of keeping those commandments perfectly. Jesus undoubtedly saw pride and spiritual blindness in this young man’s heart. But he chose “to overlook [the] offense” in this particular interaction.

So yes, sometimes we’d be wise to overlook an offense. But other times, we’d be wise to address an offense that is leading to a lack of peace (see Proverbs 27:5). How can we discern when to overlook and when to address an offense that is causing conflict? Here are three steps.

#1: Write down the offense as clearly as you can. Because as Charles Kettering once said, “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” Go back to the note I encouraged you to start last week and complete this sentence: “I feel a lack of peace with [Name] because…” And be as detailed as you can about why you feel a lack of peace towards this person.

#2: Pray for wisdom on whether to address or overlook the offense. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

#3: Ask yourself these diagnostic questions.

• Does the offense dishonor God?
• Has the offense damaged my relationship with the person?
• Has this person’s actions hurt themselves or others?
• Was the offending action done intentionally?
• Is the offending action a recurring issue?
• If I overlook the offense, will I continue to dwell on it?

If the answer to all of these questions is “no,” then it’s probably wise to overlook the issue which, according to Ken Sande, “involves a deliberate decision not to talk about it, dwell on it, or let it grow into pent-up bitterness or anger.”

If you can do that, praise God! If not, we’ve got some more work to do together next week.

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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

The most visited attraction in Barcelona is not a theme park or a soccer stadium. It’s an unfinished church that has been under construction for more than 135 years.

If you visit la Sagrada Família, you’ll instantly see why the church is so popular. For starters, it is truly awe-inspiring. But there’s a second reason why the church is such a draw. In an age that prioritizes speed over everything else, the pace at which la Sagrada Família is being built commands our attention.

We are used to seeing restaurants built in weeks, houses in months, and skyscrapers in just a few years. The idea of spending more than thirteen decades building a church is simply incomprehensible to most. It is that commitment to slow, masterful work that draws millions of people each year into a church that was intentionally designed to make the world stop and stare at great craftsmanship as a means of pointing us to the glory of God.

Before designing la Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí had already earned worldwide acclaim as a master architect. But in 1883, Gaudí began to catch a vision for la Sagrada Família, and the project started to monopolize his attention. A devout Christian, Gaudí envisioned a church that would visually tell a narrative of the life of Christ and quite literally “proclaim the excellencies” of God through its incredible scale and craftsmanship.

Gaudí became so convinced that architecting this church was his God-given calling, that for the last twelve years of his career he declined offers to take on any other projects so that he could focus intensely on mastering this one.

The result? Gaudí gave future generations the blueprints for what has become the most spectacular church in the world. As one well-traveled yet skeptical journalist said, “I passed through the door of the [church]—and almost at once, any doubts were expelled. It is the most astonishing space with immediate emotional punch.”

Whether you’re an architect, an entrepreneur, a pastor, or a marketer, achieving mastery of your craft is hard. Really hard. But is it worth it? Absolutely! Why? Because masterful work loves our neighbors as ourselves, opens up doors to share the gospel, and leads to the most sustainable satisfaction of vocation. But most importantly, as la Sagrada Família makes so vividly clear, masterful work captures the world’s attention and reveals the glory and character of the exceptional God we are called to reflect.

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Series: Working Without Idolatry
Devotional: 1 of 4

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Matthew 22:37)

There’s a tension we see throughout Scripture. 

On the one hand, we are invited to delight in creation and our work with creation. “Every good gift” is from God (James 1:17) given to us “for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17). And that includes our work! Ecclesiastes 2:24 says “a person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil” because those good things are “from the hand of God.”

These verses are good examples of what I call the “delight in creation” passages of Scripture. But on the other side of this perceived biblical tension, we find the “delight in Creator” passages that command us to love God above all things. This was summarized most succinctly in Jesus’s articulation of the Greatest Commandment above.

So, we are called to delight in the gifts the Creator has given while delighting in our Creator above all things. Because separating these things is the essence of idolatry. Pastor Joe Rigney (whose excellent book Strangely Bright has aided me greatly in the writing of this series) says that idolatry “is the separation of the gifts from the giver and then a preference for the gifts over the giver.”

In this series, I’ll put forth a framework to help you and I enjoy God’s gifts (especially our work) in a way that ensures we enjoy the Giver most—a path to delighting in our jobs without them becoming God-dishonoring, soul-sucking idols. 

Here’s the first of four principles to guide us towards that goal. Principle #1: Insist that Jesus is better.

The next time you celebrate a massive accomplishment with your team, read an email about how your product changed someone’s life, or hold a baby in your arms after hours of hard labor, resolutely insist that Jesus is better than his gifts—even if you have a hard time seeing how. 

What does this look like practically? Here’s one idea: Reserve one adjective for God alone. 

I know a man who refuses to call anything but God “awesome.” So when he delights in created things—an incredible pizza, seeing his book hit the bestseller list, watching his daughter get married—he might describe those experiences as “good,” “great,” or even “exceptional.” But never “awesome.” Why? “Because God alone is awesome,” he says. 

Let me encourage you to choose an adjective that you will reserve for God alone as a means of practically insisting that Jesus is better. And may that small decision put you on a path to enjoying your work in a non-idolatrous way today.

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Series: Common Grace & Uncommon Work

Devotional: 1 of 5

[God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45)

When the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 2:8 that “it is by grace you have been saved,” he was referring to God’s saving grace: the grace that, through Christ, saves human beings from their sins.

Separate from saving grace is the doctrine of God’s common grace: the goodness God shows people regardless of their relationship with or faith in him.

That’s what Jesus was referring to in today’s passage when he said that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good” (Matthew 5:45). Christ was saying that, while God is the source of “every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17), God chooses to give those gifts to “the righteous” and “to ungrateful and evil people” (Luke 6:35).

So, while only Christians are recipients of God’s saving grace, every human being is a constant  recipient of God’s common grace.

God does good to you and your atheist co-worker who claims God doesn’t exist, your competitor who lies and cheats, and your boss who slanders the name of Christ. God “sent rain” and food to Mother Teresa and to Hitler. 

How should you and I respond to the reality of God’s common grace?

I don’t know about you, but if I’m honest, my first reaction to that truth is anger—a reaction the psalmists are very familiar with (see Psalm 73 and 94 as just two examples).

But common grace also leads me to astonishing awe at the goodness of God. And a profound sense of gratefulness that God was good to me before I was hidden in Christ and that he continues to bless me today when I disobey the One who obediently went to the cross on my behalf.

Throughout this series, I’ll share 5 responses to common grace that lead to uncommon work. Here’s the first: Common grace should leave us dumbstruck at the goodness of God.

Take a moment right now to marvel at the goodness God has shown you and non-believers. And let that remembrance of his grace lead you to extend goodness and blessings to everyone you work with today!

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You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. (Deuteronomy 8:17-18)

You’ll likely see the fruit of today’s work fairly quickly. You’ll sit down at your laptop, and an hour later you’ll have a finished PowerPoint and be ready for your meeting. Or you’ll scrub in for surgery, and a few hours later your patient will be sewn up as good as new. At a minimum, you’ll go to work today, and within a couple of weeks, money will appear in your bank account as a recognition of your hard work.

With such a seemingly direct connection between our work and the results of our work, it can be easy to believe that it is our intellect, skill, and “hustle,” that is producing these results. But as today’s passage reveals, ultimately it is God alone who produces fruit in our endeavors. David echoed this truth in 1 Chronicles 29:12 when he prayed, “Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength.”

But it’s not just wealth that comes from the Lord. In 2 Corinthians 3:5, Paul says that even “our competence comes from God,” and in Romans 11:36 he asserts that “from [God] and through him…are all things.” Paul is saying that it’s not just what we see God creating in Genesis 1 that is from him. “All things,” including the results you and I produce at work today, are from the Lord.

Thus, we can join with the Psalmist in saying that “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7). Because all things are “from him and through him,” we don’t ultimately trust in chariots or horses, P&L statements or software, intellect or hustle. “We trust in the name of the Lord” because he alone is able to produce fruit through our work.

But this doesn’t negate the need for us to be faithful to work hard with the skills and opportunities God has given us to steward. As we’ll see next week, it is often our hustle that God uses as a primary means of producing fruitful results in our work.

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“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Proverbs 16:33 (NIV)

As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, trusting is the difficult yet simple act of recognizing that we are not responsible for producing results through our work—God is. Once we have taken this critical first step, it is certainly right to hustle, to use our God-given talents to fulfill our calling. But how do we know if we are both trusting and hustling? Hustling is easy to spot. It’s found in our email inboxes, our to-do lists, and our cluttered minds. But how do we know if we are truly trusting in God, rather than ourselves, to produce results? Perhaps the best indicator is whether or not we are at rest.

Rest is what we are all craving. It doesn’t take long to realize that rest means more than simply spending time out of the office. With the lines between work and home almost totally blurred, it can seem impossible to disconnect physically and mentally from the demands of incessant productivity. Even when we are at home, we are checking email, Instagram, calendars, etc. We are always doing. We are restless.

How can we find the rest we all so desperately long for? St. Augustine provides the answer: “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in You.” We will be restless until we rest in Christ alone. This means that while we should certainly hustle, we must first trust in God who, throughout history, has been faithful to provide for His people. If we trust in God’s character, and steward the talents He has given us well, we can rest knowing that the results are in His hands, that He is in control and is working everything for our good. In the words of Solomon in Proverbs 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”

This is the only path to true and deep rest behaviorally, mentally, and spiritually, and it begins with our submission to the God-designed art of Sabbath. In the words of Timothy Keller: “We are to think of Sabbath as an act of trust. God appointed the Sabbath to remind us that he is working and resting. To practice Sabbath is a disciplined and faithful way to remember that you are not the one who keeps the world running, who provides for your family, not even the one who keeps your work projects moving forward.”

Why is it so critical that we manage the tension between trusting and hustling well? Because at the end of the day, when we rely on our hustling without trusting in God, we are either trying to play God or steal His glory, either of which leads to restlessness. Christian, take heart! These Biblical commands are not in conflict with each other. You have been called to trust your God and work hard. And when we embrace this tension, we can rest well knowing we are in right partnership with our Caller.

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Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28)

In the mid-1800s, Americans fled to the West in droves in search of gold and a better life. But according to The Emigrant’s Guide to California published in 1849, it was the gold-rushers who rested most—specifically by observing the Sabbath—that reached their destination the quickest. As the guide shares, “Those who [laid] by on the Sabbath, resting themselves and their teams,” reached gold country “20 days sooner than those who traveled seven days a week.”

The gold rushers’ example illustrates a fascinating paradox: Oftentimes rest is the most productive thing we can do. 

And not just Sabbath rest! As the scientific community now understands, bi-hourly breaks throughout the workday and an eight-hour “sleep opportunity” every night are essential to doing our most exceptional work.

Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus embodying these three rhythms of productive rest. He offered restorative breaks to his disciples as they worked (Mark 6:30-32), he fought for sleep (Mark 4:38), and he reaffirmed the goodness of Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

Of course, because he is our creator, Jesus knew what centuries of scientific exploration have now empirically proven: That these rhythms of rest are productive as we strive towards our goals. But Jesus also undoubtedly knew something science may never be able to prove: That rest is also productive for our souls.

Taking breaks throughout your workday reminds you that God doesn’t need you to finish your to-do list. Getting a full night’s sleep reminds you that God is the only being who neither slumbers nor sleeps and thus doesn’t need you or me to keep the world spinning. Sabbath reminds you that, in the words of N.T. Wright, “all time belongs to God and stands under the renewing lordship of Jesus Christ.” 

These truths bring us to the sixth principle we need for redeeming our time:

Principle #6
EMBRACE PRODUCTIVE REST
To redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must embrace the God-designed rhythms of rest which are counterintuitively productive for our goals and our souls.

How practically do we incorporate these bi-hourly, nightly, and weekly rhythms of rest into our modern lives? I answer that question at length in my book, Redeeming Your Time. If you want a preview, watch this short video which documents what Sabbath looks like for me and my young family.

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Series: Beyond the Great Commission

Devotional: 2 of 5

After his suffering, [Jesus] presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

Last week, we saw that for the very first time in Church history, many Christians today have interpreted the “Great Commission” to “make disciples” as the singular mission of the Christian life.

If that’s true, then most of your work is meaningless. The product you’re building, the beauty you’re creating, the car you’re repairing—none of it matters unless you can leverage those things to the instrumental end of “sharing the gospel.”

Believer, this is an egregious lie. And a crazy dangerous one for reasons we’ll explore over the next four weeks. Here’s the first problem with treating the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus left us: Jesus himself never did!

Today’s passage tells us that Jesus spent forty days speaking “about the kingdom of God” after his resurrection. I did the math. There are 3,456,000 seconds in forty days. The Great Commission takes roughly twenty seconds to read out loud. Do we really think Jesus intended for us to interpret what he said in 0.00058% of this time as the exclusive mission of the church? I don’t think so. 

But many people argue that the Great Commission should be the end-all be-all for Christ-followers because the command to “make disciples” was the last one Jesus spoke before ascending into heaven. But actually, it wasn’t. Check out the full passage: 

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19–20) 

If Christ meant for us to interpret the call to make disciples as the only commission of the Christian life, he could have said so. But he didn’t. Instead, he used his address before his ascension to reiterate the importance of obeying “everything” he commanded during his time on earth.

Believer, I pray you’ll have an opportunity to share the gospel with a co-worker today. But even if you don’t, please know that today can still matter greatly for eternity.

1 John 3:22 says that “we keep [God’s] commands and give him pleasure when he sees what we are doing.” That means when you simply “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’” and do what you say you’re going to do at work (Matthew 5:37), when you “do good” to your enemies and competitors “without expecting to get anything back” (Luke 6:35), and when you “pray…in secret” at your desk (Matthew 6:6)—all of that obedience contributes to God’s eternal pleasure. 

May that encourage you and motivate you to “obey everything [Christ has] commanded you” to do today!

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Series: Beyond the Great Commission

Devotional: 5 of 5

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

I’ve said this multiple times throughout this series, but allow me to say it once more: The Great Commission to “make disciples” is indeed great! But it’s far from the only thing Christ has called us to do. And there are serious problems with treating it as such. We’ve seen three of those problems thus far in this series:

1. Jesus never did
2. It neglects the other aspects of God’s kingdom
3. Ironically, it makes us less effective at the Great Commission

Here’s the fourth problem with treating the Great Commission as the only commission: It blocks you and me from seeing how our work matters for eternity—how, in the words of the Apostle Paul, our “labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

If the Great Commission is the only commission, then our work has value only when leveraged to the instrumental end of evangelism. And if our work has only instrumental value, then most of us are wasting most of our time. 

That’s terribly disheartening because God has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). To quote the inimitable Alexander Hamilton, we all “wanna build something that’s gonna outlive” us. We want this life to count for the next one. But if we can’t see how that’s possible, we lose purpose, hope, and a deep sense of connection with God as we go about our days. 

Leo Tolstoy, the writer of classics such as War and Peace, once said that it was this idea that “brought me to the point of suicide when I was fifty years old…It is the question without which life is impossible…It is this: what will come of what I do today or tomorrow?...Or expressed another way: is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death which awaits me?”

That is the question, isn’t it? What is the purpose of building a business, working a register, or planning an event if those actions don’t lead to an opportunity to share the gospel? Sure, they are means of loving our neighbors as ourselves in the present (see Matthew 22:39). But beyond the here and now, how do those actions matter for eternity?

So long as we see the Great Commission as our only commission, it will be impossible to answer that question. Which is why I wrote The Sacredness of Secular Work, to help you see how 100% of your time at work can matter for eternity and not just the 1% of time you spend “sharing the gospel.” The book releases January 30 but you can pre-order it today on Amazon or one of these other retailers!

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Series: A God-Honoring Approach to Planning
Devotional: 4 of 4

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)

In this series, I’ve sketched out what I believe to be a biblical, God-honoring approach to planning. First, we saw that we are called to “Commit to the LORD whatever [we] do,” including our planning (see Proverbs 16:3). Second, we’re called to “listen to advice” from others (see Proverbs 12:15). Third, we’re commanded to recognize our ultimate lack of control over our plans (see James 4:13-16). And today’s passage shares the fourth and final principle of this series: As we plan, we’d be wise to remember that regardless of the outcome of our plans, “it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

This truth enables us to do two things. 

First, it allows us to plan more confidently. The nature of planning is that it is risky. Whether you’re planning a budget, a project, or goals for the next quarter, planning always requires you to make predictions about a future you can not see. That can be a frightening thing to do, which is why so many of us fall victim to analysis paralysis. 

But if you’ve committed your plans to the Lord, sought out counsel, and humbly recognized your lack of control, you can make plans with confidence because at the end of the day, “it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” His purposes can not be thwarted (see Job 42:2). Commenting on today’s passage, Tim Keller says, “In a sense, for a Christian, there is no ‘plan B.’” 

Second, today’s passage should empower us to be at peace with any result. If our plans are wildly successful, “it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” If our plans blow up in flames, “it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” So we can be at peace with any result knowing that “in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

What plans are you making at work this week? View them in light of today’s passage. Remember that the Lord’s purpose will always, always prevail. And may that truth lead you to plan confidently and peacefully today.

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Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)

Decisions, decisions. We are faced with a never-ending list of them at work and at home.

Which candidate do I hire? Do I get my MBA or get a job? Do we move or stay?

As Christians evaluate decisions like these, there’s a phrase we often utter once we’ve made up our minds: “I just feel such a sense of peace about my decision.” Or conversely, if we’re having difficulty making a decision, we’ll say, “I just don’t feel at peace one way or another.”

But once we have that amorphous sense of peace, the discussion is over. One pastor hit the nail on the head saying, “When an internal sense of peace becomes the ultimate rationale for decision-making, no one can question you. It’s the ultimate mic drop—akin to saying God told you to do something.”

There are a few passages of Scripture people point to when claiming that we should wait for a feeling of peace before making a decision. Philippians 4:6-7 and 2 Thessalonians 3:16 are two of them. But perhaps the most common one is Colossians 3:15, which you read above.

The key to unlocking the meaning of this verse is understanding what the word translated “peace” here actually means. The Greek word Paul uses here is eirēnē which, according to Strong’s Biblical Concordance, suggests, “the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ.” It’s the exact same word Paul uses in Romans 5:1 when he says, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace [eirēnē] with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In Romans 5:1 and Colossians 3:15, Paul isn’t promising a vague feeling of peace about specific decisions, but a concrete promise of peace with God that is secure regardless of which decisions we make. You and I don’t have to wait for a feeling of peace to overwhelm us before we make a decision. Paul is saying that you and I already have all the peace we need. We are adopted sons and daughters of God. We have peace with God and no decision can alter that status.

OK, so if an internal feeling of peace isn’t the end-all-be-all for making decisions, what can believers rely on when making hard choices?

First, we rely on God’s Word. If a decision would cause us to sin, it’s a non-starter, even if we have “peace” about our intention to disobey the Lord’s commands.

Second, we rely on wisdom from God’s people whom the Holy Spirit speaks through (see Matthew 10:20).

Finally, we rely on our God-given freedom to decide.

But let’s be honest: Finding the confidence to make decisions can be hard. Over the next three weeks, we will look at three biblical truths that can grow our confidence to make decisions at work and at home.

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Series: Work that Physically Lasts for Eternity
Devotional: 3 of 5

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. (Revelation 4:11)

Last week, we saw evidence from Revelation 21 and Isaiah 60 that some of our work has a shot at physically lasting into eternity. But since that idea seems too good to be true, today I want to look at three other pieces of evidence for this idea.

First, it’s simply not in God's nature to ask his children to create things only to destroy them. In Genesis 1:28, God issued the First Commission to humankind: to fill the earth. Pastor Timothy Keller points out that this is a call to “not just procreation, but also cultural creation.” And it’s simply not in God’s character to watch his children obey that command by making bicycles, software, and Nutella only to throw those creations away. Good earthly fathers don't do that. Do we really think our perfect heavenly father will?

Second, by redeeming the work of our hands, God will get greater glory. Randy Alcorn nails this saying, “Some may think it silly or sentimental to suppose that nature, animals, paintings, books, or a baseball bat might be resurrected. It may appear to trivialize the coming resurrection. I would suggest that it does exactly the opposite: It elevates resurrection, emphasizing the power of Christ to radically renew mankind—and far more.”

Read today’s passage again. The saints are singing, “You are worthy, our Lord…for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." Commenting on this passage, Andy Crouch asks, "Wouldnʼt it be strangely empty to sing that song in a new world where all those things…were now only a memory?" Of course it would! By redeeming our sin-ladened work and carrying some of it onto the New Earth, God will get greater glory, which is precisely the point of eternity.

Finally, the scars on Jesus’s hands give us further evidence that some work will last forever. Think about it. Jesus’s resurrected body included “nail marks” from when the Romans hung him on the cross (see John 20:24-27). And what are those marks? The work of human hands. The brilliant theologian, Dr. Darrell Cosden, explains that "the crucifixion was a ‘work’ carried out by many people…And since [Jesus’s] body, still containing those scars, is now ascended back into the Godhead, the results of at least this particular ‘human work’ are guaranteed to carry over into God's as well as our own future and eternal reality."

Of course, the fact that the wicked work of the Roman soldiers and what John and Isaiah called “the glory of the nations” are physically present for eternity raises an important question: Which work will last and which won’t? We’ll attempt to answer that question together next week.

Pre-order The Sacredness of Secular Work today and you could win an epic trip for two to celebrate the sacredness of your “secular” work in a castle, vineyard, cathedral, and more! Entering to win is simple: 

Step 1: Pre-order the book on Amazon or one of these other retailers

Step 2: Fill out this form

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

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Series: God's Will for Your Work
Devotional: 3 of 4

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

The hardest decision I’ve ever made professionally was to step down as CEO of Threshold 360 six years ago. I loved leading that fast growing tech startup. And I also loved creating faith and work content like these devotionals. But I was convinced that I had to put all my professional eggs in one of those two baskets.

I knew neither path was a “higher calling”—I could follow Jesus fully in either role. But I still spent months paralyzed, desperate to discern God’s will for my work.

Part of what freed me was today’s passage, knowing that regardless of which path I chose, as long as my heart was submissive to God today, he would make my paths straight tomorrow. 

As we’ve already seen in this series, Scripture says very little about God’s will for you tomorrow, but a lot about God’s will for you today—namely that he wills us to obey him and walk in the way of The Way, Jesus Christ (see 1 Thessalonians 4:3).

So long as you’re doing that, there’s no such thing as a “wrong” decision. As Tim Keller once said, “for a Christian, there is no ‘plan B.’” Because God’s purposes will always prevail (see Proverbs 19:21). That brings me to the third biblical truth for discerning God’s will for your work… 

Truth #3: There is no wrong way if you are following The Way.

Here’s how pastor Jerry Sittser articulated this idea: “If we seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness…then whatever choices we make concerning the future become the will of God for our lives. There are many pathways we could follow…As long as we are seeking God, all of them can be God’s will for our lives, although only one—the path we choose—actually becomes his will.”

In other words, it is impossible to seek the kingdom of God and miss the will of God. There is no wrong way if you are following The Way.

What decision are you agonizing over at work? Should you stay or leave your job? Go back to school? Say yes or no to a big project? If none of your options violate God’s commands, relax. Pray for wisdom. And unless you hear a clear answer, choose freely and confidently—knowing the Lord will make your path straight.

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“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16)

On July 26, 1833, the British Parliament voted to abolish the slave trade. The great victory came more than 45 years after William Wilberforce first met the great Hannah More.

A few days later, Wilberforce died. A few weeks after that, More joined her friend in glory—a poetic end to the lives of the great poet and parliamentarian.

A few years after More’s death, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a now-famous essay titled A Defence of Poetry. In it, he credited Christian writers and artists such as More with ending slavery and emancipating women, saying “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”

Tomorrow is Election Day in the U.S., and I pray you will vote. But whoever you vote for, I hope you will remember this: Culture wars will never be won solely through the election of the “right candidates” or their appointment of the “right judges.” Hannah More and William Wilberforce show us that “the only way to change culture is to create more of it.” So sure, vote for the change you believe God has called the Church to advocate for in the world. But if you really care, don’t just vote. Roll up your sleeves and create for change. Because that is how change happens.

In the words of More herself, “I hope the poets and painters will at last bring the Bible into fashion and that people will get to like it from taste, though they are insensible to its spirits, and afraid of its doctrines.”

“People will get to like it from taste.”

Sounds a lot like Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.

Paul says that the gospel and the ways of our Redeemer are “foolishness” to the world (see 1 Corinthians 1:18). But through our work, we can be salt making the world want a taste of the Kingdom.

But Jordan, I’m not a poet. How does this apply to me?

We’re all called to work and create as a means of extending the Kingdom. Remember Jesus’s parting words to his disciples recorded in Acts 1:8: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

All of us are his “witnesses.” Witnesses to what? His resurrection and corresponding lordship of the world. The whole world is—present tense—under His authority. We are witnesses to that truth, called to take the message of His kingship “to the ends of the earth.”

You may not create a poem that convinces a generation of women to choose life for their unplanned children, but can you and your family create space in your family or budget to care for orphans?

If you’re an entrepreneur, can you create products that replace deceptive or harmful ones in your industry?

If you’re an employee, can you work in a way that is so humble, so life-giving, so exceptional that your co-workers will “get to like” Jesus and His gospel from their interactions with you?

Poets, writers, artists, and musicians: Can you use the power of the Creator God in you to tell stories of truth, redemption, and hope?

By all means, vote for change. But may we be people who do the much harder, much more impactful work of creating for change for the Kingdom.

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“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

William Wilberforce was easily one of the most productive people of all time.

First elected to British Parliament in 1780 at the age of 21, Wilberforce was a boy king. At one point in his life, he was officially linked to 69 separate social reform groups throughout Great Britain. Oh yeah, and he was the man chiefly responsible for abolishing slavery across the British Empire and eventually the world. As one of Wilberforce’s biographers said, “It’s difficult to escape the verdict that William Wilberforce was simply the greatest social reformer in the history of the world.”

Early in his career, Wilberforce was ambitious for all the wrong things, namely the accumulation of power, wealth, and privilege. But his ambition was transformed when he submitted his life to the lordship of Jesus Christ at the age of 26, ushering in what Wilberforce referred to as his “Great Change.”

Like many young Christians, Wilberforce’s knee-jerk reaction to his newfound faith was to abandon his vocation. Seeking advice from his friend John Newton (yes, the great minister who wrote Amazing Grace), Wilberforce expected his minister friend to encourage him to resign from Parliament so that he could truly “live now for God.” But “Newton encouraged Wilberforce to stay where he was, saying that God could use him there. Most others in Newton’s place would likely have insisted that Wilberforce pull away from the very place where his salt and light were most needed. How good that Newton did not.”

Amen. If Wilberforce’s “Great Change” had led to a great change in his work, where would the world be today? Certainly further away from the Kingdom of God.

Wilberforce deeply understood what Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” You see, the very purpose for which you and I and William Wilberforce were created and saved in Christ was to do good works and glorify the Father in the process. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Wilberforce’s good works included abolishing the abomination of slavery, bringing us one step closer to the Lord’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). His salvation didn’t change his occupation, but it did radically change his relationship to his work. Next week, we’ll see exactly how.

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Series: Wisdom for Work from the Psalms
Devotional: 4 of 7

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90:17)

This is the final verse of Psalm 90, the only Psalm that credits Moses as its author. It’s not surprising that Moses concludes his Psalm with these words, as he prayed a similar prayer six times in the book of Deuteronomy alone (see Deuteronomy 2:7; 14:29; 16:15; 24:19; 28:12; 30:9).

Why was this such a frequent prayer of Moses?

First, I think Moses understood that this prayer is a practical way of reminding ourselves that God alone produces results through our work. In Deuteronomy 8:18, Moses said that “​​it is [God] who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” How do we remind ourselves of that truth? By joining Moses in praying the words of today’s passage.

Second, I think Moses continually offered up this prayer because it is deep within the heart of any human being for our work to outlive us. That’s what Moses is praying for in Psalm 90:17. The Hebrew word for "establish" in “establish the work of our hands” literally means to "make permanent."

And isn’t that what we all long for? Arthur Miller says it is. In his play, Death of a Salesman, Miller said that our desire “to leave a thumbprint somewhere on the world” is a “need greater than hunger or sex or thirst…A need for immortality, and by admitting it, the knowing that one has carefully inscribed one’s name on a cake of ice on a hot July day.”

That’s spot on. The question, of course, is which work will be “made permanent”? In short, any work done “in the Lord'' (see 1 Corinthians 15:58). Any work done for his glory rather than our own. Because unless the things on our to-do lists are on God’s to-do list, they will eventually amount to nothing.

So what’s on God’s to-do list? The advancement of “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 24:14), working “heartily as unto the Lord” (Colossians 3:23), doing excellent work as a means of “loving your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), “making disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), and working to make “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). 

Pray that the Lord would establish that work of your hands today!

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Series: Common Grace & Uncommon Work

Devotional: 2 of 5

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. (Luke 6:27)

Last week, we began exploring how our work should be uncommonly shaped by the reality of common grace: the goodness God shows to “the righteous and the unrighteous,” his friends and his enemies (see Matthew 5:45).

Today, we’ll see that common grace should lead us to be good to our enemies.

Interestingly, that’s the context of Matthew 5:45. Jesus said, “I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you…because [God] makes his sun rise on both evil and good people, and he lets rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:44-45).

You see it right? Jesus is saying that we should do good to our enemies because of God’s common grace! God is so good that he longs to do good to “the righteous and the unrighteous.” And he’s calling you and me to be the conduits for his blessings.

Now, you may not have anyone at work you’d describe as an “enemy.” But do you have a boss who’s hard to love? Or a co-worker who’s spreading lies and gossip about you? Or a competitor who’s knocking-off your product? 

Of course you do. Everyone is currently working with or for someone they consider to be less than friendly. God isn’t calling you simply to “do no harm” to that person. But to proactively bless them! 

What does that look like practically?

Let’s say someone on your team (an employee, vendor, etc.) did a terrible job on a project, costing you a lot of time, energy, money, and maybe even social capital. They did such a bad job that they were fired or taken off of your team. Loving this “enemy” could look like:

• Praying that God would bless them in their careers
• Giving them feedback to help them in their future career (instead of, as I’m tempted to do, write the person off and get back to work)
• Proactively writing a LinkedIn recommendation that focuses on the things the person did do well
• Offer them forgiveness for how they wronged you
• Refusing to speak poorly about them with those who remain on the project

I’ve been in the situation above and have not loved my “enemy” well. But the doctrine of common grace reminds me that I’m called to do better next time. Because God is seeking to do good to the righteous and the unrighteous. With that in mind, love your enemies well at work today!

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Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 31:1-5)

Here’s a mind-boggling truth to start your week: The very first person the Bible says was “filled with the Spirit of God” was not Adam or Eve. It wasn’t Abraham. And it wasn’t Moses. It was a creative named Bezalel.

On the surface, this seems startling. But I would argue that in singling out Bezalel in this remarkable way, God is simply reminding us of something He’s been saying all throughout time: creativity is central to who He is and who we are as His image-bearers.

After all, the very first thing God reveals about himself in Genesis is His creative spirit. Before He showed us that He was loving, holy, or just, God showed us that He is a God who works. A God who’s productive. A God who creates.

And of course, Jesus revealed this same creative spirit when “the Word became flesh,” spending 85% of his adult life as a carpenter, leveraging a skill set very similar to Bezalel’s.

What is God showing us through all this repetition? He’s showing us that work and creativity are not meaningless “fringe” things. They are central to who God is and who we are as His representatives in the world.

This means that while some (like Bezalel) may be “filled” with more of God’s creative likeness, all of us are creative because we are all made in the image of God. As Jen Wilkin says, “Even those of us who would not call ourselves [creative] recognize our ability to combine several average things into something above average. We take piles of data and turn them into pie charts. We take eggs, butter, cheese, and onion and turn them into an omelet. We are not creation-optional beings.”

All of us create, and in doing so, show the world what God is like. The object of Bezalel’s creative endeavors illustrates this well.

Bezalel was filled with the creative spirit of God in order to build the Tabernacle—a physical representation of “the universe the way it ought to be” with God at the center of it. The Tabernacle was essentially its own world, with everything pointing toward God. So when God called Bezalel to create the Tabernacle, He was inviting him to mimic God’s creation of the earth in Genesis, thus bringing glory to God by emulating His creative Spirit to others.

You and I won’t build a literal Tabernacle today. But as we go to work, let us remember that as we create, we are revealing the character of our great God. Let us allow that truth to motivate us to create with excellence as a means of most accurately reflecting our Creator.

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Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5:15-16)

For the past few weeks, we have been studying when and why Jesus said “no,” while drawing out applications for our own lives today. In this final entry in this series, we’re looking at the most common thing Jesus said “no” to during his time on earth: the relentless human demands for more.

All throughout the New Testament, we see people clamoring for more of Jesus: more of his healing, more of his miracles, more of his teaching, and most of all, more of his time. But over and over again, Jesus said “no,” choosing instead to withdraw to “lonely places” to pray and to rest. Today’s passage is just one of dozens of nearly identical moments in the gospels in which Jesus turned his back on the demands for more. When you view these verses in their entirety, you see that Jesus had a staggering amount of margin in his work and very little sense of urgency. This insight becomes even more compelling when you consider the fact that Jesus knew in his early thirties that his death was imminent.

So, given his limited time on earth, why wasn’t Jesus in more of a hurry? Why was he so consistent in saying “no” to demands on his time and energy? I think there are three reasons. First, Jesus needed communion with the Father. Many times, when the gospel writers tell us Jesus went away to a solitary place, it also tells us that he went away to pray. Secondly, being both fully God and fully man, Jesus needed rest (see Mark 6:31-32). But I think there’s a third reason why Jesus said “no” so frequently. I think Jesus wanted to model what healthy work looks like for us, whose lives look so very different from the One we say we follow.

Unlike Jesus, our lives have such little margin today. We are addicted to the idea of more. We have fallen for one of the enemy’s greatest lies: that more activity, more roles, more commitments, and more responsibility equals more impact. Here, Jesus offers a better way. In order to do our most exceptional work and live our most engaged lives, we need to get in the habit of creating boundaries around our time, saying “no” to the relentless demands that we do more faster. We need to more closely align our lives with the example of Jesus, whose model encourages us to say “no” far more often for our own good, for the glory of God, and for the good of others.

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Series: A God-Honoring Approach to Planning
Devotional: 2 of 4

The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice. (Proverbs 12:15)

I’ve been the fool in this Proverb more than once. One example, in particular, comes to mind. A few years ago, I was running a rapidly growing tech startup and planning to hire our first full-time sales rep. Like any good entrepreneur, I took the time to draft a document detailing the type of person I thought we needed for the position. And with that plan in hand, I went out and hired someone we’ll call Michael who perfectly fit my description.

The only problem was that I neglected to ask my existing team what they thought about my job description. Shortly after Michael started, members of my team came to me asking why I hired someone with Michael’s experience when what we needed most was someone with an entirely different background. They were right, of course, and eventually, we had to let Michael go. If I had simply asked for input on my hiring plan on the front end, I could have avoided making one of the worst mistakes of my career—one that was costly for the business and for Michael. 

Proverbs 24:6 is right: "victory is won through many advisers.” But which advisers? As you’re making plans for your work, who should you trust for counsel? Let me suggest two types of people: wise Christians who may or may not understand your specific work and wise people who understand your specific work but may or may not be Christians. 

Why this second type of person? Because God gives common grace and wisdom to all people—not just believers. Isaiah 28:24-26 makes this clear, saying that “God instructs” all workers and “teaches [them] the right way.” Ideally, we’d find wisdom for our plans in fellow believers. But when that’s not possible, we should boldly seek out wisdom from unbelievers knowing that, in the words of John Calvin, “All truth is from God.”

Hear Solomon’s words one more time this morning: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14, ESV). As you make plans in your work today, seek out an abundance of counselors for wisdom and help.

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Series: Wisdom for Work from David

Devotional: 6 of 7

David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting….Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all…Everything comes from you.” (1 Chronicles 29:10, 12, 14)

The context of today’s passage adds weight to David’s words. Here’s the scene: David is addressing Israel in what was likely his final public address as king. The next day, Solomon will take David’s place and soon become the wealthiest man on earth. 

What would David say at the close of his forty-year reign? He chose to focus his son and his people’s attention on the truth that “wealth and honor” and “everything” good comes from God.

This is a truth we see reiterated throughout Scripture. James said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (James 1:17). The Apostle Paul said that even “our competence comes from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

Every good thing you have—from your wealth, to your success at work, to the breath in your lungs—is from God. Let me suggest three responses to that truth.

First, praise God for whatever wealth and results he has given you knowing that he will only give you the amount that is perfectly suited for your good and his glory (see Romans 8:28-29). 

Second, steward God’s gifts according to his agenda, rather than your own. Because if he’s the giver of the gift, he gets to dictate how you use it.

Finally, focus on inputs rather than outcomes. This last response is super tough for me and probably you. So allow me to go a bit deeper here. 

Let’s say you’re working really hard to achieve a specific goal by the end of this week. If, come Friday, you can honestly say you pursued that goal as best as you know how, you can rest before you even know whether or not you hit your target. Not because the world tells you “you are enough.” But because the results were never in your hands in the first place.

Because “wealth and honor” and success come from God alone you can rest anytime you have faithfully put in the work and the “inputs”—not just when you’ve achieved your desired outcome. 

Christian Olympian Eric Liddell once said, “In the dust of defeat as well as in the laurel of victory, there is glory to be found if one has done his best.” Amen. Based on that truth, work hard from a position of rest today!

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And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. (Colossians 4:3-4)

In this series, we’re looking at five simple ways to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. We’ve already explored three:

1. Be so good they can’t ignore you
2. Be a friend
3. Identify yourself as a Christian

Once you’ve done those things, let me encourage you to pray that God would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual. 

I think a lot of us feel like it is up to us to pry open doors to share the gospel with others. But that wasn’t the Apostle Paul’s approach. Hear his words in Colossians 4:3: “Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ.”

God alone can make people receptive to the gospel. We pray to that end, and then we must look for opportunities to move conversations with unbelievers from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual (all credit for this helpful framework goes to Matt Chandler).

I’ll share an example of one of the few times I have done this well. I was chatting with a co-worker we’ll call Jill, and our conversation went something like this.

First, I started on the Surface, asking Jill how her kids’ soccer game went on Saturday. “Great,” Jill said, “but I was just so exhausted from the week.”

Sensing an opportunity to move from the Surface to the Serious, I replied, “Yeah, I’ve noticed you’ve been on Slack super late the past few weeks. You’re working way harder than the rest of your team. Why?” Jill said something to this effect: “Well, I love the work! But it’s also because I grew up pretty poor. And so I guess I’ve always seen my work as a way of proving I’m not like my parents.”

Now we were moving from the Serious to the Spiritual. I said, “I’ve been there! For a long time, I used my work to prove something to my parents and my friends. But a few years ago, I realized that no amount of professional success would ever be enough. I know it might sound weird, but it was my Christian faith that got me off that exhausting hamster wheel.”

Of course, the dialogue wasn’t that polished. But that was the gist of the conversation. And by God’s grace, it opened up an opportunity to share the gospel with Jill. 

Before you head off to work today, pray that God would do for you what he did for me and Jill. Pray that he would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual in your conversations with those you work with. And then, be on the lookout for how God moves to that end!

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Series: The Most Excellent Way

Devotional: 1 of 5

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, you’re bound to see today’s passage popping up in your social media feeds as a reminder of how God calls us to love our significant others. But the context of this passage was not primarily marital love. Paul was writing about how to steward spiritual and vocational gifts.

After listing out gifts such as teaching, healing, and helping, Paul says this: “And yet I will show you the most excellent way….If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (see 1 Corinthians 12:31 - 13:1). And then, a few verses later, he launches into the famous, “Love is patient, love is kind,” etc.

Paul’s point is that you can be the most exceptional teacher, filmmaker, or entrepreneur on the planet. But if you work without love, you are “nothing” (see 1 Corinthians 13:2). While the world may call your work excellent, God does not.

Over the next five weeks, we’ll zoom in on five of Paul’s descriptions of love from today’s passage that are most difficult to live out at work. Let's start here: “Love is patient.”

That client whose constant delays make your life difficult? That boss who can’t stop micromanaging you? That little one who’s always barging into your home office? You and I are called to show love to these people through our patience with them. 

Why? Because “the Lord…is patient with you” and me (see 2 Peter 3:9). We deserved death after just one sin (see Romans 6:23). But God showed immense patience with us prior to salvation and continues to demonstrate patience with us today in our sanctification. Thus, we are called to be ludicrously patient with those we work with.

How? Here are three ways to cultivate patience with those we work with today. 

#1: Get specific about where God is patient with you. I’m in a season of habitually failing to love a certain “enemy.” The Lord is patiently sanctifying me here. And being cognizant of his patience with me has led me to be more patient with others who struggle with different sins.

#2: Remember that if not for God’s grace you’d struggle with the same shortcomings. If you value punctuality and are impatient with those who are late, remember that were it not for God’s grace, you too would be habitually tardy.

#3: Pray for patience.

 Right now, ask for God’s power to follow “the most excellent way” of loving those you work with through your patience with them today!

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Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come. (Mark 1:38)

When you study the gospel biographies trying to understand how Jesus stewarded his time, one glaring truth jumps off the pages: Jesus was crazy purposeful. In the words of the great Dorothy Sayers, “Under all his gentleness there is a purpose harder than steel.” Nobody in Jerusalem had more things competing for their attention, and yet Jesus always seemed to be able to discern the essential from the noise.

No passage of Scripture illustrates this better than Mark 1:29-38. After driving out some evil spirits at the synagogue, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law and a bunch of her neighbors. Understandably, the town’s residents wanted more of Jesus the next day. But Jesus said no. Why? Because he had already committed his time to a bigger yes. In response to the people’s request for more of his time, Jesus said, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38, emphasis mine).

Jesus understood his purpose and that allowed him to take the long list of things he could do and prioritize it down to the things he knew he should do to “finish the work the Father gave him to do” (John 17:4). And with his work prioritized, Jesus focused relentlessly.

Pastor Kevin DeYoung says that, “Jesus knew the difference between urgent and important. He understood that all the good things he could do were not necessarily the things he ought to do….If Jesus had to live with human limitations, we’d be foolish to think we don’t. The people on this planet who end up doing nothing are those who never realized they couldn’t do everything.”

Man, that’s good. Yet again, Jesus’s example leads us to a timeless principle for redeeming our time today. Here it is:

Principle #4
PRIORITIZE YOUR YESES
To redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must decide what matters most and allow those choices to prioritize our commitments.

But let’s face it: This is easier said than done. We all have so many things on our to-do lists. How do we decide what matters most?

In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share six practices to help you answer that question and model Jesus’s purposefulness. In this video, I share a glimpse at one of those practices, breaking down how bigger goals can help prioritize our yeses and the 5 reasons why Christians ought to set the most epic goals in the world. Watch here.

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Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.” (Daniel 2:24)

The context of today’s verse, found in Daniel 2, contains one of the most absurd accounts in all of Scripture.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had a series of troubling dreams. So he summoned his many “magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers” to make sense of his nightmares (Daniel 2:2). But the king didn’t just demand interpretation of his dreams. He demanded that his servants guess the content of those dreams as well. He said, “If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble” (Daniel 2:5).

Incredulous, the king’s staff replied, “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among humans” (Daniel 2:10-11).

King Nebuchadnezzar did not like that answer, so he ordered the execution of all the wise men in Babylon, including Daniel and his friends.

But instead of resigning himself to death, Daniel “urged [his friends] to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon” (Daniel 2:18).

Stop for a second and appreciate how remarkable this account is. Even though the king’s request was certifiably crazy and impossible for the other wise men of Babylon, Daniel had faith that the God of the Bible could do impossible work through him.

And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. God revealed the content and the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams to Daniel. That’s when Daniel uttered today’s verse, boldly claiming to have the answers nobody else could produce.

Centuries before the words were written, Daniel understood what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”

Daniel was working “in the world” just as the other wise men of Babylon were. But Daniel worked distinctly. He wielded otherworldly weapons—in this case, intense prayer—and had faith that God could produce otherworldly results through his work.

Those same spiritual weapons are available to you and me today, believer. We don’t go to work with the same toolset as our non-Christian counterparts. We go to work with the Creator God dwelling in us. We go to work with His ‘“incomparably great power” (Ephesians 1:19). We go to work with and for the One “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

Are you working as if you believe these things to be true? May we all be like Daniel—those with faith that God is able to do through our work what others believe to be impossible.

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Series: Work that Physically Lasts for Eternity
Devotional: 1 of 5

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10)

Before we can appreciate how some of our work might physically last into eternity, we need to first grasp what God’s Word says about our pending judgment.

Because today’s passage and others make it clear that it's not just our souls that God will judge. He will also weigh every person's actions, thoughts, and words—including those of believers! And since we spend such a huge portion of our lives working, we can assume that much of our accounting to the Lord will focus on our vocations.

To be clear, the judgment today’s passage is referring to has zero bearing on our admission into the Kingdom of Heaven (see Romans 8:38-39). But it does influence our eternal rewards—a fact Jesus made clear to his disciples when he said that “the Son of Man…will reward each person according to what they have done” (Matthew 16:27).

What are those rewards? Perhaps most famously, they are "treasures in heaven" (see Matthew 6:19) and various "crowns" (see 1 Corinthians 9:25-27). But in this devotional series, I want to turn your attention to another, less explored reward: The reward of God carrying the physical work of your hands into eternity. 

We’ll explore the biblical evidence for this next week. But today, I want to encourage you to do one practical thing in response to today’s passage: Judge your work before God does.

The Apostle Paul says that “the spiritual person judges all things” (1 Corinthians 2:15, ESV). Knowing that God will one day judge our work, we’d be wise to examine our work today in light of that coming judgment. One way to do that is to imagine the questions God will ask you about your work and let your answers lead you to repentance and perseverance. Questions such as:

• Did you develop the talents I gave you with excellence? (see Matthew 25:14-30)
• Did you use your wealth to quietly serve the needy? (see Matthew 6:1-4)
• Did you do good to your competitors and enemies? (see Luke 6:35)

Regardless of our answers to questions like these, if we are leaning on Christ alone for our salvation, we will enter the Kingdom of Heaven (see Romans 10:9). But may we not be those who enter the Kingdom empty-handed. Let us be those who run through the gates and receive great rewards that we can lay back down at the feet of our King!

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Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

Arthur Guinness moved to Dublin, Ireland at the age of 34; but he didn’t come to the city empty-handed. He brought with him a strain of yeast he had used while mastering the art of brewing beer in his hometown of Kildare. 

It was that strain of yeast cells that Guinness would use to create an innovative style of beer called stout. But perhaps more mind-boggling than the global adoption of Guinness’s brew is this: According to Guinness’s biographer, today more than 250 years after Arthur founded his brewery, “the original strain of Arthur’s yeast is still at work” and used to produce Guinness beer in breweries all around the world. In this tangible way, Arthur’s work quite literally lives on, more than two centuries after his death.

Of course, at some point Arthur’s strain of yeast is bound to die out. No business—not even the mighty Guinness—will last forever. But while his yeast is sure to fade away, some of Arthur Guinness’s work—and some of our work—will last forever.

That is precisely the point Paul is making in today’s verse. After a long passage about death and future resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul turns his readers’ attention to the present, urging us to “give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Commenting on this verse, N.T. Wright, whom Newsweek has called “the world’s leading New Testament scholar,” says this about our work: “You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are—strange though it may seem—accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world.”

Wright and Paul are saying that our work will last much longer than Arthur Guinness’s strain of yeast. Our work has the potential to last into God’s everlasting Kingdom. What kind of work will last? “The work of the Lord”—the work we do in our vocations that is aligned with His Word and agenda for the world.

How should that perspective shape our work today? How did it shape the perspective of Guinness whose life motto was “My hope is in God”? Those are the questions we will answer over the next few weeks.

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Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.’” (Exodus 31:12-13)

We began this series by reading Exodus 31:1-5 in which we are told that Bezalel—an artist and culture-creator—was the first person to be “filled with the Spirit of God.”

The context of that passage is a large chunk of Scripture in which the Lord gave Moses detailed instructions on Mount Sinai, starting with The Ten Commandments in Exodus 19-20. Exodus 31 is the last chapter in this run, but it doesn’t end with the aforementioned scene of Bezalel being filled with God’s creative spirit. Before the Lord adjourns His meeting with Moses at Mount Sinai, he has one last thing to say: He reminds His people to observe His Sabbaths (see today’s reading above).

Now, keep in mind, the Lord has already issued the third command to “remember the Sabbath” in Exodus 20:8, and He doesn’t remind Moses of any of the other commandments before He concludes this monumental meeting. So why, after filling Bezalel with His creative spirit, does God remind Moses, Bezalel, and the Israelites to rest? Let me propose three reasons.

First, this was the rhythm God himself took on for His creative work. After commissioning Bezalel and team to create like Him, God is reminding them to rest like Him because they are made in His image. The Lord told His people to “observe my Sabbaths.” The implication is clear: I rested from my creating and I designed you to do the same.

The second reason I think God repeats this command to rest after commissioning Bezalel to create is that He knew that culture makers are especially prone to workaholism. Creating new things is life-giving, God-like, intoxicating work. As we’ve seen throughout this series, creative work is “very good”—central to who God is and who we are as His image-bearers. Thus, it can be easy to forget to rest, hence God calling special attention to this command here.

But if creative work is good, why is rest necessary? That brings me to the third reason I think God reiterates the command to rest: Because we need to remind ourselves that it is His power, His grace, and His Spirit that enables us to create. Bezalel needed to be filled with the Spirit of God in order to do the work God created him to do. The same is true for you and me.

Believer, the Creator God lives in you, guiding you as you create good things that point to His glory. Let that humble and empower you to engage in your work with great energy and ambition today!

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Series: Work that Physically Lasts for Eternity
Devotional: 2 of 5

The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into [the New Jerusalem]. (Revelation 21:26)

To quote a fictionalized Alexander Hamilton, I think we all "wanna build something that's gonna outlive [us]." Today, we’ll begin to see the biblical evidence that that longing is shockingly, miraculously true.

In Revelation 21, John is sharing his glimpse of heaven on the New Earth when he says this about the New Jerusalem: “On no day will its gates ever be shut…The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (Revelation 21:25-26). 

What is John talking about? Thankfully, we don’t have to wonder, because Isaiah answers that question for us in Isaiah 60. And even though Isaiah wrote some 600 years before John, theologians such as Dr. Richard Mouw agree that “both men were working with the same material.” And so, as Dr. Randy Alcorn points out, “Isaiah 60 serves as the best biblical commentary on Revelation 21–22.”

And in that commentary, Isaiah says this: “Your gates will always stand open…so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations” (Isaiah 60:11). This language is nearly identical to John’s. But Isaiah goes on to list out what some of “the wealth of the nations” are. They include "the ships of Tarshish" (v. 9), "incense" from the nation of Sheba (v. 6), and refined "silver and gold" from some unnamed nation (v. 9). 

Ships, incense, refined silver and gold—these are all works of human hands. And Isaiah and John are watching Jesus accept these acts of culture as gifts to adorn the New Jerusalem. 

The implication here is startling. These prophetic visions seem to suggest that some of the works of our hands—the product you’re building, the book you’re writing, the truck you’re repairing—have the chance of physically lasting into eternity.

N.T. Wright, whom Christianity Today has called “the most prolific biblical scholar in a generation” summarizes this idea beautifully, saying, “You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire….You are…accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world."

This all sounds too good to be true. Should these passages be taken literally as I’m suggesting? Dr. Mouw says yes: Isaiah and John “are not merely engaging in utopian speculation.” They are “given a glimpse of things that the Lord will surely bring to pass.”

But as brilliant as Dr. Mouw is, we shouldn’t just take his word for it. Which is why next week, we will look at other evidence in Scripture that our work has a shot at lasting forever.

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Series: A Gospel Perspective on Work in a Post-Pandemic World 
Devotional: 1 of 4 

You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12) 

It’s clear that one of the most lasting changes to our work post-pandemic will be where we work physically. Now more than ever, more of us are working from home or in some sort of hybrid environment. And by and large, we are loving it. According to the job search giant Glassdoor, searches for remote work are up an astonishing 460% in the past two years. 

As someone who has worked from home for the past three years, I get the appeal. Remote work has some wonderful benefits. But it also carries a significant cost. Because as the Apostle Paul makes clear in today’s passage, our workplaces are one of, if not the, primary place where we can “win the respect of outsiders” and share the gospel. 

So how should we as Christ-followers be thinking differently about these shifts in where we work? Let me suggest three responses. 

First, if you have a choice in where you work, the gospel may compel you to sacrifice your freedom to work from home so that you can be more intentional about building relationships with unbelievers in person (see 1 Corinthians 10:23-33). 

Second, if you decide remote work is what’s best for you or your team, spend some time thinking about how to build relationships in a virtual environment. That could look like scheduling casual virtual lunches with your co-workers, or baking time into your Monday morning meetings to ask about everyone’s weekends, or encouraging small talk before your Zoom meetings by allowing participants to enter before the host arrives. 

Finally, consider whether it’s time to expand your view of your personal mission field to include not just your co-workers, but your physical neighbors. Maybe God’s calling you to be outside with your kids in the afternoons so you can “win the respect” of other parents, or invite a neighbor who also works from home out to lunch, or host a block party for your neighbors on Friday night. 

Where we’re working is changing. But our call to make disciples is not. Spend some time today thinking deeply about how your personal evangelism needs to shift in relation to the shifting position of your workspace.

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Series: 2 Corinthians on Work
Devotional: 1 of 7

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)

While it is absolutely true that God “will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13), the cliche that “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is an unbiblical lie. Paul says so directly in today’s passage. He says the “troubles” and “pressure” he experienced while working in Asia were “far beyond [his] ability to endure.” 

Later in this letter to the Corinthians, Paul explains that one of those many “troubles” was “a thorn in [his] flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Three times, Paul “pleaded with the Lord” to take this thorn away from him. But God said no, telling Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In other words, “No Paul. I won’t remove this thorn. Because I will get greater glory as I produce extraordinary results through you in spite of your weaknesses.”

God’s words lead Paul to say, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

What challenges are you facing at work today? A sudden loss in revenue? A difficult boss? A “thorn in your flesh” that’s prohibiting you from fully engaging with the work God created you to do? These things may indeed be more than you can handle in your own strength. And that’s the point. 

May our weaknesses lead us to a greater reliance on the Lord. And may others see God’s great glory as he works through us in spite of our inadequacies.

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Series: Christmas Vocations Part II
Devotional: 3 of 4

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. (Luke 2:16)

Since our first date 16 years ago, my wife Kara and I go to the historic Tampa Theatre every December to see It’s a Wonderful Life. And even though the film is more than 75 years old, the theater is packed every year. Why? Because the movie’s protagonist, George Bailey, encapsulates a timeless desire of the human heart to do work that matters.

If you haven’t seen the film, here’s the gist. George Bailey was raised in the small town of Bedford Falls, but he dreamed of doing “something big, something important.” But life got in the way and George remained stuck in his hometown working an obscure job he saw little purpose in. It took a literal miracle for him to see just how impactful his life and work had been.

Scripture tells us nothing about who made the manger Jesus slept in his first night on earth. But I’m willing to bet he felt much like George Bailey. He probably spent years hammering away at mangers and other works of wood doubting that any of it mattered beyond putting food on his family’s table. And yet God chose the work of this craftsman’s hands to hold the Creator of the world.

One of the most stunning promises in Scripture is that “your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). That term “labor in the Lord” means far more than the “spiritual” tasks of evangelism and prayer. The New Living Translation says it means any work we do “for the Lord.” Commenting on this passage, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says, “What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future.”

That sounds incredible, but sometimes it can be difficult to see how. It’s comforting to me that even the great Apostle Paul doubted the significance of his work. In 1 Thessalonians 3:5, he admitted, “I was afraid that…our labors might have been in vain.” And yet he still wrote 1 Corinthians 15:58 assuring himself and his readers of God’s promise.

You see, this is an act of faith. Even when we can’t see how, we trust that God will use everything we do for him—even something as seemingly insignificant as nailing together a manger—for his glory and our good. Have faith in that promise today, believer. Bask in the knowledge that everything you do “for the Lord” will reverberate throughout eternity!

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Series: Mere Christians of the Bible
Devotional: 5 of 5

…the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me….I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:14-15, 22-23)

In the past few centuries, many churches have unbiblically elevated the callings of pastors and missionaries above those of “mere Christians”—teachers, small business owners, mechanics, and others working outside the pulpit. It’s no surprise that modern believers often forget the Apostle Paul was a mere Christian himself who worked as a tentmaker (see Acts 18:1-3). 

Paul didn’t take up this work out of necessity. As today’s passage shows, he could have exercised his “right” to work as a donor-supported missionary. But he chose not to because he saw his work as a strategic vehicle becoming “all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

Tim Keller’s research highlights that “80% or more of evangelism in the early church was done not by ministers or evangelists” but by mere Christians like Paul and the others we’ve explored in this series. And that continues to be true today. Mere Christians aren’t on the JV team of Christianity—we are the primary means through which God spreads his glorious gospel!

How should you and I respond to that truth?

First, prayerfully consider taking your job with you overseas. More and more countries are closing their doors to Christian missionaries. But those same countries will happily open those same doors to Christian mathematicians, medical doctors, and managers. My friend Andrew Scott wrote a terrific book with case study after case study of what God is doing through mere Christians working in these largely unreached nations. Ask God if he’s calling you to follow suit.  

Second, regardless of where you work, build a list of Launchers. Conversations with lost co-workers often stay at surface-level topics like sports or our favorite TV shows. But with a tiny bit of intentionality, you can easily steer conversations with non-believers from the surface, to the serious, to the spiritual. And Launchers is an unbelievably simple tool that enables it! 

A list of Launchers contains two things: 

1. The names of people you’re trying to share the gospel with
2. Next to each name, a list of questions or topics you think might launch your next conversation with them from the surface, to the serious, to the spiritual

Keep your list of Launchers on a note on your phone, in a journal—wherever. See a screenshot of mine here.

I can not tell you how many times God has used my list of Launchers to open up deep spiritual conversations with the non-Christians in my life. I am confident the same will be true for you.

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Series: Half-Truths About Heaven
Devotional: 2 of 4

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (Revelation 21:1)

Countless sermons and songs have convinced us of this half-truth about heaven:

Half-Truth #2: Earth is our temporary home

It is true that when we die, our “spirit returns to God” (Ecclesiastes 12:7), departing earth to be with Jesus in what theologians call the “present heaven.” The lie is that we stay there.

One of Jesus’s most famous references to heaven is in John 14:2 where he says, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” Get this: The Greek word for “dwelling places” is monē, which denotes temporary lodging.

Why temporary? Because God’s plan all along was to bring heaven to earth and live with us here! Not ultimately to “fit us for heaven to live with thee there.” This is what we see in Revelation 21:1-5 as John “saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven” to earth where God “will dwell among [us].”

But wait, Jordan, I thought the earth was going to be destroyed in the end? This idea is rooted in a misinterpretation of 2 Peter 3 which I discussed at length a few weeks ago. In case you missed that, here’s the gist: The earth will not be obliterated like the Death Star in Star Wars. It will be renewed like Te Kā turning back into Te Fiti in Moana. 

Haven’t seen these great films? No worries. John Mark Comer explains this concept well without cinematic metaphor: “Heaven is not our home. Earth is. Not Earth as it is now, but Earth as it will be in the future. Our hope isn’t for another place, but another time. Yes, as followers of Jesus, we go to heaven when we die, but we don’t stay there. If Jesus is a “ticket to heaven,” as the preacher says, then he’s a round-trip ticket, not a one-way. Because at the resurrection, we come back.” 

All of this brings us to the next whole-truth:

Whole-Truth #2: Earth is our temporary home until it is our permanent one

What does this mean for our work? Randy Alcorn, in his terrific book, Heaven, explains that “When we think of Heaven as unearthly, our present lives seem unspiritual, like they don’t matter. When we grasp the reality of the New Earth, our present, earthly lives suddenly matter. Conversations with loved ones matter. The taste of food matters. Work [matters]....Why? Because [these things] are eternal.”

Believer, lean into the work you do today, knowing that just like this earth, it has eternal consequence.

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As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

Last week, I argued that in order to best glorify God and love others through our work, we should pursue becoming a “master of one” rather than drifting into becoming a “master of none.” To do this, we must get clarity on the work God has created us to do and the courage to say “no” to virtually everything else.

I don’t think anybody understood this better than Jesus who displayed a remarkable awareness of the natural limits time and attention place on our ability to fulfill our life’s calling, or what Jesus referred to as the work the Father gave him to do (see John 17:4).

In Luke 9:51, we are told, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (emphasis mine). The picture here isn’t of Jesus scattering himself across a myriad of nonessential activities. Jesus was laser focused on his “one thing”: preaching the good news of redemption in word and ultimate deed.

In today’s passage, we are told that as Jesus was “on the way” to fulfilling that mission, he stopped by the home of Mary and Martha and taught a lesson on focus that they (and we) so desperately need. In the scene, we find Martha distracted by many things, while Mary was focused on just one. Jesus’s response? “Few things are needed—or indeed only one.”

Commenting on this passage, Tim Keller hit the nail on the head: “[Mary] decided what was important, and she did not let the day-to-day get her away from that. As a result, she was drawn into a greatness we don’t even dream of. Because we are more like Martha than Mary, we’re sinking in a sea of mediocrity” (emphasis mine).

The world is constantly pressuring us to be more like Martha than Mary, convincing us that the path to happiness and impact is the path of more—more jobs, more commitments, more money, etc. But here, Jesus offers us a better, simpler, saner way. He offers us the path of less but better.

In a world full of Marthas, let us allow Jesus’s words to permeate every aspect of our lives, especially our work. Instead of scattering our gifts and energy in a million directions, let us seek the one vocational thing we believe the Father has given us to do and then master that work for his glory and the good of others.

How do we begin to find our “one thing”? That’s the question we will turn to next week.

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Series: 7 Biblical Principles for Resolving Conflict at Work
Devotional: 4 of 7

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

Out of nowhere, my colleague blindsided me with a super offensive comment—the kind of remark that could have easily destroyed our relationship. 

I was furious and wanted nothing more than to retaliate. But by God’s grace, I took some time to see “the plank” in my own eye and realized that I had contributed greatly to the conflict.

I went to my friend and apologized for my part in the disagreement. And before I could even address how he had offended me, my friend offered up a sincere apology of his own. Today, our personal and professional relationship is stronger than ever.

This is an example of what Ken Sande calls the “Golden Result,” which is a corollary to the “Golden Rule.” As the expert peacemaker explains in his book, “If we blame others for a problem, they will usually blame in return. But if we say, ‘I was wrong,’ it is amazing how often the response will be, ‘It was my fault too.’”

How does God often bring about the Golden Result in conflict? By his people following this biblical principle…

Principle #4: Pluck the Plank from your own eye before you address the offense of another.

Commenting on Jesus’s words about “planks” and “specks” in Matthew 7:3-5, pastor Tony Merida says this: “Our assessment of the other person [in a conflict] is wrong…because something is blurring or blocking our vision. And it’s not a speck—it’s a 2 x 4! Jesus is saying our vision…in the midst of conflict is totally compromised when we fail to assess ourselves first.”

So, how practically do we go about plucking the plank from our own eye? Here are three ideas.

First, accept Jesus’s premise that you are the primary contributor to the problem. Again, here’s Merida: “While we most often think the other person has the log and we have the speck (‘Sure, I can own up to about 10 percent of this conflict, but they are most certainly creating 90 percent of it!’), Jesus flips this assumption around!”

Second, ask God for supernatural humility to see how you’ve contributed to the conflict.

Finally, journal about how you may have contributed to the conflict in the note I’ve been encouraging you to build throughout this series. Need some help? Journal through these questions:

• What underlying desire do I have that this person is allegedly blocking? Is that desire God-honoring?
• What habitual sins, fears, insecurities, or past wounds might be fueling my reaction to this conflict?
• If a wise, Christ-like mentor observed this conflict, what planks might they see in my own eye?
• In what ways can I demonstrate Christ’s work in me by owning my part in this conflict?

I’m praying those practices put you on a path to pursuing peace with those you work with today!

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If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:5-8)

This morning, we start in chapter 1 with a focus on James’s call for us to ask God for wisdom. In verse 5, James writes, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James leaves it open-ended as to what specifically we are to ask for wisdom about, leaving us to assume that he is inviting us to ask the Lord for wisdom about anything—including the seemingly big and little things related to our work.

Often times, I’m afraid we expect far too little from God, welcoming his wisdom as we seek to make major life decisions (such as where to move or who to marry), but failing to ask for his wisdom in the more routine matters of life and work (such as when we can’t see how we will meet a deadline at work, or we’re trying to discern product market fit, or when we’re trying to navigate a relationship with a difficult co-worker). James is inviting us to ask God for wisdom in all of these things and more.

Why does James place such a strong emphasis on asking God for wisdom? Well, most practically, as James 1 makes clear, God is the giver of all wisdom (verse 5) and “every good and perfect gift” (verse 17). God is the source of all true wisdom, so we would be fools not to ask him for wisdom as we work. But there’s a second reason we are called to explicitly ask God for wisdom: Asking for wisdom is one way in which we recognize that God is God and we are not, thus demonstrating our ultimate trust in him. As busy professionals, it can be easy to forget that it is God—not us—who produces results through our work. Regularly asking for his wisdom as we go about our work reminds us that it is God alone that gives us the wisdom to do our work well.

The Christian life is a matter of trusting God to provide all things, including wisdom as we work. Take a moment to humbly ask God for wisdom for specific things regarding the work ahead of you today.

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Series: God's Will for Your Work
Devotional: 1 of 4

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:33-34)

Which job should I take? What goals is God calling me to pursue in my business? Has God closed the door on this opportunity for good? All of these are variations of the same question: What is God‘s will for my work?

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to explore four biblical truths for discerning God’s will for your work that I’m confident will lead you to unprecedented freedom, clarity, and joy. The first might surprise you…

Truth #1: Scripture says very little about God’s will for you tomorrow, but a lot about God’s will for you today.

If you search “God’s will” in the New Testament you will find nothing that resembles the types of future tense discernment we spend so much time worrying about today. And when Scripture does talk about the future, it’s almost always in the context of commanding us not to worry about it (see Matthew 6:34)!

What should we do instead? “Seek first” the kingdom of God “and his righteousness” (see Matthew 6:33). In other words, prioritize God in all things and obey him in all things like Christ did—that is God’s will for you today and tomorrow. Paul says this more explicitly in 1 Thessalonians 4:3: “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.”

The best book I’ve read on this topic is The Will of God as a Way of Life by pastor Jerry Sittser, who summarizes today’s truth beautifully: “[After years of study] I discovered that the Bible says very little about the will of God as a future pathway. Instead, the Bible warns us about anxiety and presumption concerning the future, assures us that God is in control, and commands us to do the will of God we already know in the present….Obedience is God’s will for our lives.”

This truth isn’t just freeing—it’s empowering. Instead of being paralyzed by uncertainty about the future, we can move forward with confidence, knowing that God’s will for today is clear.

Before you close this email, identify one specific way you can obey God at work today. Maybe it’s extending grace to a difficult coworker, working with excellence even when no one’s watching, or simply pausing to pray before a meeting. God’s will isn’t a mystery—it’s right in front of you. Obey and glorify him as you work today.

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Series: Wisdom for Work from the Psalms
Devotional: 3 of 7

Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

I’ve noticed a strikingly consistent theme in the biographies of history’s most impactful Christians: They thought about death—a lot. 

At the age of 29, Martin Luther told a mentor “he didn’t think he would live very long.” William Wilberforce “seriously believed he was likely to die violently” before he completed his life’s work of abolishing the slave trade. And Alexander Hamilton “imagine[d] death so much it [felt] more like a memory.”

These men lived and worked hundreds of years ago when death was far more common and thinking about it was in some ways inevitable. That stands in stark contrast to our culture today. In an essay titled The Pornography of Death, anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer argued that death has replaced sex as the most taboo topic of our modern age.

But in Psalm 90, Moses says that meditating on death is one of the wisest things we can do. Why? Because dwelling on death leads us to “walk [carefully], not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (see Ephesians 5:15-16).

So here’s my encouragement to you: Find a way to remind yourself of the brevity of life today. Here are just four ideas.

#1: Choose a passage of Scripture to memorize that will remind you of the sobering reality of death. Some of my favorites are Psalm 39:5, Psalm 90:12, Psalm 144:4, Job 7:7, Ecclesiastes 7:2, James 4:14, and Ecclesiastes 12:7.

#2: Take a walk in a cemetery on your drive to or from work today.

#3: Read a great book on death from a Christian perspective. Two that I return to often are On Death by Tim Keller and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.

#4: Put physical reminders of death around you. Ancient merchants would often write the Latin memento mori (meaning “think of death”) in large letters on the first page of their accounting books. I have “running out of time” written inside my running shoes. Whatever works for you, works.

These practices will look foolish to the world, but Scripture says they are wise for the believer. Do something to dwell on death today so that you may gain a heart of wisdom and redeem your time for the glory of God and the good of others!

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“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.'” Exodus 31:1-5 (NIV)

In this somewhat obscure passage in the book of Exodus, we meet a man named Bezalel who God is calling to create the Tabernacle of the Lord. This was an incredible call and responsibility, for the Tabernacle was meant to be the physical place in which God met with His people as well as home to the Ark of the Covenant, the beautiful, gold-covered chest containing the stone tablets in which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments.

God chooses Bezalel to do the hard, God-like work of creating the Tabernacle. But before Bezalel gets to work “to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts,” we are told that God had to first “[fill Bezalel] with the Spirit of God.” Fascinating! Why would Bezalel need God’s Spirit in order to create? Because God is the first entrepreneur, the source of all creativity, and the originator of our ability to make something of value out of the raw materials of this world. In order for Bezalel to fulfill his call to create, he needed more of God’s likeness.

It’s interesting to note that the Tabernacle was meant to be a physical representation of the way the world ought to be, with God at the center of it. The design of the interior of the Tabernacle pointed worshippers to the Holy of Holies, an interior room in which the Israelites believed God physically existed. The Tabernacle was essentially its own world, with everything pointing towards God. So when God called Bezalel to create the Tabernacle, He was inviting him to mimic God’s creation of earth, thus bringing glory to God by emulating his creative Spirit.

When you and I create—when we launch new businesses, write new books, compose new songs, build new things, create new art—we aren’t doing something “secular.” We are imitating (albeit in a quite imperfect way) the work of the First Entrepreneur. Creativity is not a fringe thing. It is central to who God is, and who we are as His image-bearers.

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Series: Wisdom for Work from David

Devotional: 7 of 7

I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. (1 Chronicles 29:17)

After giving his considerable “personal treasures of gold and silver,” for the building of the temple, David took the time to examine his heart to see if he had given that treasure with God-honoring intent (see 1 Chronicles 29:3-17). Why? I think because David understood how easy it is to do godly things with a mix of godly and ungodly motives.

I experienced this first hand just a few months ago. I had just made a decision within my business that triggered a significant financial sacrifice. But I was convicted through prayer that it was the right thing to do.

Implementing this decision required that I notify some fellow believers. And as I did, these friends consistently commented on how “proud” they were of me for taking this action.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was quietly anticipating this praise. While my motives for making this financial sacrifice were mostly pure, there was a part of me that was secretly hoping my friends would commend my decision.

My confession here and David’s words in today’s passage point to an important truth: It is so easy to take God-honoring actions at work with less than God-honoring motives—to do the right things for the wrong reasons. 

What are we to do with that truth? Let me suggest three responses.

First, confess your sinful motives to God and others. Maybe you’re in a season of working “with all your heart” as Colossians 3:23 commands, but if you’re honest, you’re not really doing so “for the Lord.” You are grinding away “for the love of money” (see 1 Timothy 6:10). If that’s you, confess that less than God-honoring motive to God and your Christian community.

Second, be amazed at the grace God has shown you which is big enough to cover not just the “bad things” you do, but even the “good things” you do for the wrong reasons.

Finally, don’t wait for a pure motive before you obey God’s commands. There had to have been some part of David that was motivated by the praise of others to give his treasure. But that didn’t keep him from obeying God’s commands.

So it should be with us. God is calling you to take some action at work this week. Are your motives pure? No. But if you’re confessing those less than righteous motives and the balance of your heart is to honor God, take action. If you’re waiting for perfectly pure “honest intent,” you’re going to be waiting forever.

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Series: The Most Excellent Way

Devotional: 5 of 5

I will show you the most excellent way…love…keeps no record of wrongs. (1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:5)

Tim Goeglein collapsed in his White House office. His secret life of plagiarism had been found out and the guilt and shame were literally crippling.

A couple days after his resignation, Goeglein received a call. His former boss, President George W. Bush, wanted to see him.

Terrified, Goeglein entered the Oval Office, looked President Bush in the eye, and began his groveling apology: “Sir, I owe you…” 

But the President wouldn’t let Goeglein finish his apology. “You’re forgiven,” Bush said.

Goeglein was certain he misunderstood what the President said, so he attempted to apologize twice more until Bush said, “You know, Tim, grace and mercy are real. I have known grace and mercy in my own life and you're forgiven. We can talk about all of that [referring to Goeglein’s plagiarism] or we can talk about the last eight years.”

Throughout this series, we’ve been studying what Paul called “the most excellent way” to live and work, chronicled in the famous “Love Chapter” of 1 Corinthians 13. Today, we conclude with a look at Paul’s words that love “keeps no record of wrongs,” a truth beautifully exemplified by President Bush.

But the ultimate example of course—and the ultimate motivation for us to keep “no record of wrongs”—is the love God has shown us by removing our sins “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:11-12).

Now, keeping “no record of wrongs” is not the same as “forgive and forget.” For starters, it’s impossible to literally forget many sins committed against us. It’s also unwise. If you’re a principal of a school and a teacher is accused of sexual abuse, you’re called to forgive them, but it would be the height of folly to allow that teacher to come back to work the next day.

So what does it look like to keep “no record of wrongs” at work? At a minimum, it looks like extending forgiveness to the wrongdoer. But I think Christ’s example leads us to do more than that. I think it calls us to pray for the wrongdoer and their flourishing, to refuse to consider past wrongdoings when evaluating someone’s current performance, and to avoid sharing details of a co-worker’s sins and shortcomings with those who don’t truly need to know.

Does it sound impossible to live and work in this loving way? It is apart from Christ in us. May we abide in him daily so that we’re so filled up with a sense of his love for us that we can’t help but extend the overflow of that love to those we work with. For this is “the most excellent way.”

Jordan 

P.S. If you want to go deeper on what true biblical forgiveness looks like at work, listen to Tim Keller and I discuss that topic here.

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Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" 
Devotional: 4 of 7 

God set [the lights and stars] in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” (Genesis 1:17-20) 

God could have created everything in a single day. But instead, he paced himself, spreading the initial work of creation over six “days.” 

Take today’s passage as an example. On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon, and stars. Could he have also created “living creatures” that same day? Of course! But he chose not to. After finishing the work of creating the heavenly lights, God called it a day. He rested. And then of course, on the seventh day, he did no work at all, establishing for the first time the idea of Sabbath (see Genesis 2:1-3). 

God didn’t need to rest on the Sabbath. And he certainly had no need to pace himself as he worked those first six days. But he did. Why? 

I don’t think it’s farfetched to conclude that because God created work to be good, life-giving, and worshipful (see Genesis 2:15) he knew we would be tempted to work nonstop. And even though he doesn’t need rest, he knew that we would. So like any good father, he did something he didn’t need to do in order to teach his children a lesson. 

I think of this nearly every time I cross the road with my young kids. When I’m by myself, I can check for traffic in a split second by barely turning my head. But when my kids are watching, I dramatize the entire ritual. I slowly turn my head all the way to the left and say, “No cars this way,” and then do the same to my right. Of course, I don’t need to be this careful when crossing a street, but my kids do. So I model that behavior for their good. 

I have a feeling that’s one of the reasons why God paces himself as he works. Our heavenly Father didn’t create us to work like machines that never shut down. So he models a rhythm of work and rest that we are called to mimic. 

How can you imitate your Father’s pace this week? Maybe it’s scheduling a 15-minute walk in the middle of your workday. Or shutting down your laptop, leaving your unfinished work for tomorrow. Or accepting and enjoying the gift of Sabbath. Whatever it is, remember that you are created in the image of the God who paces himself. So pace yourself today.

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Series: Wisdom for Work from the Psalms
Devotional: 6 of 7

Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you….What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me? (Psalm 116:7, 12)

A friend of mine was watching a kid play his heart out on the basketball court even though his team was up 20 points. After the game, my friend asked the boy why he was hustling so hard when victory was guaranteed. The kid’s response was perfect: “Because I love my coach.”

That’s a pretty good picture of what David is getting at in Psalm 116.

In verse 7, David instructs his soul to rest. Why? Because “the Lord has been good” to him. As we express gratitude for the things God has already done in and through our work, we can rest and be content even if the Lord doesn’t provide anything else in the future.

In short, thankfulness is a path to rest. But it’s not just a path to rest. In verse 12, David says that rest is a path to ambition—to leave it all out on the court, if you will. “What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?” David asks. In other words, in view of the Lord’s graciousness, what can I do to serve him? 

David understood that ambition to do the Lord’s work was a proper response to the good things the Lord had given him. How much more true is that for us who know the ultimate good that was done for us on the cross?

The goodness God has shown us in Jesus Christ should lead us to thankfulness and rest. But it should also lead us to great ambition—not to earn our salvation, but as a worshipful response to it (see Ephesians 2:8-10).

Take a moment right now to meditate on how “the Lord has been good to you” this past week. Thank him for the projects you’ve completed at work, the impact your work is having in the lives of customers and your team, or just the fact that you have work and income. 

Once you’ve given thanks, take a moment to rest in the goodness of God. And then allow that rest to lead you to work “heartily as unto the Lord” as a response of worship today (see Colossians 3:23)!

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See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind….[My people] will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. (Isaiah 65:17, 21-22)

We’re in a four-week series exploring the biblical truths illustrated in J.R.R. Tolkien’s remarkable parable, Leaf by Niggle. Niggle was an artist who spent years developing a massive painting of a tree. Sadly, Niggle died only having finished a single leaf. But when Niggle arrives in the heavenly afterlife, he finds his tree finished and even better than he imagined!

Last week, we saw how this story illustrates the biblical hope that there are eternal rewards tied to how we work in this life (see Colossians 3:23-24). Here’s what I want us to see today: That even though we have hope that our work matters for eternity, it is only proper to mourn over unfinished and unfulfilling work today.

This is what we see Niggle doing in Tolkien’s short story. When death is on Niggle’s doorstep, he works frantically to finish his masterpiece, but eventually, he resigns himself to the inevitable: “‘Oh dear!’ said poor Niggle, beginning to weep. ‘And it’s not even finished!’”

Niggle feared what many of us do—that we will never close the gap between what we can envision accomplishing in this life and what we actually will. We will all die with “unfinished symphonies.”

But maybe you’re not mourning over work you won’t be able to finish. Perhaps you’re mourning over work you have yet to begin. You feel as if you have yet to find the work that best matches your gifts and passions and you’re “stuck” in what feels like a “dead-end job.”

It’s only natural to lament over these things, for unfinished and unfulfilling work were not a part of God’s original design for work (see Genesis 1-3). But sin has ensured that work today is difficult and we will all die with unfulfilled dreams for our work, just like Niggle.

These are things we should mourn over. But just as we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope” in death (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13), we also do not mourn over our work in the same way as the rest of the world. Why? Because there is coming a day when we will work free from the curse of sin! 

Today’s passage makes this clear. Isaiah is sharing a prophetic vision of the New Earth where God will dwell with us forever (see also Revelation 21:1-5). But Isaiah’s picture of eternity isn’t of disembodied souls floating around and playing harps all day. Isaiah says we will work for eternity! We will “build houses,” “plant vineyards,” and “not labor in vain.” 

And because there will be no sin, there will be no unfinished symphonies or unfulfilling work. We will have all the time we need to paint our masterpieces, finish our novels, plant our vineyards, and “long enjoy the work of [our] hands.”

How do we maintain this perspective in the day-to-day grind of earthly work? That’s the question we’ll answer next week.

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Series: The Most Excellent Way

Devotional: 3 of 5

I will show you the most excellent way…love…does not boast. (1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:4)

George Washington Carver had captivated the United States Congress. It was January 1921, and Carver was testifying about the dozens of different foods he had learned how to make out of peanuts: ice cream, cereal, pickles—the list went on and on. 

Amused, one congressman asked where Carver learned how to do this. “From a book,” Carver replied. What book? the congressman wanted to know. “The Bible,” Carver said. “I didn’t make these discoveries,” Carver explained. “God has only worked through me to reveal to his children some of his wonderful providence.”

What a terrific example of the “the most excellent way” Paul calls us to at work: without boasting. The NASB translates this passage as saying, “love does not brag.” The NKJV says “love does not parade itself.” Because that is the example we have in Christ, the perfect personification of love.

John 8:53 records a religious leader asking Jesus, “Are you greater than our father Abraham?” Christ, of course, had every reason to boast and answer that question in the affirmative. But instead, he replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me” (John 8:54).

That’s the rationale behind Paul’s command to “not boast.” I don’t know about you, but it is hard for me to boast about nothing. Maybe I’m just an excitable, exuberant guy, but I think all of us feel the need to boast in or praise something.

Scripture seems to agree, which is why I think God’s Word doesn’t just tell us what not to boast about. It also encourages us to boast about three things.

#1: Boast about the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 1:31). This is what we saw in George Washington Carver. When offered an opportunity to boast in his professional accomplishments, he pivoted to boast in God.

#2: Boast about your weaknesses (see 2 Corinthians 11:30). Why? Because when we’re transparent about our weaknesses and we succeed, it allows us to point to the Lord as the source of our strength. 

#3: Boast about others. Paul had no problem boasting about his co-workers (see 2 Corinthians 7:4). Neither should we. I was reminded of this recently when speaking with a reader who really impressed me. I was about to invite this guy onto my podcast, but before I could, he said, “Man, you should have my boss Tim on your show!” 

Here’s my challenge for you this morning: Identify one thing you’re tempted to boast about today—closing a deal, getting a promotion, whatever. Next, jot down how you can reframe your boast to brag not in yourself, but in the Lord, your weaknesses, or others.

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Series: Thanks for Thorns and Thistles
Devotional: 3 of 5

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face. (John 19:1-3)

God never intended for work to be painful and frustrating. According to Genesis 1 and 2, work was God’s first gift to humankind!

But when sin entered the world, the curse broke every part of creation, including the world of work. God told Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you” (see Genesis 3:17-18).

That backstory makes the Romans’ choice of a “crown of thorns” for Jesus all the more interesting. Knowingly or not, the Romans used a thorn—this symbol of the curse—to crown the One whose resurrection would overturn that curse. It is precisely because Christ allowed himself to be crowned with thorns that, three days later, we could sing:

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

And Scripture makes clear that Christ’s blessings flow even to our cursed work. In Isaiah’s prophetic vision of the Eternal Heaven on Earth, he reports God as saying:

“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth….[My people] will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit…my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain.” (Isaiah 65:17, 21-23)

No more thorns and thistles. No more painful toil. No more leaving the office demoralized by how little “real work” you got done. This is work as it was always intended to be and always will be on the New Earth.

Throughout this series, I’ve argued that we should lament and give thanks for the “thorns and thistles” that make our work difficult today. Everything we’ve just seen points to the next reason why: We should give thanks for thorns and thistles because they can lead us to long for eternity. And the more bitter our work in this life, the sweeter the hope of perfect work with Christ will be.

When your work feels painful today, look to Jesus’s crown of thorns and remember that redemption does indeed flow far as the curse is found—even to the thorns that thwart your work. And thank God for the thorns and thistles that lead you to hope for the day when you will “long enjoy the work of your hands.”

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Series: Working Without Idolatry
Devotional: 2 of 4

“You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” (Psalm 4:7)

We’re in a series exploring four principles for enjoying our work without turning our jobs into idols. Last week we unpacked Principle #1: Insist that Jesus is better. Today we turn to Principle #2: Delight in your work freely and fully.

Now, I know that may seem oxymoronic. After all, if Jesus is better than my job, shouldn’t I try to love my work less, not more? I’d argue that’s impossible to do and foolish to try for two reasons. 

First, God created you to enjoy your work. Work was God’s first gift to humankind in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 1:26-28) and one of the many gifts he has in store for us on the New Earth (see Isaiah 65:17-23). So, to try to love your work less is to fight against God’s design.

Second, the more you enjoy God’s gifts, the more you can appreciate the “betterness” of God. You see this idea all throughout the Psalms where joy in the Creator is frequently described in comparison to the joy the Psalmist found in some created thing. For example, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” (Psalm 84:10). “Your love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). "You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound” (Psalm 4:7). 

“How shall we confess this meaningfully, if the grain and wine have never put any joy in our hearts whatsoever?” says pastor Joe Rigney. “To say that we desire nothing besides [God] is an empty compliment if it is literally true. It would be as if to say, ‘I desire nothing besides you because I've never desired anything at all.’ But surely what the Psalmist means is, ‘I have desired many things in my life, many things of earth. But compared to you they are nothing.’”

Now, this is not a license to self-indulgence and materialism—a nuance I will draw out more fully next week. But the general principle is clear: If you want to enjoy your work without making it an idol, the solution isn’t loving your work less, but more—freely and fully delighting in your God-given vocation in a God-honoring way so that you may more deeply and honestly appreciate the truth that Jesus is better. 

Jen Wilkin put it this way: “Find freedom in knowing that your human creativity is an echo intended to inspire worship of your Creator. And then, [work] freely to your heart’s delight.”

Amen! With that in mind, ask the Lord for the gift of delighting in your work as a means of delighting more in him today.

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Series: Common Grace & Uncommon Work

Devotional: 4 of 5

The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. (Psalm 145:9)

I was talking with a friend recently who explained how he felt called by God to quit podcasting because of how much anxiety it was causing him.

Every one of this guy’s friends was telling him that he needed the podcast to grow his business. But he shut down the show anyway. And then, his business exploded.

Reflecting on this series of events, my friend said, “It just goes to show that God rewards doing business his way.”

“Ummmmm, not so fast,” I said.

I went on to lovingly explain to my friend that it may be true that God’s blessing was tied to what he perceived to be an act of faithfulness. But not necessarily. While there are certainly eternal rewards tied to working “as unto the Lord” (see Colossians 3:23-24), temporal rewards are not always connected to our righteousness. To quote my college statistics professor, “Correlation does not imply causation.”

Because, as we’ve seen throughout this series on common grace, God gives good gifts to “the righteous and the unrighteous” (see Matthew 5:45). That truth has a number of practical implications for our work including this: Common grace forces us to decouple our success from our faithfulness.

If, in the words of today’s passage, “the Lord is good to all” and not just the faithful, then my friend can’t connect his success to his obedience. Because there are plenty of people not working “as unto the Lord” who are succeeding by the world’s standards every day!

The same is true for you and me. If you get a promotion today or land a new customer, it’s not necessarily because you’ve had a consistent quiet time this month. And conversely, if you don’t land that promotion, it’s not necessarily because you forgot to tithe on Sunday. Remember, Job was “blameless and upright” (see Job 1:1) and yet he lost everything both personally and professionally!

Common grace reminds us that God doesn’t do good to us because we are good to him. He does good to us because he is good. May that truth lead you to follow his ways as you work today—not so that he will bless you, but because he created and redeemed you for his glory.

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Series: Mere Christians of the Bible
Devotional: 1 of 5

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. Jesus said to him, “Zacchaeus…I must stay at your house today.”...All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house.” (Luke 19:1-2, 5, 7-9)

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re not a pastor or donor-supported missionary, but a “mere Christian” like me who works as an entrepreneur, barista, or programmer. Today I’m kicking off a new series here on The Word Before Work exploring the lives of some mere Christians in the Bible and what they can teach us about our own work in the present—starting with Zaccheus.

After choosing to follow Jesus, modern readers half expect Jesus to call Zaccheus to abandon his “secular” work. But Luke mentions no such calling. 

Most scholars I’ve read believe that just as John the Baptist urged the tax collectors he baptized to return to their posts, Jesus likely encouraged Zaccheus to do the same (see Luke 3:12-14). Because as pastor John Piper says, “You don’t waste your life by where you work, but how and why.”

Believer, as you step into the New Year, trust that “where you work” is exactly where God wants you today. But, like Zacchaeus, ask yourself if God is calling you to re-examine how and why you work.

I used to think Zacchaeus was uniquely corrupt. However, according to the Theology of Work Commentary, his actions were likely just “industry standard practice.” Until Jesus opened his eyes, Zacchaeus was blind or indifferent to how his work harmed others. He was “just doing his job.”

The lesson for us is clear: Following Jesus as mere Christians requires that we question the conventional wisdom of our workplaces and industries to uncover opportunities for redemption and renewal. Here’s a 5-step process to help:

1. Pray for God to reveal how your work might harm others. 
2. Identify a common practice in your field worth questioning. 
3. Ask why this practice is done this way and what fundamental principles drive it. 
4. Evaluate those principles against God’s Word. 
5. Reimagine the practice with a commitment to God’s glory and others’ good.

Zacchaeus may have done this work alone, but you’re more likely to succeed with other believers. Seek out fellow mere Christians inside and outside your field to tackle this together today!

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Series: Wisdom for Work from the Exodus
Devotional: 6 of 7

On the sixth day, [the Israelites] gathered twice as much [manna]—two omers for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest.’” (Exodus 16:22-23)

This is the first time Sabbath rest is offered to human beings in the Bible. Contrary to the Israelites’ ruthless Egyptian masters who offered them no rest for 400 years, their perfect Heavenly Master offered them the gift of rest once every seven days. And he promised to provide the manna they needed for two days so that they could rest without worry!

The announcement of this gift undoubtedly led to great jubilation. And yet, Exodus 16:27 tells us that “some of the people went out on the seventh day,” to work. In her terrific study on Exodus, Jen Wilkin explains why, saying that while God had gotten his people out of slavery, he had yet to get the slavery out of his people who fell back into non-stop work due to four centuries' worth of habit.

That’s likely what kept the Israelites from resting. But this morning, I want you to consider what might be keeping you from Sabbath rest. Chances are, it’s one of these three lies.

Lie #1: Sabbath is irrelevant under the New Covenant. It is true that Sabbath is the only one of the Ten Commandments not repeated in the New Testament. “But even so,” says John Mark Comer, “the Sabbath still stands as wisdom. There isn’t a command in the New Testament to eat food or drink water or sleep eight hours a night. That’s just wisdom…You can skip the Sabbath — it’s not sin.” But it’s also not wise.

Lie #2: More work equals more productivity. Not necessarily. When the Israelites went to gather manna on the Sabbath, Exodus 16:27 says “they found none.” Similarly, Dr. John Pencavel of Stanford has found that our productive “output falls sharply after a 50-hour work-week, and falls off a cliff after 55 hours.” It’s almost as if God has designed us for a full day of rest once a week…

Lie #3: I’m not a slave. Tim Keller says, “Anyone who cannot obey God’s command to observe the Sabbath is a slave, even a self-imposed one.” Do you feel that you have to check email every day? If your phone buzzes, do you pick it up without even thinking? You’re more of a slave than you think. 

Sabbath is one way to declare that, through Christ, you are free from the pressures of this world. And it’s also a gift that God invites you to enjoy (see Mark 2:27). Accept that gift this and every week!

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“You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.” Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (NIV)

“Hustle” has got to be one of the most popular buzzwords in startup culture today. Shark Tank investors press entrepreneurs to “hustle” harder to generate sales. Everyone seems to be working on their “side-hustle” while keeping their 9-to-5 job. But what does the Bible have to say about our hustle? On the one hand, Scripture clearly celebrates hard work. Colossians 3:23 commands “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.” But while Christians can join in culture’s celebration of hard work, we must also wrestle with the Biblical truth that it is God, not us or our hustle, that produces results (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). As Christians, we must embrace the tension between hard work and trusting God in order to find true rest.

Joshua 6 provides an excellent case study for what it looks like to embrace this tension well. While the Israelites were being led by Joshua to the Promised Land, they came upon a major impasse: the seemingly impenetrable city of Jericho. As Joshua 6:2 records, “The Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands,’” but instead of giving Joshua and the Israelites superhuman strength and agility to take Jericho on their own, God required them to place an inordinate amount of trust in Him. God instructed Joshua to lead the Israelites in a seven day march around Jericho, concluding with an ear-splitting shout at the city’s walls.

Like so many other times in history, God chose to use “the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” Rather than allowing Joshua and the Israelites to win the battle on their own strength, God laid out a plan to ensure that He alone would get the glory. Before giving the Israelites victory, God asked them to trust Him to provide. Without blinking, Joshua did just that. The Israelites trusted in God’s plan. Then, they hustled: marching, blowing their trumpets, and shouting until Jericho’s walls collapsed.

Of course, it wasn’t the Israelites’ marching, shouting, and hustling that brought the walls of Jericho tumbling down. It was God. And that’s exactly what I think God wanted the Israelites and us to see. Our hard work is a good thing! But believing that our hustle is what is responsible for producing results in our work would be like the Israelites believing that shouting brought an impenetrable fortress crumbling to the ground.

As Joshua and the Israelites show us, we shouldn’t seek to resolve the tension between trusting and hustling; instead, we should embrace it. These ideas aren’t in conflict with one another, they are meant to be married together. But as Solomon shares in Proverbs 16, there is a sequence to trusting and hustling that honors the Lord and brings us true rest. It is that passage that we will focus on over the next three weeks.

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There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. (1 Corinthians 12:4–7)

Prior to Christ, the only object of Wilberforce’s work was his own glory. But upon his conversion, Wilberforce began asking questions about what God was up to in the world and how he might leverage his vocation to join in his Savior’s mission.

But where was Wilberforce to start? Britain had so many wrongs that needed to be righted: prolific prostitution, the orphan crisis, poverty, and of course the slave trade, which Wilberforce described as “that hideous traffic, so disgraceful to the British character.”

Wilberforce knew that he needed to focus intensely on one or two causes in Parliament in order to make the most of the life the Lord had given him to steward. But he was far less clear about what that cause should be. So, he took more than a year to explore his options. As one of his biographers wrote, “[Wilberforce] wasn’t about to be bullied or badgered into a decision on how to spend the rest of his life….He would need to know God’s mind, as he would put it…Wilberforce was not about to leap into the fray thoughtlessly; he would first ‘count the cost.’”

After he counted the cost and identified the object the Lord was leading him to focus on (the abolition of slavery), Wilberforce recognized that he needed to go all-in and focus singularly on that “Great Object.” And quickly, too. As his dear friend and prime minister William Pitt told him as Wilberforce was close to committing to the cause of abolition, “Do not lose time or the ground will be occupied by another.”

Wilberforce knew that if “God Himself was calling him to this task and he shrank from it, God too could find another to do it, and surely would.” In this, Wilberforce demonstrated remarkable humility in choosing his vocational path. He knew that if God wanted slavery abolished, He would find the right person to work through to that end. God didn’t need Wilberforce specifically to accomplish His plans.

I imagine Wilberforce meditating on Proverbs 19:21 at this critical juncture of his career: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” The Lord’s purpose would have prevailed with or without Wilberforce. But Wilberforce wanted the privilege of being a part of fighting evil on behalf of his Savior. And so, Wilberforce committed to the “Great Object” of his career from that moment forward: He would be God’s instrument for ending slavery throughout Great Britain.

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Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah. At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:38-44)

As we saw last week, Jesus was crystal clear on what his mission was, or in Jesus’s words, the work the Father gave him to do (John 17:4). Jesus came to earth to “proclaim the good news” of salvation in word and ultimate deed on the cross. And all throughout the gospels, we see Jesus saying “no” to demands on his time that didn’t fit in line with the “yes” he had already given to this mission from the Father.

Here in Luke 4, we see one of the clearest examples of Jesus’s disciplined adherence to his mission. After leaving the synagogue, Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law. As word got out about Jesus’s miracle, the town flocked to him, bringing their sick so that Jesus could make them well. This, of course, is one way in which Jesus was fulfilling his mission, by demonstrating that he was God incarnate. But after his healing spree, we see Jesus retreat “to a solitary place.” Jesus knew that, after the first round of healings, there would be demands for more. But when the people predictably showed up for a healing encore the next day, Jesus said “no” to the peoples’ request. Why? Jesus explained, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” [emphasis mine].

Yes, healing was a part of fulfilling Jesus’s mission. But it was only that—a part. Jesus knew that there was more important work for him to do, namely “proclaiming the good news” by “preaching in the synagogues” in preparation for the Passion on the cross.

When you’re building a company, writing a book, or managing a big project at work, there are many different things you have to complete in order to accomplish your mission. But that doesn’t mean that all of those tasks are equally important or should garner as much of your personal time and attention. It’s easy for everything to look important at work. But in reality, few things really are. Take a moment to discern the truly essential thing you need to accomplish this week in pursuit of your God-given mission, and say “no” to as much as you can that falls outside of that most critical task.

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Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. (Colossians 3:18 – 4:1)

Over the years, I have written frequently on Colossians 3:23 (Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters). In a way, this verse guides nearly everything I write on, calling all of us to lean into the work God has given us to do with all our hearts so that we would all do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. But today, I want to view this verse in its larger context to see what additional application we might glean.

As you can see from today’s passage, Colossians 3:23 is set in the middle of Paul’s instructions to Christian households. When read in its entirety, one thing stands out to me in this passage more than anything else: the spirit of mutual submission that we are called to in every aspect of our lives.

Wives are called to submit to their husbands. Husbands are called to love their wives and (as Paul adds in Ephesians 5) to “give himself up for her.”

Children are commanded to obey their parents. And fathers are called to serve their children through their words.

And, of course, “slaves” (what most theologians translate to “employees” or “workers” today), are commanded to submit to their employers, while employers are called to serve their employees by “providing…what is right and fair.”

Each time the seemingly powerless party is called to submit, the traditionally powerful is commanded to do largely the same.

It’s interesting that, for both employees and employers, Paul’s instruction is the same: Reimagine your work as if you are working for the Lord. If you are an employee, you are not primarily working for your employer: “It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (3:24). If you are an employer, you are not primarily working for shareholders, customers, or even for yourself. You are working for your “Master in heaven” (4:1).

Hierarchies at work are often necessary for efficiency and order. But whatever your position, view your work in light of this passage as a servant primarily to God, leading you to be a servant to those who work for you and those you work for. And let that picture of work make us more ambitious to do our most exceptional work, because it is for God’s glory and the good of others.

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Series: A God-Honoring Approach to Planning
Devotional: 3 of 4

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)

As we’ve seen throughout this series, planning is a good, God-honoring thing to do. But today’s passage reminds us that planning without recognizing our ultimate lack of control over our plans is arrogant and “evil.”

I’ve had to repent of this sin recently. A friend of mine was asking me what I've been working on and I said, “I’m working on a new book that will come out in October of next year.” This is a textbook example of the evil planning James is talking about, and my temptation is to do it all the time.

What’s the alternative? James tells us in verse 15: “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” If it is the Lord’s will, I’ll publish that book next October.

Why is it so important that we articulate our lack of control over our plans? Beyond the fact that it’s simple obedience to God’s Word, let me share three reasons.

First, it keeps us open to how the Lord might alter our plans. If I view a plan as “my plan” that I’m ultimately in control of, I’m going to hold that plan very tightly. But if I recognize that God alone is in control of my plan, I will hold it much more loosely and will be much more attuned to how the Lord might be calling me to change course.

Second, articulating our lack of control over our plans increases our reliance on the Lord for results. It’s a practical way to “remember the Lord your God” and that “it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth,” or bring your plans to fruition (see Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

Finally, it gives us an opportunity to demonstrate our faith to others. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t heard a lot of people uttering “Lord willing” at the office. Not only does this phrase signify that you’re a Christian, but at a deeper level, it communicates that you’re humbling yourself and your plans before God. 

I know it sounds trite, and I know it can sound awkward, but I’d challenge you to attach those two words—”Lord willing”—to the plans you articulate today.

Lord willing, we’ll finish that project by the end of the quarter.

Lord willing, I’ll be at that conference in December.

Lord willing, we should be able to hit that revenue number by the end of the year.

Verbalize your ultimate lack of control over your plans today, and watch to see what the Lord does with your obedience and humility!

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It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. (Romans 15:20)

As we have been exploring throughout this devotional series, Paul chose to work as a tentmaker in conjunction with his preaching ministry for some very deliberate reasons. Last week, we saw that Paul worked in the marketplace as a means of “becoming all things to all people” and “winning the respect of outsiders.” But why was Paul so eager to win the respect of the lost? In Romans 15:20, Paul alludes to the answer, saying, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known.” Paul worked as a tentmaker to become all things to all people so that he might increase his opportunities to preach the gospel to those who had yet to hear it.

Paul’s work as a tentmaker would have allowed him to preach the gospel in two powerful ways: through his actions and his words. While the New Testament gives us a tremendous glimpse at Paul’s eloquence and ability to preach the gospel through written and spoken word, one has to imagine that Paul preached an equally powerful sermon by simply living a Christ-transformed life as he worked alongside his fellow tentmakers and tradesmen. As we know from experience, modeling Christ-like character at work is one of the most effective ways to make the gospel winsome to the lost. Paul undoubtedly understood this and leveraged the attention his character would have received to point “outsiders” to the gospel explicitly through words. As the theologian T. G. Soares once pointed out, the New Testament accounts of Paul’s ministry “suggest the constant personal evangelism that Paul must have carried on during his hours of labor with the various fellow-workers with whom he was thrown into companionship.”

So, Paul clearly worked as a means of becoming “all things to all people,” and to preach the gospel in word and deed. But as we will see next week, there is one final reason why Paul chose to work as a tentmaker. As the biblical account of Priscilla and Aquila make clear, Paul also leveraged his vocation to disciple other believers, thus multiplying the spread of the gospel across the world.

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Series: Christmas Vocations Part III
Devotional: 1 of 4

And you, my child…will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him. (Luke 1:76)

Today we’re starting a new series here on The Word Before Work—a third installment of my semi-annual Christmas Vocations series where we explore the jobs of some of the characters of the Christmas narrative and what they can teach us about our own work today.

We begin with John the Baptist whose role was to “prepare the way” for Christ as we see in today’s passage—an excerpt from Zecharaiah’s prayer after John’s birth. 

Right from the get go, John was told he would never be top dog. His purpose in life was to play the proverbial second fiddle to his cousin Jesus. 

And all throughout the gospels, we see John joyfully embracing his secondary role. Referring to Jesus, John famously said, “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30).

John knew his place in God’s cosmic drama. The question is do we? Sure we do intellectually. But functionally, I think many of us spend an ungodly amount of energy clamoring to be center stage. As Christian rapper Sho Baraka says, “we find ourselves feeling like extras on the set of life, trying desperately to write a meaningful part for ourselves.”

How does this restless search for a “more meaningful part” in God’s story show up? It looks like obsessing over “winning” and “being the best” at work, rather than leading and serving others well. Or believing the lie that you must do something extraordinary for your life to matter rather than basing your significance on Christ’s extraordinary work of adopting you into God’s family. Or fixating on having “more impact for the kingdom” instead of wholeheartedly working on what God has already entrusted to you.

If you can relate to what I’m talking about, please hear this: Ironically, it is only once we embrace our role as “extras on the set of life” and Jesus as the star that we can be truly “successful.” Because then success is secure regardless of the part you play. It is based on the fact that God has given you an irrevocable invitation to enjoy and participate in the only eternal production there is. And once you grasp that, you are free. 

If you struggle embracing your role in the proverbial supporting cast of God’s kingdom, consider these three practices.

#1: Start every day on your knees in prayer, physically signifying your submission to Christ.

#2: Write John 3:30 and post it near your desk (“He must become greater; I must become less.”)

#3: Fast from social media for at least a week as these apps subtly (and not so subtly) try to convince us that we, rather than Christ, are the center of the story of life.

Now, go fade into the background behind Christ as you work today!

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Series: 7 Biblical Principles for Resolving Conflict at Work
Devotional: 1 of 7

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

In his excellent book The Peacemaker (which was hugely influential in my writing of this series), author Ken Sande defines conflict as “a difference in opinion or purpose that frustrates someone’s goals or desires.”

With that definition as our guide, it’s easy to see that “conflict” is everywhere in our work. But the command to make peace is everywhere in God’s Word. 

After declaring “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus went on to dedicate huge portions of the Sermon on the Mount to the art of resolving conflict (see Matthew 5:21-26, 38-41, 43-48, 6:14, and 7:1-5). Commenting on that sermon, pastor Tony Merida says, “Clearly being a peacemaker is a big deal to Jesus!”

It was also a big deal to Jesus’s followers. As Ken Sande points out, “every Epistle in the New Testament contains a command to live at peace with one another.” Take 1 Peter 3:11 as just one example. Peter says believers “must seek peace and pursue it.”

I am not a natural peacemaker. And I’m willing to bet that you’d admit the same. So, what will compel us to pursue peace per Christ’s command? That brings me to the first biblical principle for resolving conflict at work…

Principle #1: Praise the Prince of Peace for the grace and mercy he has shown you.

You and I were once God’s enemies (see Romans 5:10). But “since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (see Romans 5:1). And staring at the peace Christ has secured for us is the key to sharing peace with others (see Matthew 18:21-35). 

What does it look like practically to stare at the peace we’ve been given? Here are three ideas.

First, get on your knees and remember what God has saved you from. One of my closest friends starts every day this way as a means of praising the Prince of Peace.

Second, add a time of confession to your quiet time routine. Why? Because as Paul David Tripp points out, “No one gives grace better than [the one] who humbly admits that he desperately needs it himself.”

Finally, breathe in grace and mercy. Sande says that Christians ought to be people who “breathe grace” in conflict. But “we cannot breathe out what we have not breathed in.” So, try this physical practice. Literally exhale slowly as you confess your sins. Then breathe in slowly as a means of physically representing the life-giving peace that Christ secured on your behalf at Calvary.

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Series: Work in Heaven
Devotional: 1 of 5

See, I will create new heavens and a new earth….my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain. (Isaiah 65:17, 22-23)

I talk a lot about the work God’s Word promises we will do for eternity. But I know this is a wild and new idea for many. If that’s you, let me bring you up to speed in three bullets:

• Nobody will spend eternity “in heaven.” God promises to bring heaven to earth and to dwell with us here forever (see Revelation 21:1-5).
• While the present heaven is marked by rest (see Revelation 14:13), the New Earth is marked by active service and worship (see Revelation 22:3-5).
• We will worship God not just by singing but by long enjoying the work of our hands (see Isaiah 65:17-23).

With those foundational truths under our feet, I’ll use the rest of this series to share 5 biblical truths about the nature of work on the New Earth. The first is seen clearly in today’s passage: We who are in Christ will delight in our work for eternity.

Why? Because we will be with God fully (see Revelation 21:1-5) and our work will be free from the curse of sin (see Revelation 22:3). Which is exactly what God intended from the beginning (see Genesis 1:26-28)!

It’s hard to imagine how glorious this will be. Thankfully, Rudyard Kipling imagined it for us in a beautiful poem I’ve hung on my office wall:

When Earth’s last picture is painted,
And the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colors have faded,
And the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it,
Lie down for an aeon or two,
’Till the Master of All Good Workmen
Shall put us to work anew. . . .
And no one shall work for the money. 
And no one shall work for fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It 
For the God of Things as They are!

But that could be way off in the future. What does this mean for your work today? Let me suggest a practical response to the truth that we will one day delight in our work for eternity.

First, make a physical or digital list of things you hate about your current work. Difficulty hearing God’s voice, co-workers who can’t meet deadlines, the exhaustion that comes from grinding just to make ends meet, etc.

Second, put a line through the middle of each item and write “Isaiah 65” at the top of your list as a means of physically representing the hope of today’s passage.

Finally, pray every time you see the list. Pray for relief from those thorns and thistles. Praise God for how these challenges drive you to him. And praise him for the promise that one day, you will “long enjoy” your work free from these current frustrations.

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Series: Work that Physically Lasts for Eternity
Devotional: 5 of 5

Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. (Revelation 22:12)

I hope this series has inspired you to chase hard after the remarkable reward of your work physically lasting into eternity. But you may be thinking, Jordan, it doesn’t feel quite right to be motivated by these eternal rewards.

I know I felt that way for years. Before I address this feeling of guilt, I want to make it crystal clear that Jesus is the ultimate treasure of heaven—not our work being considered “the glory of the nations.” That said, there are at least three reasons why we should be comfortable unashamedly chasing after the rewards God promises us.

First, God encourages us to. If God didn’t want us to be motivated by eternal rewards, then why did Jesus spend so much time talking about them? In Matthew 6:1-6 Jesus mentioned three rewards in just six verses! As Dr. Randy Alcorn says, “If we maintain that it’s wrong to be motivated by rewards, we bring a serious accusation against Christ!”

Second, we should be free from the guilt of chasing after eternal rewards because most eternal rewards are tied to sacrifice. They require giving up something in the present for something far greater in the future (see Colossians 3:23-24 and Luke 6:22-23 as examples). Maybe that’s why Scripture is constantly saying that these rewards are an act of justice (see Hebrews 6:10, Jeremiah 17:10, and Revelation 22:12).

I don’t know about you, that idea makes me uncomfortable. Because I know you and I don’t “deserve” a single thing from God. But God in his incomprehensible goodness and grace says he will “repay” us for the good we do. Why? John Eldredge explains saying, “God seems to be of the opinion that no one should be expected to sustain the rigors of the Christian life without…being brazenly rewarded for it."

Finally, we should boldly chase after eternal rewards because the more rewards we have, the more gifts we will be able to bring to Jesus. Look back at Isaiah 60—one of the core passages of this series. The people aren’t bringing “the glory of the nations” into the New Jerusalem for their glory, but for God’s. They bring their ships, incense, and refined “silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord” (v. 9).

The same will be true for us. When Jesus graciously redeems the work of our hands and carries our paintings, skyscrapers, books, and inventions into eternity, we will take those rewards and lay them right back down at the feet of our King. So go and do your work with excellence, love, and in accordance with God’s commands today, brazenly chasing after that reward!

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Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:6-11)

We’re in a four-week series exploring what Easter means for our work. Two weeks ago, we saw how Easter gives us an identity work can never provide. Last week, we saw how Easter gives us a King worthy of our allegiance. This morning, we see that King Jesus gives us a mission to carry out.

As I mentioned last week, Easter can be thought of as a sort of Inauguration Day, ushering in the Kingdom of God in which Jesus is King. As we know from our modern experience, Inauguration Day is the moment in which power is transferred from one regime to another. But here’s the thing: An inauguration is powerless unless the leader’s followers share the news of the transfer of power.

Easter declared that Jesus—not Caesar or any other earthly authority—is the ultimate, rightful King. But somebody had to share that good news—what Jesus called the “gospel of the Kingdom” (see Matthew 24:14).

That’s the mission Jesus gave to Mary at the tomb (see John 20:17). And as today’s passage shows, it’s also the mission Jesus gave to us: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). 

King Jesus has given us a mission to be His ambassadors throughout the world, declaring His lordship over every square inch of creation, including our places of work. We are called to reveal Jesus’s kingship and to use our work to bring us one step closer to His Kingdom being “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

What does that look like practically? It looks like medical professionals developing vaccines for deadly viruses, because in the Kingdom “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (see Revelation 21:4). It looks like artists creating beautiful things, because the Kingdom is filled with beauty (see Revelation 21:2). It looks like leaders being “persecuted because of righteousness” and doing the right thing, because “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (see Matthew 5:10). It looks like all of us heralding the good news of the gospel so that our co-workers might come to know Jesus the King (see Matthew 28:16-20).

Easter made clear that Jesus is King and He has given us a mission to be ambassadors announcing His reign. Let us all work to reveal His Kingdom today!

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“So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.” (Ecclesiastes 2:17-18)

J.R.R. Tolkien had a serious thing for trees. So when a neighbor cut down one of his favorite trees in 1943, Tolkien was furious. But his anger was about much more than the loss of the towering evergreen. Tolkien saw the “lopped and mutilated” tree as a metaphorical preview for what he feared for his “internal Tree”—his life’s work, The Lord of the Rings.

By this time, Tolkien had spent more than a decade toiling away at his magnum opus, but he was still a long way from completing it. World War II was in full swing in Tolkien’s home of Great Britain, and while the fifty-one-year-old was at no risk of being drafted into service, his experience as an officer in the First World War led to the sober realization that even as a citizen, his life and his life’s work might soon suffer the same fate as his neighbor’s tree. As his biographer explains, Tolkien was “fearful that in the end he would achieve nothing,” which was, of course, “a dreadful and numbing thought.”

After sharing these fears with Christian friends such as C.S. Lewis, Tolkien was inspired to sit down and write a short story—an autobiographical parable titled Leaf by Niggle. 

Niggle was a painter—an artist like Tolkien himself—who had a massive vision for the work he would accomplish in his lifetime. One day, Niggle caught a vision for a painting of a leaf. Over time, that vision expanded to a painting of an entire tree, and then beyond that tree, a beautiful countryside with forests and snow-capped mountains. For years, Niggle worked diligently on his painting, but he never felt like he was accomplishing much. 

One night, Niggle came down with a fever. Knowing that the end of his life was near, he worked frantically to finish his masterpiece, but it was too little too late. As death closed in, Niggle burst into tears, realizing his life’s work would go unfinished.

After Niggle’s death, his neighbors were searching through his home when they discovered the enormous canvas Niggle had erected for his magnum opus. But after years of work, Niggle had only finished “one beautiful leaf.” The neighbors had the small painting framed and placed in a local museum, “and for a long while ‘Leaf: by Niggle’ hung there in a recess, and was noticed by a few eyes. But eventually the Museum was burnt down, and the leaf, and Niggle, were entirely forgotten in his old country.”

Depressing story, huh?

Here’s the thing: We are all Niggle. We all envision more for our work than we’ll ever be able to accomplish in a lifetime, and we fear that the little we do accomplish will “burn up” in the end—just like Niggle’s painting. This is what led Solomon to say that all of his work was “meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

If this life is all there is, then Solomon was right. Our work is in vain. But you and I know something Solomon couldn’t—that through Christ, death would be defeated, ensuring that this life is not all there is. Death is not the end of our stories or the stories of our work. 

J.R.R. Tolkien knew that which is why his story of Niggle doesn’t end where we left off today. How does Niggle’s story end? I’ll share next week!

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But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

By the time C.S. Lewis turned 17, his atheism had been quite fully formed. According to one of his biographers, “the rational case for religion was, in Lewis’s view, totally bankrupt.”

But something other than reason kept nagging at Lewis, causing some part of him to long for more than what logic could provide. “He continued to find himself experiencing deep feelings of desire,” through “momentary and transient epiphanies” which left “nothing but a memory and a longing.”

The most significant of these moments took place when Lewis picked up a copy of a fantasy novel called Phantastes. His biographer writes, “Everything was changed for [Lewis] as a result of reading the book. He had discovered a ‘new quality,’ a ‘bright shadow,’ which seemed to him like a voice calling him from the ends of the earth.”

Lewis had no idea at the time that the book’s author, George MacDonald, was a Christian. All he knew was that this was a marvelous novel that caused him to long for something he didn’t yet have. Yet, “a seed had been planted, and it was only a matter of time before it began to germinate.”

Last week, we looked at three ways in which our work matters for eternity beyond sharing the gospel and “saving souls” (as important as that is!). Today, I want to focus our attention on a fourth way, illustrated by the story above: The work you and I do today is a means of “spreading the aroma of Christ,” causing others to long for his Kingdom.

When Lewis opened Phantastes, he was totally closed off intellectually to Christianity. But there was something about that book that was more true, beautiful, and powerful than anything he had ever experienced. Only years later would Lewis make the connection of the themes of that novel to the “True Myth” of Christianity. But the work of MacDonald—even though it never explicitly mentioned the name of Jesus—clearly accomplished an eternally significant purpose, causing Lewis to “catch a whiff” of what he would later find out only Christianity could provide.

Today, you and I have an opportunity to create this same kind of craving for the Kingdom in our work.

If you’re a personal trainer, doctor, or nurse, you are helping people live healthier lives, pointing them to the full restoration of their bodies made possible by Christ’s resurrection.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you are fixing what is broken in creation by solving problems for customers, causing them to long for the restoration of all things.

If you’re an artist or writer, you have a chance to tell stories that spread the aroma of Christ and what life should be and will be like upon his “triumphal procession” into the New Jerusalem.

Simply spreading the aroma of Christ and his Kingdom is good and God-honoring in and of itself. But as we will see next week, this work can also be a means by which people are willing to meet our King.

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“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring the tension we Christians must embrace in our work, between trusting in God and hustling to make things happen in our chosen work. As we saw last week, Solomon lays out a sequence to guide our thinking on this topic, beginning with committing our work to the Lord (Proverbs 16:3). In verse nine of the same chapter, Solomon urges us to hustle, saying, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

Yes, God has called us to trust in Him, but He has also graciously given us minds to plan and execute. Once we have committed our works to the Lord, we are called to hustle, to work “with all our heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23).

Too often, I’m afraid that we Christians focus too much on either trusting or hustling. Some Christians use “waiting on the Lord” as a license for unbiblical laziness, while others hustle so hard that they are unhealthy physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The beauty of Proverbs 16:9 is that it clearly blesses embracing the tension between these two truths. Yes, we must recognize that “the Lord establishes our steps,” but it is also right and good for us to “plan our own course,” to design, build, wireframe, develop, paint, innovate, write, advertise, and sell.

Our work is one of the primary ways in which we love our neighbors and serve the world. Remember, work existed prior to the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Work is an inherently good thing designed by God to reveal His character and love and serve others. Because of this, ambition for our work which drives our hustle can be a good thing. But as we will see in next week’s devotional, it is only when our hustle is accompanied by trusting in God that we will find true rest.

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Series: Easter Vocations Part II

Devotional: 4 of 4

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46)

Imagine you live in Jerusalem in the first century. Like so many of your neighbors, you work as a farmer. One day, you’re out harvesting olives, when all of a sudden, the clock strikes noon and the sky goes dark. You can’t see your hand, much less the olive trees, and so you are forced to head inside and rest from your labor.

Thousands of people must have experienced something similar the day Jesus died. The darkness that accompanied Christ’s finished work on the cross undoubtedly led many people to rest from the work of their hands that first Good Friday. 

But it also led to a rest for you and me today. Not a rest from the work of our hands so much as a rest from the work of our souls—the work beneath our work that so often leads us to overwork and burnout.

Maybe the work beneath your work is performance—using your work to elicit the intoxicating praise of your peers. Anyone who has accomplished any level of professional success can attest that the applause of others never truly satisfies. It only leaves you addicted to the need for more.

The cross is the only thing that can free us from that addiction. Once we see that God’s only Son died so that you and I could be called “children of God” (1 John 3:1), we can rest from the exhausting work of using our work to impress others.

Maybe the work beneath your work isn’t performance, though. Maybe it’s fear of not having enough. Here too, Jesus’s work on the cross is the only thing that can free you. Once you grasp that God kept his promise to slay his perfect Son, you can trust that he will keep his promise to provide for all of your needs (see Matthew 6:25-34).

You and I are called to work hard with our hands (see Colossians 3:23), but not with our souls (see Matthew 11:28-30). We are called to busy ourselves with the work of the Lord while we experience what Tim Keller called “the REM of the soul.” How do you experience that REM of the soul? By dwelling on the cross.

Buddha’s last words were, “Strive unceasingly.” Jesus’s last words were, “It is finished.” The work beneath your work is finished, believer. So strive with your hands for God’s glory and the good of others. But refuse to strive with your soul today.