Honoring God Through Your Work

Honoring God Through Your Work

Hey everyone. I know I started the “armor of God” series, but I decided to take a bit of a tangent. This is based on things that have been on my mind recently, so I decided to write about it. I'll come back to the armor of God at some point.

Honoring God through my work. What does that mean? I've been in a bit of a slump coming down from camp this summer. Camp is such a wonderful place, theres such a sense of purpose, of belonging, of significance. Now, I'm just another university student going to school. What difference can I possibly make? How does me going any studying further the Kingdom of God?

As I thought about it, I came to realize that while it might not further the Kingdom in a direct way, it does in an indirect way.

See, God is either honored or dishonored (or pleased or displeased) through how I conduct myself at my current place of work: school. This applies to a whole wack of things: how do I treat my classmates? How do I treat my profs? How do I treat those in line in front of me in the cafeteria?

While all those are significant questions, I think the one that stuck out to me the most was “How will I go about my schoolwork?”

I'm part of this generation, and I think if theres a single work that sums up this generation well, it's “whatever.” We don't want to do the work, we just want to coast through life without having to put much effort into anything. Anything we enjoy we're cool with putting time and effort into, but schoolwork? Who enjoys schoolwork? That doesn't make ME feel good, so why should I waste my time with?

See, theres a couple problems with that kind of thinking. One – its selfish. I'm pretty sure you all know that selfishness is described as a bad thing in the Bible, so I don't think I need to go into that. Two – its lazy. Is laziness a sin? Heres two scriptures I found that talk about laziness and what it causes:

Proverbs 10:4
Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.

Proverbs 19:15
Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless man goes hungry.

So the basic theme of those two verses is: hard work pays off, laziness doesn't.

Heres another thing to think on, Jesus has called us to be different from the world. Not differnet in a “wierd” way, but different in a good way. When the world falls deep into sexual perversion, we are to hold ourselves to the highest standards of purity. When the world abandons itself to lying and dishonesty we are to be completely honest about everything. When the world resorts to cheating to try to get by we study hard and pass our tests because we worked at it (on a related note I read a scary article earlier today on the topic of cheating: thousands of students are now using Cell Phones with text messaging to cheat during tests. A poll conducted found that 53% of business students at a large university cheated in order to get higher grades). When the world is lazy and puts off projects to the last day, we are to strive to work ahead and do our projects in a way that we can be proud of.

Now, to qualify what I just said, when I say “when the world falls deep into sexual perversion, we are to hold ourselves to the highest standards of purity” I do NOT mean that when the world is generally a sexually pure place (which it never has been, but I'm speaking hypothetically here) that we can let ourselves get a bit lax in this area. Heaven forbid! What I'm trying to illustrate here is the need to pursue Gods standard of absolute excellence in everything, and even more so when the world is going the other way because we are called to “shine before men.” How better to shine before men than by pursuing excellence when everyone else goes for “just getting by.”

Heres some more scripture, while it doesn't have the word “laziness” in it, it has “sluggard” which is basically another word for “someone very lazy.”

Proverbs 13:4

“The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.”

Proverbs 15:19

“The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway. “

Proverbs 20:4

“A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”

Proverbs 21:25

“The sluggard's craving will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work.”

What I am saying is this: laziness or apathy when it comes to schoolwork, or any kind of work, is a sin. God did not create us to be lazy and coast through life making as little effort as possible. I hope that causes some kind of reaction in you, because I know it does in me. Laziness is a sin. Its hard to really see how it is one since its not as easy to see the consequences of it, but it is a sin.

Let me give you an example. Say your dad or mom gives you some kind of project to do. You blow it off, you blow it off, and then a day before they want it done you throw something together. Will your parents be proud of you or disappointed in you? I'll let you answer that. The same applies for God: he calls us to a standard of excellence in our work, no matter what kind of work that is, and is disappointed when we blow it off and make something that'll get you a passing grade and that's it.

I'm not saying that people that get Cs are bad, or that they're sinning. I'm not saying that people that get A's are holy and on the right track. I'm saying that people that COULD get A's but get C's instead are in trouble, because they are not using the giftings God has given them to their fullest measure. Case in point:

Matthew 25:14-28

14"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15To one he gave five talents^[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

19"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'

21"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

22"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'

23"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

24"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. 25So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

26"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? 27Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

28" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. 29For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 30And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

The one who did not use what God had given him was punished. It sounds harsh, but its the way it is.

Now, God is a loving and understanding God. If you are in extreme circumstances that cause your grades to drop, its not as though you're going to get hit by a bolt of lighting. If your mom dies, your grades are going to drop, thats pretty much a given, and you are not in any wrong if that happens. You are in the wrong when you decide not to do your best on something (ultimately it is a decision, its just an unconscious one most of the time).

So take the bull by the horns. Rather than pushing off that assignment to the last day, start working on it well in advance. Its not as though you have to devote all of your free time to working on school, hanging out with friends and doing enjoyable things is very important and not doing that is a problem in and of itself, but do give yourself the time you need to make something excellent out of each school project (or for you career folks, work project/job). This doesn't mean you work so hard that you run yourself into the ground (thats a problem in and of itself) but that you know your limit, and you work up to that.

I hope this has really challenged you guys, because I know that its challenging me even as I'm writing it, and I will probably have to go back and re-read what I've just written a couple times throughout this semester to remind myself of the importance of honoring God through my work.

Now, this message is not universal. I know there are some of you that do not suffer from this. In fact, I can think of one person right off the top of my head who I know does not suffer from lack of work ethic. She probably knows who she is. In many ways this devotional is not meant for you, but I'll leave you with one question so that you haven't read my rantings for no reason at all: rather than the narrow question of “how can I honor God with my work?” ask yourselves “what areas are there in which I could honor God more?” I know thats impossibly broad, but heres some you might not think of right off the bat: how can I honor God in my play? (by play I mean anything you do to relax. Rest and relaxation is very, very important. When you play, play hard! Enjoy yourself! Good clean fun in abundance is the way God meant for it to be!) How can I honor God with my time (I know this is one I've been working on and is connected with the whole schoolwork thing) How can I honor God by honoring those close to me? How can I honor God by honoring my family (this is a tough one for many, and it was a tough one for me until relatively recently, and I still have to be conscious of it)

Anyways, hopefully that gives you people with incredible work ethic and drive something to ponder :D.

Now, I always fear that I will swing to far to an extreme with these things, so I always try to balance what I'm saying. If you have bad work ethic, you don't need to fix yourself immediately and become a perfect worker or you will get hit by holy fire. Our God is an incredibly loving and patient God, and just as a good parent has patience with his/her child in teaching them and helping them grow, God is patient with helping us grow, more patient than I think I can even be with myself. So please, don't get worried, none of us are perfect, and God understands that fully, and hes so patient and gracious with us, you're not gonna get zapped because you aren't 100% in this area.

Anyways, I think I've ranted long enough, so I'll end it here and mail it off. I think the questions and homework section were kind of integrated, so I'll just leave it at that.

God bless

-Ricky AKA Yoda.