"The inherent flaw in feminist ideology is that women have the inherent right to define what womanhood is all about, and that is a right that belongs to God and God alone. He is the Potter, and we are the clay. He is the One Who gets to say what my life is about. He's the One Who created me. And our Creator God has defined what womanhood is all about...manhood and womanhood, gender, sex, marriage - all of those are mini-lessons that proclaim the Gospel...We tell the story of the Gospel with who we are as male and female. We uphold the gospel, and that's why it matters. It matters a great deal - and that is why gender is at the epicenter of the battle right now, I believe. Because if Satan can mar the image of male and female, then what he is marring, what he is obscuring, what he is twisting is the story of the Gospel and the display of the Gospel."
Mary Kassian
"The Feminist Mistake"
http://thegospelcoalition.org/listen.php?file=http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-audio/2011-conference/workshop_MaryKassian_2.mp3
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Why we criticize...
“Malice needs nothing to live on; it can feed on itself. A contentious spirit will find something to quarrel about. A faultfinder will find occasion to accuse a Christian even if his life is as chaste as an icicle and pure as snow. A man of ill will does not hesitate to attack, even if the object of his hatred be a prophet or the very Son of God Himself. If John comes fasting, he says he has a devil; if Christ comes eating and drinking, he says He is a winebibber and a glutton. Good men are made to appear evil by the simple trick of dredging up from his own heart the evil that is there and attributing it to them.”
A. W. Tozer, We Travel An Appointed Way (Camp Hill, 1988), page 82.
When negativity about someone else pours out of our mouths, could we be exposing, without realizing it, our own evil? If that irony dawns on us, we are ready to hear the gospel at a deeper level. We are ready to see God’s wrath unleashed not against the person we despise, nor against us, but against Christ on the cross. And then we are ready to become humble about ourselves and merciful toward the other sinner.
Ray Ortlund
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/2011/07/19/self-judgment/
A. W. Tozer, We Travel An Appointed Way (Camp Hill, 1988), page 82.
When negativity about someone else pours out of our mouths, could we be exposing, without realizing it, our own evil? If that irony dawns on us, we are ready to hear the gospel at a deeper level. We are ready to see God’s wrath unleashed not against the person we despise, nor against us, but against Christ on the cross. And then we are ready to become humble about ourselves and merciful toward the other sinner.
Ray Ortlund
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/rayortlund/2011/07/19/self-judgment/
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Disciples must be Disciple Makers
"This, I believe, explains why many of our people (indeed, even we ourselves) struggle so much with living the Spirit-filled life. We’re trying to tap into the Spirit’s sanctifying power without simultaneously engaging in Great Commission activity. We want to have our lives cleaned up (it’s no fun being a sin addict), but we don’t want to have to re-arrange our lives toward the priority of the Great Commission. But I can’t stiff-arm the empowering ministry of the Holy Spirit and still hope to tap into the sanctifying ministry of the Holy Spirit. We meet him in the midst of his work. If I would know Christ, I must be about making him known."
Gerald Hiestand
"Making Disciples vs. Making Disciple-Makers"
http://www.saet-online.org/making-disciples-vs-making-disciple-makers/07/
Gerald Hiestand
"Making Disciples vs. Making Disciple-Makers"
http://www.saet-online.org/making-disciples-vs-making-disciple-makers/07/
A Theology of Work
What Are You Called to Do? A Theology of Work
Editor’s note: This is the first of four articles by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the others:
· Work Cursed and Redeemed
· Created for Work
· A Theology for Monday Morning
A friend of mine left a well-paying job to join the staff of a Christian ministry. She described her decision something like this: “Working a normal job, I had to spend 40 or 50 hours a week doing what my employer wants. Ministry had to come second. But now, I’ll be free to devote all my time to God and to ministry.”
I understand what my friend is trying to say. When I first heard her say it in a room full of Christian friends, I nodded along with everyone else. After all, it sounds so . . . spiritual.
And that’s the problem. Behind this perspective lay some deeply rooted misconceptions about work and spirituality. Without disrespecting my friend and others like her, I’d like to try and right the ship. I’d like to help us think more deeply and biblically about how the gospel informs our work.
What to Do?
When I was a senior in college, I spent a lot of time thinking and praying about what to do next. One of the words my mentors threw around a lot was the word calling. As in, “What is God calling you to do?”
I had a love-hate relationship with this idea of calling. On the one hand, God is a relational being, so he must call people into certain things. On the other hand, there seemed to be two classes of Christians: those who do regular work, and those who are called into ministry.
After I joined the world of full-time ministry, this classism was reiterated. One of my mentors in campus ministry said that ministers have a special calling from God that other people don’t. I immediately put this idea to work in raising support, telling people, “Since you haven’t been called into vocational ministry, you should support people like me, who have been!”
It wasn’t until a few years later that someone pointed out to me an interesting fact: the root of the English word vocation is the Latin verb voca, which means “to call.” The linguistic evidence shows that at some point in history, people thought of every type of work as a “calling.” Whether you are a minister or a mechanic, you do not work because it pays the bills, or because it’s personally fulfilling, or because it justifies the money you spent on college tuition. You work because it glorifies God.
Transforming Our View of Work Itself
If we are to live all of life for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31), then we need a God-centered view of work. It’s not enough that we try to honor God in how we do our work, or that we try to be Christlike to people at work, or that we support God’s kingdom with the money we make from work. The glory of God must inform and transform our view of work itself.
Here’s what I mean: most non-Christians see work simply as a means to an end. Work provides beer money or a fat retirement pension or a better life for their kids. Unfortunately, many Christians see work in exactly the same way. We may be pursuing more Christlike ends: money to tithe or an opportunity to witness to a co-worker, for instance. But our view of work itself is still fundamentally unchanged. We still see work as a means to an end. We are using work. We’re in it for what we get out of it. God may be honored in the results of our work, but he is not supreme in our view of work itself.
And that’s a problem.
Created for Work
Editor’s note: This is the second of four articles by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the others:
· What Are You Called to Do?
· Work Cursed and Redeemed
· A Theology for Monday Morning
To straighten out our malformed theology of work, we need to go all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . . . Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Gen 2:7-9; 15).
The most notable thing about this passage is that it takes place before the Fall. Work is not a result of sin. It is part of God’s original design for humanity. The word cultivate in Genesis 2:15 is actually the Hebrew word for work or service. The word keep carries the idea of care or protection. God put Adam in the garden of Eden to work it and to care for it.
Let this sink in: Work is what we were created for.
It’s right there in the Bible, plain as day. God created you to work. And that’s only the beginning of the story! Adam started out tending a garden, but God had much bigger plans in mind.
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:27-28).
Adam’s dominion over the garden was to expand into dominion over the whole earth. By producing godly offspring and teaching them to work, Adam and Eve were to subdue all of creation. The language of subduing and ruling mirrors what God did in creation: turning chaos into order. Adam and Eve are to turn the whole earth into the Garden of Eden. And it won’t happen by magic, but by concerted effort.
Theologians call Genesis 1:27-28 the “cultural mandate.” God is mandating that humans will create culture. Adam and Eve will produce children. Those children will create families, and those families will band together into cities and social networks. Those networks of human beings will reflect all the aspects of human culture—language and art and music and food and philosophy and theology.
It is no accident that the ultimate biblical picture of redeemed humanity involves a city (Rev. 21:2). A city reflects human culture in its most developed and complex forms. God’s purpose for humanity started in a garden, but it culminates in a great cultural center. One of my seminary professors used to say, “God expected Adam and Eve to split the atom.” He didn’t just intend for them to have babies and plant trees. They were meant to exercise dominion over all of creation, turning the entire earth into a showcase of the glory and beauty and majesty of God—and then working it and caring for it for all of eternity.
So work was God’s design from the beginning. And the ultimate goal was for every aspect of life and culture to be saturated with the beauty and glory and love of God.
Work Cursed and Redeemed
Editor’s note: This is the third of four articles by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the others:
· What Are You Called to Do?
· Created for Work
· A Theology for Monday Morning
Work is what we were created for. It is part of God’s good design. But when sin entered the picture, work was cursed.
Then to Adam [God] said . . .
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground . . . (Genesis 3:17-19)
Because of the Fall, work is hard. Work involves sweat and toil, thorns and thistles. Or, if you prefer, work involves stress and overtime and belligerent bosses and mundane meetings. Not everything in the world of work is as it should be. Work has been cursed. But work is still good.
It’s important that we see both the goodness of work in God’s original creation and the struggle of work under the Fall. If we only see the good, we’ll be frustrated when things don’t go as they should. If we only see the bad, we’ll have a hard time doing our work to the glory of God. Work is not all good, and it’s not all bad. It is part of God’s good creation, which has been tainted by the Fall. And God is at work to redeem work.
Romans 8:20-21 says, “The creation was subjected to frustration . . . in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Through us, God is after the renewal of creation. Grace doesn’t just change our eternal destiny. It changes our whole worldview, our entire basis for living, the grid through which we see the world. Redemption affects every part of us. And through us, God’s redemption is extended into the world around us.
So redemption in Christ must transform our view of work. No longer is work a necessary evil. It is now a calling. Work now has great spiritual significance, because it is a chance for God to be glorified. Remember 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” A similar command is given in Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” When you show up at your job, you’re there for the glory of God. God wants to be honored in what you do and in how you do it.
What are some ways that God can be glorified in our work? Consider these biblical ideas:
· God is glorified when we put our whole selves into our work, with a view toward pleasing God, not men (Col. 3:23-24).
· God is glorified when we are honest, even when it hurts us or prevents us from getting ahead (Ps. 15, Gen. 39).
· God is glorified when we honor our superiors and submit to their authority (1 Tim. 6:1; Rom. 13:7).
· God is glorified when we treat our work associates with kindness and respect (Luke 6:31; Rom. 12:18).
· God is glorified when we expose fraud or dishonesty or unethical behavior (Eph. 5:11-13).
· God is glorified when we approach our work prayerfully (1 Thess. 5:17).
· God is glorified when we avoid complaining or grumbling, even in less-than-ideal work situations (Phil. 2:14-15).
· God is glorified when we refuse to make work and money our idols (Matt. 6:24; Ecc. 5:10-12).
· God is glorified when we plan diligently for the future (Prov. 21:5).
· God is glorified when we live simply and give generously (Prov. 22:9; 1 Tim. 6:17-19).
· God is glorified when we trust him to provide today what we need for today (Matt. 6:11).
· God is glorified when we rest from work (Deut. 5:13-15; Ps. 46:10).
In all these ways and many more, we can do our work to the glory of God.
A Theology for Monday Morning
Editor’s note: This is the final article by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the first three articles:
· What Are You Called to Do?
· Created for Work
· Work Cursed and Redeemed
So far I’ve tried to sketch a broad biblical theology of work. So how should this theology change what you do tomorrow? Here are my four best answers.
First, just work hard. Go to work tomorrow or next month or next year and do your absolute best. Be the best employee, the best manager, the best associate you can be. Seek to be known as the most honest, most humble, most ethical, most competent person in your field. And do all of this not to advance your own career but to honor God’s name. If you desperately want to see all of your co-workers saved, but you have a habit of not showing up to work on time, people will be annoyed and your witness will be compromised and God will not be honored. There are already enough people like that. Don’t be one of them.
Second, don’t expect life at work to be peachy. We all know the way-too-happy Christians who go to work thinking that since they love Jesus, everything is going to work out. It’s not. You might miss your quota. You might lose a client. You might get fired. You might have conflict with your boss or your co-workers. These things don’t mean that Jesus doesn’t love you or that God is punishing you. Rather, they are the inevitable result of living in a fallen world. Remember: thorns and thistles. Work is cursed. Work is affected by the fall. Work doesn’t always work the way it should. So have a massively God-sized view of the holiness of work (creation). But be realistic about the Fall, too. Jesus hasn’t come back yet.
Third, learn the Ten Commandments. Especially the fourth one: the Sabbath. You’ve probably been breaking it your whole life. Now would be a good time to stop. Rest is a deeply spiritual thing. And God intends it to be a regular part of the weekly rhythm of your life. Most of us are so used to music and TV and e-mail and social interaction and recreation and conversations and busyness that we have forgotten the art of resting. The best thing you can do for yourself, for your employer, for your career, and for the glory of God is to set apart one day in your week when you can’t be reached. When your cell phone is off. When you don’t go online. When you take a really long nap. When you worship with other believers. When you take a walk or watch a sunset or read a good book.
If your work obligations don’t permit a 24-hour period of rest every week, then consider taking a personal day every month for solitude and silence and rest. Your co-workers will take a “personal day” when a pet dies or when a girlfriend breaks up with them or when they are hung over from a long weekend. Are you really going to feel guilty for taking one day out of every 30 to refresh your soul through intimate communion with the God of the universe? I hope not.
Fourth, learn to pray the Lord’s Prayer. There’s a reason Jesus taught his disciples to “pray in this way.” Jesus, the master teacher, knew that we become what we pray. When our prayers focus on our needs and our agendas and the ways we want God to bless us, we become self-centered, myopic people. To save us from this, Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer that keeps our eyes on the Father’s name, the Father’s kingdom, the Father’s will. Using this pattern will help you remember that work, like all of life, is about God, not you. So get yourself into the discipline of praying the Lord’s Prayer before work and after work and during work. Not to get God to do something for you, but to get yourself into a God-centered rhythm of life.
My friend David left full-time ministry to be a rancher in rural Washington. He said God was calling him to do it. At the time, I didn’t quite get it. I was still working under the assumption that God calls people into the ministry, not out of it. Leaving the ministry didn’t make sense.
But it does now. Being a rancher is no less glorifying to God than being a minister. If you’re going to be a rancher, I hope you approach your work with the same sense of calling as my friend David. Raise cattle to the glory of God, already! If ranching isn’t your thing, then do whatever is your thing with a God-entranced vision of vocation. As Paul said to the Colossians, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men. . . . It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Col. 3:23-24). And that’s true whether you’re preaching sermons or branding cattle or selling stocks.
Now stop reading and get to work.
-Bob Thune
Editor’s note: This is the first of four articles by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the others:
· Work Cursed and Redeemed
· Created for Work
· A Theology for Monday Morning
A friend of mine left a well-paying job to join the staff of a Christian ministry. She described her decision something like this: “Working a normal job, I had to spend 40 or 50 hours a week doing what my employer wants. Ministry had to come second. But now, I’ll be free to devote all my time to God and to ministry.”
I understand what my friend is trying to say. When I first heard her say it in a room full of Christian friends, I nodded along with everyone else. After all, it sounds so . . . spiritual.
And that’s the problem. Behind this perspective lay some deeply rooted misconceptions about work and spirituality. Without disrespecting my friend and others like her, I’d like to try and right the ship. I’d like to help us think more deeply and biblically about how the gospel informs our work.
What to Do?
When I was a senior in college, I spent a lot of time thinking and praying about what to do next. One of the words my mentors threw around a lot was the word calling. As in, “What is God calling you to do?”
I had a love-hate relationship with this idea of calling. On the one hand, God is a relational being, so he must call people into certain things. On the other hand, there seemed to be two classes of Christians: those who do regular work, and those who are called into ministry.
After I joined the world of full-time ministry, this classism was reiterated. One of my mentors in campus ministry said that ministers have a special calling from God that other people don’t. I immediately put this idea to work in raising support, telling people, “Since you haven’t been called into vocational ministry, you should support people like me, who have been!”
It wasn’t until a few years later that someone pointed out to me an interesting fact: the root of the English word vocation is the Latin verb voca, which means “to call.” The linguistic evidence shows that at some point in history, people thought of every type of work as a “calling.” Whether you are a minister or a mechanic, you do not work because it pays the bills, or because it’s personally fulfilling, or because it justifies the money you spent on college tuition. You work because it glorifies God.
Transforming Our View of Work Itself
If we are to live all of life for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31), then we need a God-centered view of work. It’s not enough that we try to honor God in how we do our work, or that we try to be Christlike to people at work, or that we support God’s kingdom with the money we make from work. The glory of God must inform and transform our view of work itself.
Here’s what I mean: most non-Christians see work simply as a means to an end. Work provides beer money or a fat retirement pension or a better life for their kids. Unfortunately, many Christians see work in exactly the same way. We may be pursuing more Christlike ends: money to tithe or an opportunity to witness to a co-worker, for instance. But our view of work itself is still fundamentally unchanged. We still see work as a means to an end. We are using work. We’re in it for what we get out of it. God may be honored in the results of our work, but he is not supreme in our view of work itself.
And that’s a problem.
Created for Work
Editor’s note: This is the second of four articles by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the others:
· What Are You Called to Do?
· Work Cursed and Redeemed
· A Theology for Monday Morning
To straighten out our malformed theology of work, we need to go all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . . . Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Gen 2:7-9; 15).
The most notable thing about this passage is that it takes place before the Fall. Work is not a result of sin. It is part of God’s original design for humanity. The word cultivate in Genesis 2:15 is actually the Hebrew word for work or service. The word keep carries the idea of care or protection. God put Adam in the garden of Eden to work it and to care for it.
Let this sink in: Work is what we were created for.
It’s right there in the Bible, plain as day. God created you to work. And that’s only the beginning of the story! Adam started out tending a garden, but God had much bigger plans in mind.
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:27-28).
Adam’s dominion over the garden was to expand into dominion over the whole earth. By producing godly offspring and teaching them to work, Adam and Eve were to subdue all of creation. The language of subduing and ruling mirrors what God did in creation: turning chaos into order. Adam and Eve are to turn the whole earth into the Garden of Eden. And it won’t happen by magic, but by concerted effort.
Theologians call Genesis 1:27-28 the “cultural mandate.” God is mandating that humans will create culture. Adam and Eve will produce children. Those children will create families, and those families will band together into cities and social networks. Those networks of human beings will reflect all the aspects of human culture—language and art and music and food and philosophy and theology.
It is no accident that the ultimate biblical picture of redeemed humanity involves a city (Rev. 21:2). A city reflects human culture in its most developed and complex forms. God’s purpose for humanity started in a garden, but it culminates in a great cultural center. One of my seminary professors used to say, “God expected Adam and Eve to split the atom.” He didn’t just intend for them to have babies and plant trees. They were meant to exercise dominion over all of creation, turning the entire earth into a showcase of the glory and beauty and majesty of God—and then working it and caring for it for all of eternity.
So work was God’s design from the beginning. And the ultimate goal was for every aspect of life and culture to be saturated with the beauty and glory and love of God.
Work Cursed and Redeemed
Editor’s note: This is the third of four articles by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the others:
· What Are You Called to Do?
· Created for Work
· A Theology for Monday Morning
Work is what we were created for. It is part of God’s good design. But when sin entered the picture, work was cursed.
Then to Adam [God] said . . .
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground . . . (Genesis 3:17-19)
Because of the Fall, work is hard. Work involves sweat and toil, thorns and thistles. Or, if you prefer, work involves stress and overtime and belligerent bosses and mundane meetings. Not everything in the world of work is as it should be. Work has been cursed. But work is still good.
It’s important that we see both the goodness of work in God’s original creation and the struggle of work under the Fall. If we only see the good, we’ll be frustrated when things don’t go as they should. If we only see the bad, we’ll have a hard time doing our work to the glory of God. Work is not all good, and it’s not all bad. It is part of God’s good creation, which has been tainted by the Fall. And God is at work to redeem work.
Romans 8:20-21 says, “The creation was subjected to frustration . . . in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Through us, God is after the renewal of creation. Grace doesn’t just change our eternal destiny. It changes our whole worldview, our entire basis for living, the grid through which we see the world. Redemption affects every part of us. And through us, God’s redemption is extended into the world around us.
So redemption in Christ must transform our view of work. No longer is work a necessary evil. It is now a calling. Work now has great spiritual significance, because it is a chance for God to be glorified. Remember 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” A similar command is given in Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” When you show up at your job, you’re there for the glory of God. God wants to be honored in what you do and in how you do it.
What are some ways that God can be glorified in our work? Consider these biblical ideas:
· God is glorified when we put our whole selves into our work, with a view toward pleasing God, not men (Col. 3:23-24).
· God is glorified when we are honest, even when it hurts us or prevents us from getting ahead (Ps. 15, Gen. 39).
· God is glorified when we honor our superiors and submit to their authority (1 Tim. 6:1; Rom. 13:7).
· God is glorified when we treat our work associates with kindness and respect (Luke 6:31; Rom. 12:18).
· God is glorified when we expose fraud or dishonesty or unethical behavior (Eph. 5:11-13).
· God is glorified when we approach our work prayerfully (1 Thess. 5:17).
· God is glorified when we avoid complaining or grumbling, even in less-than-ideal work situations (Phil. 2:14-15).
· God is glorified when we refuse to make work and money our idols (Matt. 6:24; Ecc. 5:10-12).
· God is glorified when we plan diligently for the future (Prov. 21:5).
· God is glorified when we live simply and give generously (Prov. 22:9; 1 Tim. 6:17-19).
· God is glorified when we trust him to provide today what we need for today (Matt. 6:11).
· God is glorified when we rest from work (Deut. 5:13-15; Ps. 46:10).
In all these ways and many more, we can do our work to the glory of God.
A Theology for Monday Morning
Editor’s note: This is the final article by Bob Thune on “A Theology of Work.” Read the first three articles:
· What Are You Called to Do?
· Created for Work
· Work Cursed and Redeemed
So far I’ve tried to sketch a broad biblical theology of work. So how should this theology change what you do tomorrow? Here are my four best answers.
First, just work hard. Go to work tomorrow or next month or next year and do your absolute best. Be the best employee, the best manager, the best associate you can be. Seek to be known as the most honest, most humble, most ethical, most competent person in your field. And do all of this not to advance your own career but to honor God’s name. If you desperately want to see all of your co-workers saved, but you have a habit of not showing up to work on time, people will be annoyed and your witness will be compromised and God will not be honored. There are already enough people like that. Don’t be one of them.
Second, don’t expect life at work to be peachy. We all know the way-too-happy Christians who go to work thinking that since they love Jesus, everything is going to work out. It’s not. You might miss your quota. You might lose a client. You might get fired. You might have conflict with your boss or your co-workers. These things don’t mean that Jesus doesn’t love you or that God is punishing you. Rather, they are the inevitable result of living in a fallen world. Remember: thorns and thistles. Work is cursed. Work is affected by the fall. Work doesn’t always work the way it should. So have a massively God-sized view of the holiness of work (creation). But be realistic about the Fall, too. Jesus hasn’t come back yet.
Third, learn the Ten Commandments. Especially the fourth one: the Sabbath. You’ve probably been breaking it your whole life. Now would be a good time to stop. Rest is a deeply spiritual thing. And God intends it to be a regular part of the weekly rhythm of your life. Most of us are so used to music and TV and e-mail and social interaction and recreation and conversations and busyness that we have forgotten the art of resting. The best thing you can do for yourself, for your employer, for your career, and for the glory of God is to set apart one day in your week when you can’t be reached. When your cell phone is off. When you don’t go online. When you take a really long nap. When you worship with other believers. When you take a walk or watch a sunset or read a good book.
If your work obligations don’t permit a 24-hour period of rest every week, then consider taking a personal day every month for solitude and silence and rest. Your co-workers will take a “personal day” when a pet dies or when a girlfriend breaks up with them or when they are hung over from a long weekend. Are you really going to feel guilty for taking one day out of every 30 to refresh your soul through intimate communion with the God of the universe? I hope not.
Fourth, learn to pray the Lord’s Prayer. There’s a reason Jesus taught his disciples to “pray in this way.” Jesus, the master teacher, knew that we become what we pray. When our prayers focus on our needs and our agendas and the ways we want God to bless us, we become self-centered, myopic people. To save us from this, Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer that keeps our eyes on the Father’s name, the Father’s kingdom, the Father’s will. Using this pattern will help you remember that work, like all of life, is about God, not you. So get yourself into the discipline of praying the Lord’s Prayer before work and after work and during work. Not to get God to do something for you, but to get yourself into a God-centered rhythm of life.
My friend David left full-time ministry to be a rancher in rural Washington. He said God was calling him to do it. At the time, I didn’t quite get it. I was still working under the assumption that God calls people into the ministry, not out of it. Leaving the ministry didn’t make sense.
But it does now. Being a rancher is no less glorifying to God than being a minister. If you’re going to be a rancher, I hope you approach your work with the same sense of calling as my friend David. Raise cattle to the glory of God, already! If ranching isn’t your thing, then do whatever is your thing with a God-entranced vision of vocation. As Paul said to the Colossians, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men. . . . It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Col. 3:23-24). And that’s true whether you’re preaching sermons or branding cattle or selling stocks.
Now stop reading and get to work.
-Bob Thune
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