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 retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

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 retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

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 retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

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 retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

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 retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

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 retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 5 of 5Therefore, 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:Jesus never didIt neglects the other aspects of God’s kingdomIronically, it makes us less effective at the Great CommissionHere’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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 4 of 5The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23)The Great Commission is indeed great. But as we’ve been exploring in this series, there is great danger in treating the Great Commission as the only one Jesus left us. One of those dangers is that it ironically makes us less effective at the Great Commission. Why? Because it makes Christians feel guilty for working in the very places most likely to make disciples!Dr. Michael Green, an expert on the explosion of Christianity in the first few centuries, says that the historical evidence “makes it abundantly clear that in contrast to the present day, when Christianity is . . . dispensed by a professional clergy . . . in the early days the faith was spontaneously spread by informal evangelists,” who shared the gospel “in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls.” That was true in the early church, and likely to be true for the foreseeable future as non-Christians are more reticent than ever to darken the door of a church and entire nations are closing their doors to Christian missionaries. But when the Great Commission is the only one we hear preached and when the only people we see on the stages of our churches are pastors and “full-time missionaries,” those of us who work as entrepreneurs, baristas, and accountants inevitably feel guilty about working anywhere other than the mission field. Most dramatically, that guilt will lead us to leave the very workplaces where we’re most likely to make disciples. At a minimum, it will make us half-hearted creatures while we stay there. For the last two years, I have been working on a book that will be released in January called The Sacredness of Secular Work to help you see how your work matters for eternity even when you’re not “sharing the gospel.” But do you know what’s interesting? I’ve shared the gospel more in the last two years than I have in the ten years prior. Why? Because once you understand how 100% of your time can matter for eternity and not just the 1% when you get to explicitly share the gospel, it makes you come fully alive. And fully alive people attract the lost like craft coffee attracts hipsters.Psalm 37:23 says that “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” God doesn’t just delight in watching you walk a co-worker through the Romans Road. He delights in every Zoom meeting you lead, every diaper you change, and every Uber you drive with excellence and love and in accordance with his commands. May that truth lead you to be fully alive as you work for his glory today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 3 of 5As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.…And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward. (Matthew 10:7-8, 42)When Jesus called his disciples to “proclaim” that his kingdom had come, he instructed them to “heal,” “cleanse,” and “give.” Not just evangelize and “save souls.”Because of that, I’m confident that Scott Harrison and his team at charity: water are doing “kingdom work” by giving clean water to millions of the world’s poorest image-bearers. But some Christians disagree. For example, a wealthy Christian we’ll call Bill once told Scott: “We're not going to give to charity: water because you're not a Christian organization. If those people don't know Jesus, they're going to burn in hell anyway. You need to be giving the gospel along with clean water.”Bill’s response may sound harsh, but it’s actually quite rational if the Great Commission is the singular mission of the Christian life as so many church leaders are suggesting today. This pervasive message leads people like Bill to believe that the only work that’s truly “kingdom work” is the work of “winning souls” and gaining new citizens of God’s kingdom.But Scripture makes clear that God’s kingdom contains more than just the Sovereign and his subjects. The kingdom is also marked by: beauty (see Isaiah 35; Revelation 21:9–21)justice (see Isaiah 30:18; 61:8)order (see 1 Corinthians 14:33)abundance (see Isaiah 25:6–9; 49:10; 65:22; Joel 3:18)cultural excellence (see Isaiah 60; Revelation 21:26)a sense of belonging (see Psalm 68:6) a sustainable earth (see Isaiah 51:3; Revelation 11:15–18)That’s a partial list of what God longs for us to experience with him for eternity. But when we treat the Great Commission as the only commission, we make it easy to ignore these “non-soul” aspects of the kingdom. The implication is that building an abundance of clean water doesn’t matter. Cultivating beauty as an artist or hairdresser doesn’t matter. Creating order or a sense of belonging on your team doesn’t matter. Unless, of course, those things are currently in vogue and can be leveraged to the instrumental end of “sharing the gospel.”This misguided thinking leads to the fair accusation that Christians are “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” But as New Testament scholar N.T. Wright aptly points out, “It is when the church . . . acts with decisive power in the real world—to build and run a successful school, or medical clinic, or a credit union for those ashamed to go into a bank. . . that people will take the message of Jesus seriously.”Amen. To that end, cultivate the kingdom values listed above in your work today. And watch how God uses your “kingdom work” to make others long to meet our King!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 2 of 5After 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 1 of 5Go 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) One of the deepest and most dangerous lies in the Church today is that this passage—often labeled the “Great Commission”—is the singular mission of the Christian life.This, of course, has tremendous implications for our work. Because if the Great Commission to “save souls” and “make disciples” is the only thing that matters for eternity, then most of us are wasting most of our time.This is what many of us are being told explicitly by church leaders! In the words of one influential pastor, “The consequences of your mission [and here he’s talking exclusively about the Great Commission] will last forever; the consequences of your job will not.”But here’s what’s fascinating: Treating the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus left us is brand spanking new in church history. According to three faculty members at the conservative Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, “Before at least the seventeenth century, the [Great Commission] was largely ignored when discussing the church’s missional assignment.” So how on earth did the Great Commission functionally become the only commission modern Christians feel called to? Perhaps part of the reason is the label we’ve attached to Jesus’s words in Matthew 28, turning it from a commission to the singular “great” one. But here’s what’s mind-boggling: The term “Great Commission” isn’t even part of the original biblical manuscripts. It’s a man-made heading that, as the preface to the NIV Bible warns, is “not to be regarded as part of the biblical text.” And get this: The label “Great Commission” didn’t even show up in popular print until the late 1800s when Hudson Taylor coined the term to recruit people to serve as missionaries in China. The term “Great Commission” is not a part of the inerrant Word of God. It’s simply the catchiest marketing slogan of the modern missions movement.Now the command itself? That’s a different story! Hudson Taylor was right when he said, “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” Lest I be misinterpreted, let me say this as clearly as I can: The Great Commission is indeed great! It’s just not only. Why is it so problematic to treat the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus gave us? Here are just four reasons: Jesus never didIt neglects the other aspects of God’s kingdomIronically, it makes us less effective at the Great CommissionIt blocks us from seeing the full extent of how our work matters for eternityJoin me over the next four weeks as we unpack each of these four dangers in detail together!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from JosephDevotional: 5 of 5You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20)Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery which led him to Egypt and his unjust incarceration. But God orchestrated these events to eventually put Joseph in a position of power second only to Pharaoh. When his brothers needed Joseph to save their lives, they understandably feared that Joseph would choose to retaliate. But Joseph did the unexpected. He forgave them and claimed that “God intended” all his hardship “for good.” Of course, it’s unlikely that Joseph ever described his circumstances as a slave and prisoner as “good.” But looking back over the course of many years, he could see how God used his suffering for a greater redemptive purpose. One day, you and I will be able to do the same, if not on this side of eternity, then the other. That truth doesn’t make the pain we feel today any less real or horrible. But it does give us hope.What hardships are you experiencing in this season of work? Have you lost a job? Been a victim of injustice? Or are you simply not as far along in your career as you once dreamed? Trust in the hope that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). How can you be certain of this truth? First, by looking at Joseph. And second, by looking at the One Joseph points to. Like Joseph, Jesus was sold by his brothers and unjustly imprisoned. But Jesus went even further, letting “the soldiers hold and nail him down so that he could save them.” God used the crucifixion—the darkest moment in history—for good. Thus, we can be confident that he will make good on his promise to work our hardships—infinitesimally small compared to Christ’s—for our good and his glory. Rejoice in that concrete hope today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from JosephDevotional: 4 of 5Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me….I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you….But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. (Genesis 45:4-5, 7)After Joseph was released from prison, he was appointed by Pharaoh to lead Egypt through a seven-year famine. Now, Joseph is one of the highest ranking government officials in Egypt, and through God’s power, an exceptionally good one. For seven years, Joseph organized efforts to store up Egypt’s agricultural abundance. And when the famine hit, Egypt was so well prepared that “all the world came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe everywhere” (Genesis 41:57). As today’s passage reveals, “all the world” included Jacob’s other sons, Joseph’s long-lost brothers.Now remember, it is through Jacob’s family that God promised to redeem the world. That promise couldn’t be fulfilled if the family died out due to this global famine. And while God could have miraculously provided food for Jacob and Joseph’s brothers, he chose to work through the miracle of Joseph’s mundane government work.The same is true today. While God could choose to miraculously alleviate poverty, he does so primarily through the miraculous work of entrepreneurs creating jobs. While God could miraculously feed us through food raining down from the sky, he does so primarily through the miraculous work of chefs, servers, and grocery store clerks. And while I pray that you are using your miraculous work to explicitly point people to Christ, Joseph reminds us that simply loving our neighbors as ourselves through our work matters to God. Commenting on today’s passage, one commentary says, “​​If we ever have the impression that God wants us in the workplace only so we can tell others about him...Joseph’s work says otherwise. The things we make and do in our work are themselves crucial to God and to other people.”Amen. May that truth be a great encouragement to you to do your work with excellence and love today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from JosephDevotional: 3 of 5Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” “I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” (Genesis 41:15-16)Joseph was in prison unjustly. So when the guards told him that the Pharaoh needed his skills, Joseph must have sensed some hope that maybe, just maybe, his talents as a dream interpreter could earn him a literal get out of jail free card.With that context, we almost expect Joseph to trumpet his own abilities to Pharaoh. But when Pharaoh gives him that opportunity, Joseph deflects the glory that could have so easily been his.What remarkable humility! Even though he was in the fight of his life where the temptation to glorify himself through his work must have been strong, Joseph recognized that it is God, not us, who produces results through our work. And thus, he alone deserves the glory.Ironically, it was that humility that led Joseph to be so bold. The biblical text implies that Pharaoh had already asked countless other wise men to interpret his dream before concluding that “no one” could do it. But Joseph walks up and essentially says of Pharaoh’s request, “No problem.” Because Joseph recognized that it was God working through him, he knew that God could use him to do work others deemed impossible.Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a writer, a teacher, a stay-at-home-mom, or a designer, you have an unfair advantage. You have the God who is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” living inside of you (see Ephesians 3:20). Let that truth inspire you, like Joseph, to boldly take on the problems nobody else will touch. Because when you succeed, God alone will get the glory!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from JosephDevotional: 2 of 5Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him (Genesis 39:20-21a)Joseph, the treasured son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers and eventually wound up in Egypt working for Potiphar, an Egyptian official. And right from the start, Joseph proves to be exceptionally good at his job. Genesis 39:2-3 tells us that “The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered...the Lord gave him success in everything he did.” Seeing this, “Potiphar put [Joseph] in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned” (Genesis 39:4). But after refusing to go to bed with Potiphar’s wife, Joseph is wrongly accused of sexual harassment and thrown in prison. In sum, Joseph goes from a state of helplessness as a slave, to a position of power in the palace, back to a place of great weakness as a prisoner. And yet, “there in the prison, the Lord was with him.”So “the Lord was with Joseph” in the palace and “the Lord was with him” in the prison. He was with him on the mountaintop of his career and in the deepest valley.If you’re in a season of flourishing at work—en route to the metaphorical mountaintop of your career—take a moment to recognize that it is only because the Lord is with you. If that’s not you, and you feel stuck in a vocational valley due to injustice, a bad economy, or your own missteps, take heart: The Lord is also with you. And as long as you have him, you can say “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Why? Because it is God’s presence that you and I need most. And his presence is available to us whether we’re in the proverbial palace or prison of our careers. I love how pastor A.J. Sherrill articulates this idea: “Every moment of every day, the most significant happening in the entire universe is the radical availability of God’s presence.” Amen. With that in mind, embrace God’s radical presence as you work today. Don’t just work for God but with him. Talk to him. Be mindful of his presence. Experience his love. And let that experience of his love compel you to extend that love to those you serve through your work!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from JosephDevotional: 1 of 5Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more…His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. (Genesis 37:5, 8)God has given you a dream for your work. Maybe it’s doubling your business so that you can provide more jobs that lead to human flourishing. Maybe it’s writing a book to help others learn from your mistakes. Maybe God has given you a dream for an entirely different career than the one you hold today. If you have breath in your lungs, I’m confident that God has given you a dream for your work. But I’m also confident that there are many moments when you feel a disconnect between your dream and your present reality—a gap between what God has placed in your heart and what he has placed in your hands. Joseph understood the pain of staring into that gap better than most. In today’s passage, we see God giving Joseph a vocational dream inside a literal dream. Joseph’s vision was that one day he would be in a position of authority so great that even his elder brothers would be subject to him. In Genesis 41, we see this dream become a reality when Joseph is 30 years old. But today’s passage occurred when Joseph was just 17 (see Genesis 37:2). There was a 13 year gap between the giving of Joseph’s dream and the fulfillment of it. And the details of what happened in that gap are some of the most heart-wrenching in Scripture. Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery. He was falsely accused of sexual harassment. He was unjustly imprisoned and forgotten by the very people he helped in prison (see Genesis 37-39).This life looked like a far cry from the dream God gave him as a teenager. How did Joseph respond to the painful gap between his vision and his reality?He worked with diligence on the work God had given him to do even if it wasn’t his (literal) “dream job” (see Genesis 39:1-6). He chose to obey God rather than taking shortcuts to power (see Genesis 39:6-10). And most of all, he cultivated his relationship with God (see Genesis 41:37-45).In short, Joseph focused on faithfulness to the Dream-giver over the fulfillment of his dreams.You and I would be wise to do the same. Joseph reminds us that God’s people don’t abandon their vocational dreams, but we do make them secondary to obedience to and relationship with the Dream-giver. Because without God, your professional dream—whether fulfilled or not—will always become a nightmare.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Common Grace & Uncommon WorkDevotional: 5 of 5For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good….for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. (Romans 13:4,6)Let’s face it: The brand of Christianity isn’t so hot right now. By and large, non-Christians perceive us to be judgmental and unloving, increasingly retreating into subcultural enclaves to sit on Facebook to rage about “the culture” rather than engage it.Here’s something you can do today to help solve this problem: Celebrate the good in a non-Christian’s work. More than that, tell them that you see God working through them to do good in the world.That’s what we’ve seen throughout this series on common grace! God gives good gifts of provision and vocational skill to “the righteous and the unrighteous” (see Matthew 5:45). And he works in this world through believers and non-believers alike as we see in Romans 13:1-6.And so, while we will not agree with everything non-Christians do in their work, we are free to call out what they do for the common good via God’s common grace as nothing less than God’s work in the world. And that can have a profound impact on the lost, as my friend Mike Kelsey has learned.As Mike shared on the Mere Christians podcast, he was having lunch with a non-Christian friend of his who is a talented poet. Mike told his friend, “Hey, man. I know you don't even know what you believe, but you're doing God's work. God is using you in the ways that you craft words and write poetry and write books…you're blessing people through your gifts.”When I asked Mike how his friend reacted, he said, “He was stunned that I would say that.” Because this guy assumed that he was simply “a salvation project” for Mike. But by taking the time to see his friend and call out the God-given goodness in his work, Mike gave his friend a new and far more winsome picture of what it means to be a Christian.Throughout this series we’ve been looking at responses to common grace that lead to uncommon work. Here are all five:Common grace leaves us dumbstruck at the goodness of God.Common grace leads us to be good to our enemies.Common grace frees us to learn from and work with Christians and non-Christians alike.Common grace forces us to decouple our success from our faithfulness.Common grace allows us to celebrate the lost and change their perception of Christianity.Regarding that fifth response, let me encourage you to do what Mike Kelsey did today. Find a non-Christian who God is clearly using to deliver his good gifts to the world. Encourage them to that end. And watch what God can do with your response to his common grace!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Common Grace & Uncommon WorkDevotional: 4 of 5The 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Common Grace & Uncommon WorkDevotional: 3 of 5When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?...His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. (Isaiah 28:24,26)I was recently asked to speak to a group of pastors about Redeeming Your Time, my book that examines God’s Word and bestselling time management books for wisdom about how we can be maximally productive for God’s glory.Before I took the stage, a pastor spoke and passionately called the audience to ignore “secular” business books. The essence of the man’s message was that, “The only book you need is the Good Book.”When it was my turn to speak, I knew I couldn’t bite my tongue. So I addressed the pastor’s comments head on and said, “We might not ‘need’ these ‘secular’ business books per se. But God in his common grace has given great wisdom to Christians and non-Christians alike and we would be foolish not to learn from them.”I was expecting somebody to throw a rotten tomato. Thankfully, I got a bunch of “amens” instead. Because the pastors in the audience understood the truth embedded in today’s passage.Isaiah says that “God instructs” farmers and “teaches” them “the right way.” But notice this: The passage doesn’t say that God instructs only God-fearing farmers. As we’ve seen throughout this series, the doctrine of common grace teaches us that God makes it “rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (see Matthew 5:45). He reveals truth to God-fearing farmers and God-hating farmers—to Christian authors and non-Christian ones.What does that mean for you and me? Here’s the third response to common grace I want you to see in this series: Common grace frees us to learn from and work with Christians and non-Christians alike.I know Christians who will only work for Christian employers, hire Christian vendors, retain Christian attorneys, and watch films made by Christians. Do you see how common grace destroys that thinking? If not, hear this from the late great Tim Keller: Of course, all non-believers have seriously impaired spiritual vision. Yet so many of the gifts God has put in the world are given to nonbelievers….So Christians are free to study the world…in order to know more of God; for as creatures made in His image we can appreciate truth and wisdom wherever we find it.Amen. So go out and freely and joyfully learn from and work with believers and non-believers alike today, knowing that every true and good gift is ultimately from God!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Common Grace & Uncommon WorkDevotional: 2 of 5Love 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 careersGiving 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 wellOffer them forgiveness for how they wronged youRefusing to speak poorly about them with those who remain on the projectI’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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Common Grace & Uncommon WorkDevotional: 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Thanks for Thorns and ThistlesDevotional: 5 of 5As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11)In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry stumbles upon an enchanted mirror. Unlike normal mirrors, this one does not show the reflection of the person standing in front of it. Instead, it shows a reflection of “the deepest, most desperate desire” of that person’s heart.But the object inside the mirror is just a mirage—a tantalizing vision trapped on the other side of the glass. This, of course, drives the mirror’s visitors mad with frustration. But you and I both know this is a blessing in disguise. Because even if they were able to get their hands on the object of their affection, unless that object was Christ, it would inevitably disappoint.My temptation, and I think yours, is to look to our careers for the very thing Harry was searching for inside that mirror—complete and cosmic joy. But as Jesus makes clear in today’s passage, our joy will only be made complete through his love.Not through our families. Not through our health. Not through landing a promotion, selling your business, or being recognized in your field.And so, we can praise God for the days when our work feels like less than complete joy. Because our “painful toil” is reminding us that Christ alone can fully satisfy us. For this reason, John Mark Comer says this:“I think the curse is a blessing in camouflage. It’s God’s love in disguise. His mercy incognito. Because the curse drives us to God. If it weren’t for the curse…we would look to whatever it is we do for work or rest, and we would find it. And nothing could be more disastrous for the world than God’s image bearers finding identity and belonging and even satisfaction apart from him.”Should we lament over cursed work? Absolutely! Because God didn’t design our work to be painful (see Genesis 1-2 and Isaiah 65).But as we’ve seen in this series, we can also praise God for the blessings he brings us through cursed, frustrating, painfully difficult work. Because “thorns and thistles”:Force us to rely on GodHumble us and compel us to rely on othersLead us to long for eternity with Christ when work will be perfect once againCreate empathy that helps us to make work less painful for othersEnsure that nothing but Christ will ever fully satisfy usIn light of those truths, give thanks for the thorns and thistles you encounter in your work today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Thanks for Thorns and ThistlesDevotional: 4 of 5Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:4)When I was researching my next book, I read tons of dense books with “paragraphs” that spanned entire pages—sometimes multiple pages. Every time I approached another mammoth passage, I felt exhausted before I even began reading. It felt like the cognitive equivalent of staring up at Mount Everest before an ascent.After complaining about my own pain long enough (first-world problems, I know), the Lord reminded me that I’ve written some long paragraphs myself. And if long paragraphs made my work feel arduous, my longwindedness probably makes your reading feel arduous too.So I went back through the manuscript I was writing and took a machete to the document, chopping every paragraph down to size.That’s a small example of one reason I think we can all give thanks for the “thorns and thistles” that make our work difficult: Painful work can create empathy that leads us to make work less painful for others. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, thorny work can lead you to, “look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4).Let’s apply this principle to your own work today. Maybe you feel overwhelmed by the number of meetings you’re being asked to attend this week. Instead of sitting in your own frustration, what if you channeled that pain into love for your neighbor? What if you looked at the meetings you’ve invited others to and questioned whether or not those meetings would serve them well?Or let’s say you’re frustrated by emails that distract you at all hours of the day. Instead of focusing on “your own interests,” what if you looked “to the interests of others” who work for you? What if you sent them a message letting them off the hook for feeling like they have to respond immediately to your emails so that they can work with less distraction?If you took those actions, you could certainly give thanks for the thorns and thistles in your work, because they will have led you to better love your neighbor as yourself.Spend a couple of minutes in silence this morning naming which aspects of your work are most frustrating to you. Pray that God would allow that pain to lead to creative ideas for making work less painful for those you work with. And then give thanks that God can use even the broken things of this world for his glory and the good of others.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Thanks for Thorns and ThistlesDevotional: 3 of 5Then 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 growNor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make His blessings flowFar 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.”

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Thanks for Thorns and ThistlesDevotional: 2 of 5When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but wisdom is with the humble. (Proverbs 11:2)A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with one of my favorite authors—someone who has sold millions more books than I have.I was picking my friend’s brain on publishing and book marketing, when all of a sudden, he started asking me questions about marketing children’s books.Given the massive respect I have for this person, I was really taken aback by his questions. “Why are you asking me about book marketing?” I asked.My friend replied, “Because I have not cracked the nut on children’s books, and honestly, it’s been a bit frustrating. You, on the other hand, seem to have figured this out.”After muttering some false humility, my friend cut me off by quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Jordan,” he said, “Everyone I meet is my superior in some way.”I love that perspective. And my friend only had it because of the frustrating “thorns and thistles” he has experienced in his work (see Genesis 3:17-18).Last week, we saw that we should give thanks for thorns and thistles because they force us to rely on God. But we should also thank God for our “painful toil” because it forces us to rely on others. That’s a tremendous blessing for two reasons.First, when we rely on others we get wisdom! The pain caused by “thorns and thistles” leads to humility and that humility leads to wisdom (see Proverbs 11:2). Second, when we rely on others they get blessed! Because you are giving them a chance to use their God-given gifts to serve you. If the person you’re relying on is a believer, you’re giving them a chance to earn eternal rewards by helping you (see Ephesians 6:8)!What problem can’t you seem to solve in your work today? Don’t pridefully keep it to yourself. Share your struggles with someone who can help. And thank God for the thorns and thistles that forced you to rely more on him and your neighbor.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Thanks for Thorns and ThistlesDevotional: 1 of 5To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “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, and you will eat the plants of the field.” (Genesis 3:17-18)"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." I don’t know who coined this popular piece of fortune cookie wisdom, but I can tell you they never read Genesis 3.After sin entered the world, God said that work will be “painful toil…all the days of your life.” Not “painful toil…until you choose a job you love.” Work will be frustrating until the New Earth (see Isaiah 65:17-23).Now, I love what I do. I’ve never been more confident that creating content like these devotionals is the work God created me to do. And Lord willing, I’ll be helping you connect the gospel to your work for the next 50 years.But even though I love my work, it sure feels like work some days. It’s hard, frustrating, and exhausting at times.But here’s what I’m learning: Even though God never designed work to be painful (see Genesis 1 and 2), there are still great blessings to be found in the curse. There are reasons to give thanks for the “thorns and thistles” that make work difficult.Over the next five weeks, I’m going to share five of those reasons with you. Here’s the first: We should give thanks for thorns and thistles because they force us to rely on God.Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to “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.”But if all of our paths were already straight, we wouldn’t see much of a need to “trust in the Lord with all our heart” would we? And so, we can thank God when we can’t see which path to take in our work because our lack of clarity forces us to “walk humbly with our God” (see Micah 6:8).Where is the path painfully unclear in your work today? Are you frustrated with a boss or client and not sure how to deal with them? Are you unclear on how you’re going to hit payroll this month? Are you simply burnt out and don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel?Lament over your “painful toil.” Then go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to “make your paths straight.” Then thank him for the “thorns and thistles” he’s using to lead you to rely on him.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 7 of 7“The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.” (Psalm 50:23) “Glorify” is one of those Christianese terms we use so much that its meaning can feel muddled. So, when you read a passage like 1 Corinthians 10:31 that urges you to do “whatever you do…for the glory of God,” you might understandably wonder what that looks like practically—especially in the workplace.Let’s look to God’s Word to remove some of the mystery together. Here are just five ways Scripture says you can “glorify” God at work today.#1: Give thanks. Psalm 50:23 makes clear that simply thanking God for the gift of your work and the fruit it’s producing “glorifies” him.#2: Do good work. 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). The Greek word ergon that we translate to “good works” here literally means “work, task, [and] employment.” And so, you can be confident you are glorifying God today when you simply do your work with excellence, love, and in accordance with his commands.#3: Trust God’s promises. Romans 4:20 tells us that Abraham “gave glory to God” when he “did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God.” We can do the same. God has promised you will work without the curse for eternity (see Isaiah 65:17-22), that he is working “all things” for your good (see Romans 8:28-29), and that somehow your work is “not in vain” (see 1 Corinthians 15:58). Simply trusting in these promises glorifies him!#4: Share the gospel (and your belongings). In 2 Corinthians 9:13, Paul says that your co-workers “will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them.”#5: Sacrifice your freedoms. The context of 1 Corinthians 10:31 (“whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”) is Paul urging his readers to sacrifice their freedoms for the good of others (see 1 Corinthians 10:23-33). And so, you can be confident you are glorifying God when you, for example, sacrifice the freedom to work from home so that you can better build relationships with the lost. Or give up your right to drink alcohol in front of a co-worker who doesn’t.Those are just five of the many ways you can glorify God at work. I pray they will motivate you to look at every interaction, project, and meeting as an opportunity to bring glory to your heavenly Father today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 6 of 7Return 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)!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 5 of 7[God] makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for people to cultivate—bringing forth food from the earth...All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. (Psalm 104:14, 27)After praying and thanking God for our dinner, my daughter Kate (3 at the time) said, “Daddy, God didn’t give us this food. Mommy bought it at the grocery store!”“You’re right, Kate,” I said. “Mommy did buy this food at the grocery store. But who created the apple on your plate?” “God,” Kate answered.“That’s right,” I said. “And he also made the farmer that picked that apple, and the engineers who built a truck to take the apples to the grocery store which was built by entrepreneurs, carpenters, and bankers. God used the work of all of those people and more to give us this dinner!”By this point, I had long lost Kate’s attention. But one day, I pray she will read Psalm 104 and appreciate what I was trying to teach her.The Psalmist says that God "makes grass grow," but leaves it "for people to cultivate" the land. And this is just how God intended from the beginning—even prior to sin entering the world! In Genesis 2, we’re told that, after God began creating, “no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up.” Why? Because “the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground” (see Genesis 2:5).You see it, right? God could have made shrubs, grass, and food grow all on his own. But he chose to delegate that work to his image-bearers—a theme we see all throughout God’s Word.Sure there are times in Scripture in which God miraculously provided for his people (see Exodus 16 and Matthew 14:13-21). But most of the time, we see God working through the miracle of human work. “God could easily give you grain and fruit without your plowing and planting,” said Martin Luther, “but he does not want to do so.” Because you and I are the primary instrument through which God works in this world.Knowing that—that your work is nothing less than the means through which God feeds, heals, and sustains the world—lean into your work with joy, excellence, and love today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 4 of 7May 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 3 of 7Teach 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 2 of 7In you, Lord my God, I put my trust…Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. (Psalm 25:1, 5)Can you repeat David’s words with a straight face? “God…my hope is in you all day long.” I know I can’t most days. That might be true in the mornings after I have spent time in the Word meditating on the hope of the gospel. But once I sit down at my desk, it often feels like my hope is in signing the next book deal, hitting the next milestone in podcast subscribers, or helping my kids get straight As at school.These are examples of good things that you and I should be ambitious for. Done with proper motives, they are part of the “good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” (see Ephesians 2:10).But our good work can’t be the source of our hope. Why? Because the results of our work aren’t secure! I have no ultimate control over my next book deal or whether or not my kids make the honor roll. Thus, setting my ultimate hopes on these fragile things will inevitably disappoint.This is why we can never “move past” the gospel. The temptation to place our hopes in the next promotion, acquisition, or project at work can be immense. The only antidote is to constantly preach the gospel to ourselves, reminding us that our ultimate hope is in our status as adopted children of God (see John 1:12-13).J.D. Greear is right: “The gospel is not just the diving board off of which we jump into the pool of Christianity; it is the pool itself.” And so, we must swim in the pool of the gospel regularly.Even if you fail to accomplish what you’ve set out to do at work today, your eternal hope of salvation is secure. You can be assured of God’s “never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.” Let this truth marinate in your heart "all day long" today.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the PsalmsDevotional: 1 of 7Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3)Growing up, we had a tree in my yard that would produce delicious tangerines each year. Do you know what I never saw that tree do? Hoard the fruit for itself. Why? Because that’s not the purpose of a fruit tree. A fruit tree exists to share its fruit with others.I think that’s part of what the Psalmist had in mind in today’s passage. The Psalter opens by describing “one...whose delight is in the law of the Lord” and says that whatever that person does “prospers.” Who is that prosperity for? Primarily for others—just like “a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit.”Is it wrong to enjoy the fruit of our labor? Absolutely not! All analogies break down at some point, and the fruit tree is no exception. A fruit tree physically can’t partake of its own fruit. We can, and Scripture encourages us to do so! In Ecclesiastes 5:19, Solomon says that “God gives…wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them.”But based on the balance of Scripture, it seems clear to me that the primary purpose of our “wealth and possessions” is to bless others. In 2 Corinthians 9, the Apostle Paul says this: “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…You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (see 2 Corinthians 9:8, 11).You see it, right? We are enriched primarily “so that” we will “abound in every good work,” including the work of being “generous on every occasion.”Has your work given you more than you need today? If so, enjoy some of the fruits of your labor as an act of worship to the giver of those good gifts. But don’t forget the picture from today’s Psalm. Primarily, you’re called to be a fruit tree that freely shares its fruit with others. So share generously today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series:  4 Biblical Ways to Escape the Comparison TrapDevotional: 4 of 4Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. (Matthew 25:14)When it comes to escaping the comparison trap, there may be no more helpful passage of Scripture than the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25.Jesus’s parable focuses on a Master (representing himself) who “entrusted his wealth” to three servants. “To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag,” and then, he went on a long journey.Upon his return, the Master found that the first servant had diligently put the Master’s money to work and turned five bags of gold into ten. The Master turned to the first servant and said, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Come and share your master’s happiness!’”Then, the Master came to the second servant who turned his two bags of gold into four. And the Master gave him the exact same blessing that he gave the first servant—even though the second servant wound up with six fewer bags of gold.Do you see how countercultural this is? Secular wisdom would look at this scene and say, Clearly the servant with ten bags is the “winner,” right!? Not in Jesus’s book. Because the Master didn’t compare these guys to each other, he compared them to themselves.Based on this parable, I think if Jesus were asked to define success in a word it would be stewardship—doing your best in accordance with the Lord’s commands. That points us to the fourth way we can escape the comparison trap: Remembering that while the world will always value being the best, God values us doing our best with talents he has called us to steward.I hope you see how unbelievably freeing that truth is. Because it is impossible to win the world’s game. There will always be somebody bigger, better, richer, smarter, more popular, more talented, and more successful than you. Always! And so, if the game is about being the best, you will never escape the comparison trap.But with God, the only way you “lose” is by not suiting up. So long as you stay focused on your calling—day by day seeking to better steward what God has given you as a worshipful response to your salvation—you win (see Ephesians 2:8-10).The next time you find yourself spiraling into the comparison trap, remember these four biblical ways to escape:Confess your prideThank God for the goodness he has shown to you and to othersAsk yourself if you’re even playing the same game as the person you’re comparing yourself toRemember that while the world calls you to be the best, God calls you to do your best I pray your soul will find rest in these truths today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 4 Biblical Ways to Escape the Comparison TrapDevotional: 3 of 4We 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 4 Biblical Ways to Escape the Comparison TrapDevotional: 2 of 4Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. (Job 41:11)On April 7, 2019, Craig Arttez Brewer walked into a Waffle House and started handing out $20 bills to strangers. For whatever reason, Brewer chose not to extend his generosity to all the restaurant’s patrons, only some. One customer who did not receive one of Brewer’s generous gifts became furious and stormed out of the restaurant. A few minutes later, the customer returned with a gun, shooting and killing Brewer on the spot.This tragic true story illustrates an important truth: God is the creator of the universe. He created us and every good thing in this world, and thus, he is free to do with our lives whatever he pleases. Just as the angry Waffle House customer had no right to Craig Brewer’s generosity, we have no right to God’s. Because we sinned against our Creator, the only “claim” we have against him is the claim to eternal separation from him (see Romans 6:23). That is what we deserve. Everything else—from our salvation, to our jobs, to the breath in our lungs—is a good and merciful gift of grace.And it is that truth that can free us from soul-sucking comparison. Last week, we saw that confessing our pride is the first way to escape the comparison trap. Here’s the second: Thank God for the goodness he has shown—to you and to others. Thanking God for the goodness he has shown you turns your focus away from what you want to what you have already been given. And thanking God for the goodness he has shown others helps you remember that their success too is a gift from God—even if they aren’t followers of him!This is where many of us can get hung up. Let’s say you’re competing for a promotion at work and you lose out to a lying, womanizing colleague who hates the ways of the Lord. That can be a tough pill to swallow. But God’s Word promises that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17) who “sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). And so, we can trust that God knows what he’s doing—even when he allows the “unrighteous” to prosper.This morning, I want you to think of just one person you tend to compare yourself to. Thank God for the goodness he has shown them—their talents, prosperity, health, etc.And thank him for the unmerited goodness he has shown you, joining Jacob in praying, “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant” (Genesis 32:10).

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 4 Biblical Ways to Escape the Comparison TrapDevotional: 1 of 4If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else. (Galatians 6:3-4)Today is my 37th birthday. I don’t know about you, but for me, birthdays are the perfect trigger for falling into the comparison trap. Because birthdays offer us a “scorecard” of sorts—especially in a world that is obsessed with success at an early age. If we’ve made more money than our peers or parents have by a certain age, we can feel proud and arrogant. Conversely, if we have failed to sell a company, reach the C-Suite, or achieve some other goal before someone else, we can feel jealous and bitter like we’re “falling behind” and “life is passing us by.”How can you wage war against these feelings? How do I plan to escape the comparison trap today? By confessing and repenting of my pride. Because as Paul makes clear in Galatians 6:3-4, pride is the root of all comparison.Save Paul, nobody has articulated this better than C.S. Lewis who said in Mere Christianity: “We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.”It’s easy to see how pride is the root of comparison that leads us to feel superior to others, but it is also the root of us feeling inferior to others. If I feel jealous that someone has accomplished more than I have by a certain age, that is ultimately rooted in a feeling that I deserve the good gifts God has given them, but not me. And that is pride.So, if you find yourself falling into the comparison trap today, start your escape here: Confess your pride to the Lord in prayer and ask for his power to “take pride in yourself alone, without comparing yourself to someone else.”

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Working in ExileDevotional: 5 of 5I 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. (1 Corinthians 9:22-23)Today concludes our five-week series exploring biblical principles for working in environments that are increasingly hostile to the ways of the Lord. Today’s passage contains the final principle I want us to explore:Principle #5: Christians are called to become all things to all people for the sake of the gospel.One of the reasons why God has you working “outside the camp” is because it is through the work of mere Christians—not primarily pastors and religious professionals—that God will save the lost in our "post-Christian" context. But to make disciples at work you, like Paul, must “become all things to all people”—doing everything you can (other than sin) to build relationships with non-believers. This could look like having lunch with a different co-worker once a week to get to know your colleagues personally or following your office’s favorite sports team so you have something to talk about on Monday mornings. There are a million practical outworkings of this principle. But let me draw out one more—a controversial application that, if you haven’t already, you will certainly have a chance to practice soon.Let’s pretend that a woman you work with shares that they’re now identifying as a man, and they ask that you start referring to them by the male pronouns “he/him.” As a Christian, you hold to a biblical stance that sexuality is defined by God alone (see Genesis 1:27 and Matthew 19:4-5). So, what do you do?Some faithful Christians I respect argue that you should refuse to use your friend’s chosen pronouns, as doing so would give the appearance of condoning sin. But according to one of the more serious studies on this topic, one Christian researcher found that “None of my interviewees were inclined to interpret a…Christian’s pronoun hospitality as an automatic indication that this Christian agreed with everything about the way in which the trans person expressed their gender.”Conversely, another expert has found that “people typically view using their pronouns and chosen name as a basic act of courtesy and respect that’s necessary for continuing relationship” (emphasis mine). With all that in view and with the principle of “becoming all things to all people…for the sake of the gospel” in mind, I would encourage you to practice “pronoun hospitality” in the workplace and use your friend’s chosen pronouns. Now, that doesn’t mean you never confront their sin! But I pray that we, like Jesus, would be relational first and confrontational second (see John 8:1-11), “so that by all possible means [we] might save some.”My friend, I pray that this series has been incredibly encouraging and helpful to you. Your workplace is likely to become less and less friendly to the ways of Jesus. I pray these principles will help you be faithful to Christ and his mission as you work in exile.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Working in ExileDevotional: 4 of 5You 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. (Matthew 5:13)Last week, we explored the biblical call to “live such good lives” amongst our non-Christian co-workers that they have nothing credible to say against us (see 1 Peter 2:11-12). And we saw that that includes our submission to all authorities—even bosses who are antagonistic towards Christianity (see 1 Peter 2:13-22). But we are only obedient up to a point. In the rare instances in which an authority explicitly asks us to contradict the Lord’s commands—when they ask us to lie to a co-worker, embellish the truth to land a deal, or stop talking about Jesus—we are free and obligated to dissent. We choose to obey God, not man (see Acts 5:27-32), otherwise our “salt loses its saltiness” and “is no longer good for anything.” That brings us to our fourth principle for working in exile:Principle #4: Christians are called to disobey directives that contradict God’s Word in a distinctly God-honoring way.Why a “distinctly God-honoring way”? Because even when we refuse to obey an earthly authority, we can do so in ways that do and do not glorify God.There are a number of case studies for what God-honoring disobedience looks like in the book of Daniel (see Daniel 1:5-14, Daniel 3:1-18, and Daniel 6:6-12). Here are three characteristics of godly dissension that we see in these passages.First, we disobey respectfully. When Daniel was asked to eat defiled foods from the king’s table, he didn’t just say “no” to his boss. “He asked the chief official for permission” to abstain (Daniel 1:8). Now, we can assume that had Daniel not received “permission,” he still would have obeyed God and not man. But by asking for permission, he disobeyed respectfully.Second, we disobey constructively. Instead of simply refusing to adhere to the Babylonian diet, Daniel offered a creative alternative aimed at blessing the very employer that was asking him to disobey the Lord (see Daniel 1:12). Daniel understood that he (and we) are called to “seek the peace and prosperity” of the non-Christians we work for and this shines through even in his disobedience (see Jeremiah 29:1-7).Finally, Daniel and friends show us that we are called to disobey resolutely. When Daniel’s friends were asked to bow down to a golden idol, they refused in no uncertain terms saying, “we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (Daniel 3:18). We must do the same, trusting that regardless of the consequences, God will work everything for our good and his greater glory (see Romans 8:28-29).

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Working in ExileDevotional: 3 of 5Dear 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Working in ExileDevotional: 2 of 5And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25)Last week, we saw the first of five biblical principles for working in exile—namely that a Christian’s default position should be to rush into dark workplaces, not retreat from them. This is in line with Jesus’s prayer in John 17:15-18 when he asked the Father to send his followers “into the world.” But in the same breath, Jesus also asked the Father to “protect them from the evil one.” You see, while Jesus never intended for his followers to isolate themselves from the world, he has called us to insulate ourselves before going into our dark workplaces and communities.How? Through study of God’s Word (see John 17:17) and Christian community. That’s what the writer of Hebrews is urging in today’s passage: that we insulate ourselves by “not giving up meeting together” with other believers. That brings us to our second biblical principle for working in exile:Principle #2: Christians are not called to isolate from unbelievers, but we are called to insulate ourselves through God’s Word and Christian community.I’m going to assume you’re already in the Word on a regular basis. But if you’re like many modern Christians, the community piece doesn’t come as easily. I’d argue that every Christian professional needs two types of Christian communities.First, a local church. There has been a lot of debate about the importance of the local church in recent years. Personally, I can’t get around the strong biblical case for committing to a local body of believers.Second, you need a community of believers who understands your specific work and can help you answer highly situational questions such as:Should I agree to my client’s request to use pictures of homosexual couples in our marketing campaigns?How can I push back on my boss’s vision for a new product that will exploit the poor?How do I go about firing a client for the way they treat my team?Where can you find a group to help you answer questions like these? If you work at a large company, consider joining or starting a Christian or interfaith Employee Resource Group (ERG). If you’re curious to learn more about how these groups work and why they’re so effective, listen to my interviews with the leaders of Amazon’s and PayPal’s faith-based ERGs. If you don’t work at a large company, but still long to insulate yourself with a community of Christians who share your vocation, consider joining The Word Before Work Community led by yours truly.If you want to serve as a faithful ambassador for Christ in your post-Christian workplace, being in Christian community is not optional. Find one to get plugged into today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Working in ExileDevotional: 1 of 5The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. (Hebrews 13:11-13)Chances are that your workplace feels increasingly “post-Christian.” The HR department is now encouraging employees to customize their gender pronouns; talk of religion is quietly discouraged; and your employer is making headlines for their support of pro-choice causes.In the face of these trends, it’s natural to wonder whether you should quit your job and find a new role in a ministry or a business led by a fellow Christian—a workplace that is “better aligned with your values.” God may be calling you to do that, but I seriously doubt it for two reasons.First, Jesus himself worked in dark places. As we saw in today’s passage, he “suffered outside the city gate.” Most literally, this phrase refers to the fact that Jesus was crucified beyond Jerusalem’s city walls (see John 19:17-20). But theologians agree that there’s another meaning to these words. You see, while it was perfectly within God’s power to give Jesus a vocation inside the city gate—in the Temple, “the Most Holy Place”—he chose for Jesus to spend the majority of his life working “outside the city gate” as a carpenter where he undoubtedly suffered more blood, sweat, tears, and temptation than the average priest. Commenting on this passage, one group of theologians say that “to follow Christ fully is to follow him to the places where his saving help is desperately needed, but not necessarily welcomed.”Jesus’s example is the first reason to stay in your increasingly “post-Christian” workplace. Here’s the second: Jesus calls his followers into dark places. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus cried out to his Father on behalf of his disciples saying, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world…As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:15-18). Here, Jesus is reiterating what he said in the Sermon on the Mount when he called you to “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Nobody sees light shining in an already bright room. Light can only shine in dark places. Which is why Jesus calls us to work and live amongst the lost.All of that brings me to the first principle for working in exile:Principle #1: A Christian’s default position should be to rush into dark workplaces, not retreat from them.But if we stay, we are going to need help in maintaining a distinctive Christianity while we work. It is to that challenge we will turn to next week.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Easter VocationsDevotional: 4 of 4He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God….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.” (Acts 1:3, 6-8)Everything God does is intentional, and the timing of Jesus’s resurrection is no exception.As pastor Skye Jethani explains in his book Futureville, the reason why Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday has its origins in the creation account of Genesis 1. Historically, Christians have identified “Sunday as the first day of God’s creative work.” And just “like the creation account in Genesis, which began but did not end on Sunday, God’s re-creation began on Easter Sunday with Jesus’ resurrection but continues to unfold.”You see, just as the first Sunday was just the beginning of the first creation, Easter Sunday was just the beginning of the final one. And just as God called the First Adam and his bride Eve to help him cultivate the first creation, Jesus the Last Adam has called his bride, the Church, to help him cultivate the final one.That’s the vocation Jesus gave us, his followers, in today’s passage: to be “witnesses” to that new creation! At first blush, that word “witnesses” simply appears to be a call to “share the gospel.” But pastor Tim Keller explains that the Greek word here means “more than simply winning people to Christ…the church is to be an agent of the kingdom. It is not only to model the healing of God’s rule but it is to spread it….ordering lives and relationships and institutions and communities according to God’s authority to bring in the blessedness of the kingdom.”What does that look like practically? It looks like weeding out things like disorder, injustice, and disease that have no place in the eternal kingdom of God.It looks like creating beautiful art, places of belonging, and cultural excellence that offer glimpses of what does belong in God’s kingdom.It looks like serving as faithful representatives of our Risen King, modeling his character of love, peace, and joy to those we work with.And yes, it looks like making disciples as you go about your life and work.If Jesus’s “Easter vocation” is King of Kings, our Easter vocation is to be witnesses to his kingship and rightful lordship over every square inch of creation—including your place of work. Embrace your role as a witness for the king and work to make “thy kingdom come” in your place of work “as it is in heaven” today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Easter VocationsDevotional: 2 of 4“I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. (John 21:3-6)Today’s passage shows us “the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead” that first Easter Sunday (see John 21:14). Commenting on this scene, St. Augustine once wrote admiringly that after Jesus had “risen from the grave, after seeing the marks of His wounds, after receiving, by means of His breathing, the Holy Ghost, all at once [these disciples] become what they were before, fishers, not of men, but of fishes.”But not everyone shares Augustine’s glowing view of the disciples. I’ve heard many pastors preach this text and call the disciples “backsliding” Christians because they went back to their vocations as fishermen instead of “following Jesus fully” as “full-time missionaries.” Let me share three reasons why that’s a poor interpretation of this text.First, Jesus never said that fishing for men and fishing for food were mutually exclusive. In Matthew 4:19, he said, “follow me…and I will send you out to fish for people.” He didn’t say, “I will send you out to fish for people and you will never fish for food or income again.”Second, Jesus could have reprimanded his disciples for fishing, but he didn’t. And it’s not like it was beyond the resurrected Christ to reprimand his followers (see Luke 24:13-25).Finally, Jesus blessed the work of his disciples’ hands with a miraculous catch of fish! Why would he have done that if he was not pleased with their decision to go back to their work of fishing? In this scene, we see a theme that is reiterated throughout the gospels—namely, that Jesus frequently smiles upon the choices his followers make to go back to the vocations they had prior to following him. We see it here with these bi-vocational fishermen/disciples in John 21. We see it with the Roman centurion in Matthew 8, who Jesus could have easily called away from his vocation, but didn’t. And we see it with Zaccheus in Luke 19 who, upon choosing to follow Jesus, appears to have gone back to his vocation as a tax collector with Jesus’s blessing.Following Jesus means that all of us will now “fish for people.” But it doesn’t mean that all of us will lay down our trades. Deep in your soul, you, like Jesus’s fishermen friends, know that God put you on this earth to fish, write, build homes, start businesses, or create spreadsheets. Meeting the resurrected Christ doesn’t necessitate you abandoning that work. You can bring Jesus great pleasure by staying exactly where you are fishing for people and food for the glory of God and the good of others.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Easter VocationsDevotional: 2 of 4Joseph of Arimathea…was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took [Jesus’] body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen….At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb…they laid Jesus there. (John 19:38-42)Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea had a lot in common. Both were members of the Sanhedrin—the religious governing body that had just played a role in crucifying Jesus (see Mark 14:53-65). Both men, most scholars agree, were likely very wealthy. And both men were secret followers of Jesus…up until Good Friday, that is.Something about Jesus’s death compelled these two men to go public with their faith, specifically by giving Jesus a proper burial. As pastor Daniel Darling explains in his book, The Characters of Easter, “Typically a criminal would be dumped into an empty grave or pauper’s field, buried ignominiously under a pile of rocks.” But Nicodemus and Joseph refused to allow Jesus to suffer that fate. While their fellow members of the Sanhedrin may have killed Jesus like a criminal, these men were intent on burying Jesus like a king.And they made at least three enormous sacrifices to do so.First, money. Joseph gave up his costly tomb (see Matthew 27:60) and Nicodemus offered “seventy-five pounds” of “myrrh and aloes” for embalming, which one scholar says would have cost “an extraordinary amount.”Second, these men sacrificed their priorities. As Ken Costa points out in his book, Joseph of Arimathea, Joseph and Nicodemus “fully knew the embalming” of Jesus “would make them ritually impure at the start of the Passover feast.” This was an unthinkable act for religious professionals used to adhering to the letter of the law! And yet they prioritized honoring Christ above honoring the traditions of their professions.Finally, by burying Jesus, Joseph and Nicodemus would have seriously risked their reputations. Their peers had just murdered Jesus! And here they were honoring him. At a minimum, this act would have cost them their stature. But it could have cost them their jobs—maybe even their lives.The faith of Joseph and Nicodemus cost them a lot. How much is your Christianity costing you? If your honest answer is “not much,” I pray that the example of these two men would inspire you to be even bolder for Christ in your workplace today. That could take a lot of different shapes. Here’s just one I would challenge you with this morning: Acknowledge your faith in Christ to one co-worker who may not know you’re a Christian. In doing so, you’ll be paying a small tribute to Joseph and Nicodemus. But more importantly, you’ll be offering up a small display of worship to the One who gave up everything for you and me!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Easter VocationsDevotional: 1 of 4Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane…and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Matthew 26:36-38)Peter and “the two sons of Zebedee” (James and John) had a broad vocation to follow Jesus. But on the night before their rabbi’s crucifixion, they were given a more specific job: Simply to stay awake while Jesus went away to pray.As they were all walking into the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus “began to be sorrowful and troubled.” He was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”What’s going on here? In his phenomenal sermon The Dark Garden, Tim Keller explained Jesus’s sorrow this way: “Jesus…got all of his power…and his love from his relationship with the Father, and therefore...as he was walking to [Gethsemane], he would have started praying….In his heart, he would have turned to the Father, the way he constantly does…and that’s when it hit him. Because when he turned in his soul toward the Father, there was nothing there.”Jesus was experiencing a first sip from the “cup” of God’s wrath due to humankind’s sin (see Matthew 26:39). He was catching a preview of what he would drink in full the next day: Total separation from his Heavenly Father.Meanwhile, back at the camp, Jesus’s disciples were (literally) falling down on the job. Three times Jesus asked them to do the easiest job in the world while he went off to consider whether or not he would do the hardest—dying for these men who couldn’t even stay awake.As Keller explains, “Peter, James, and John are the representatives of the human race…Every time [Jesus found them sleeping] it’s like the Father is saying, ‘That’s the human race for you. Swallow hell for them. Take into yourself this spiritual atomic bomb and let it explode for them.’”And Jesus did! What does that mean for you, believer? At least two things.First, it means that God loves you on your absolute worst day at work. The day that represents your biggest regret. The season of unproductiveness. The time you had a golden opportunity to share the gospel with a co-worker but didn’t. God knows all about it. And because Jesus chose to die for his disciples on their worst day at the office, you can be confident that he loves you on yours.Second, I hope this scene at Gethsemane reminds you that you are free to risk greatly. Start that business, speak up for the injustice you’ve seen in your office, share your faith boldly. Why? Because even in failure, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).Because Jesus spent three days separated from the love of God, you never will, believer. Don’t take that for granted. May the assuredness of God’s love lead you to be bold for Christ’s sake today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Beneath Your WorkDevotional: 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:What is the work beneath your work? 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Beneath Your WorkDevotional: 3 of 4In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)We’re in a four-week series exploring the work beneath our work—in other words, the ultimate why underneath what we do.Now, if you are subscribed to my devotionals, part of your motivation for your work is undoubtedly to leverage your vocation for the glory of God and the good of others. But if you find yourself consistently overworking—if you find that you’re unable to rest and “turn your brain off” at home—it’s worth asking whether there are deeper motivations for your work that are less than God-honoring.Last week, we looked at one of those motivations: performance. Today we look at another: avoidance.I know a lot of Christians who are using their work as a narcotic to avoid dealing with their depression, conflict with a family member, or a sense of inadequacy they feel when they’re at home compared to when they’re at their desk.It’s a lot easier to work hard at the office than it is to deal with these things. And so we work hard to numb the pain that comes with doing the harder work that awaits us when we step away from our laptops and workbenches.How do we free ourselves from this work beneath our work? By looking to Christ.As today’s passage reminds us, Jesus was under no obligation to enter our mess and save us. It was perfectly within his rights to avoid our sin and suffering. And yet, he “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing,” on our behalf (Philippians 2:6-7).What is our response to Christ’s unfathomable grace and mercy? To “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5) which includes entering into the messes around us rather than using overwork as an anesthetic against hard things.Is God bringing to mind something you’re trying to avoid with your overwork? Ask him for the Christ-like courage to lean into that hard thing today for his greater glory.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Underneath Your WorkDevotional: 2 of 4Then the eyes of [Adam and Eve] were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7)Last week, I asked you this: What is the work beneath your work? In other words, why are you working so hard?Over the next three weeks, we’ll explore three of the most common answers to that question. And while this will be far from an exhaustive list, I’m confident it will be a helpful one.Here’s the first: Performance, or using your work to earn the respect, love, and acceptance of others.For the first few years of my career, this was the primary work beneath my work. I wasn’t working primarily for the glory of God and the good of others. I was working to impress you. And so I would not-so-subtly name-drop big brands I had worked for and impressive people I knew—not to facilitate great conversation, but to make you think I had the most impressive LinkedIn profile in the room.Why did I do this? Why do you? For the same reason Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves for themselves in Genesis 3: to cover up the fact that underneath it all, we’re not OK.Of course, we don’t cover ourselves with literal fig leafs today, but we do with metaphorical ones to be sure. And because professional performance produces one of the thickest fig leaves of our modern era, we can work ourselves to the point of burnout, not because we need to financially, but because we need to spiritually.This work beneath our work of performance is laid bare in Taylor Swift’s autobiographical song Mastermind. She writes:No one wanted to play with me as a little kidSo I've been scheming like a criminal ever sinceTo make them love me and make it seem effortlessWhy are Taylor, you, and me working so hard? To perform. To “make them love” us.What can free us from this exhausting work beneath our work? Christ alone. 1 John 3:1 says that Christians are to be “called children of God…that is what we are!” Through Christ, I am an adopted child of God. A co-heir with Christ (see Romans 8:17). No amount of professional success will ever give me a loftier title than that!It is meditation on that truth that God has used to slowly but surely free me from the work beneath my work. The same will be true for you.But maybe the work beneath your work isn’t performance. Maybe it’s avoidance. It is to that work that we turn to next week.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: The Work Beneath Your WorkDevotional: 1 of 4Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah….When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” (Genesis 29:30-32)In today’s passage, we find one of the best biblical case studies for what Tim Keller calls "the work beneath [our] work.” On the surface, Leah’s work was that of childbearing. But her real work—the true why underneath all of her labor—was the exhausting work of winning Jacob’s love. After her first son Reuben was born, Leah said, “Surely my husband will love me now” (v. 32).But evidently, he didn’t, because Leah said the Lord gave her a second child, “Because…I am not loved” (v. 33).Maybe the third son would be the proverbial charm, Leah must have thought. So she gave birth to Levi and said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” (v. 34). Do you hear Leah’s angst? Her striving? Leah was desperately trying to get something from her work that God never designed her work to give her—namely the love and affection of another human being.But by the time Leah had her fourth son, something had changed. When she gave birth to Judah, Leah didn’t say anything that would connect her work as a mother to her attempts to earn her husband’s favor. She simply said, “This time I will praise the Lord,” and “then she stopped having children” (v. 35).It was only once Leah found love and acceptance outside of her vocational performance that she could rest her body and soul. It was only when the praise of the Lord was her primary ambition that she was freed from the work beneath her work.The question, of course, is what is the work beneath your work? And how does the gospel free you from that work? Those are the questions I’m going to challenge you to answer over the next few weeks. Now, the reality is that the “why” of your work is always going to be mixed. Some of your motives are likely honoring to God, while others aren’t.But we’d be wise to discern the primary motives of our hearts. Because until our motivation is predominantly to “praise the Lord” through our work, we will be restless, unsatisfied, and overworked.Start this morning by praying that God would begin to reveal the work beneath your work. And join me next week as we explore one of the most common ambitions that the gospel can free us from.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 7 of 7When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?” Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.” Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good.” (Exodus 18:14-17)Moses’s father-in-law Jethro was blunt. But he was also profoundly helpful. So much so that Exodus 18:24 tells us that “Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.”What did Jethro tell Moses to do? In short, delegate the work of governing Israel. Exodus 18:13-26 gives us a front-row seat to the masterclass Jethro taught Moses on delegation. Today, I want to turn your attention to five principles from that passage that are relevant to you today, whether you lead a team of 10 or 0 and are simply delegating work around your house.Principle #1: Identify the work you’re most uniquely equipped to do. For Moses, that was to “be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him” (v. 19). He was the only person God had called to that task, and so, Jethro urged him to focus his time and energy on that singular activity.Principle #2: Select trustworthy people to delegate other work to. In verse 21, Jethro told Moses to “select capable” people to delegate the work of judging Israel to. But when he explained what he meant by “capable,” he didn't focus on technical skills, but matters of the heart, urging Moses to select “men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain.”Principle #3: Make the time to train well. One of the most common mistakes I see people make when delegating is not making the time to delegate well. Jethro warned Moses against this, instructing Moses to “teach [his team God’s] decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live” (v. 20).Principle #4: Trust your team. “The simple cases they can decide themselves,” Jethro said in verse 22. In other words, don’t micro-manage, Moses! When we trust those we delegate work to, it not only serves us by freeing us to focus on the work we’re most uniquely equipped to do, it also enables others to do their most exceptional work.Principle #5: Delegate, but don’t abdicate. Jethro didn’t advise Moses to let his team handle all cases on their own. Just the “simple” ones. Jethro said, “have them bring every difficult case to you” (v. 22). Why? Because, to quote Michael Hyatt, “Delegation is not abdication. The outcome is still your responsibility.”Why does it matter that we, like Moses, learn to delegate well? Because it enables us to excel at the very thing God saved the Israelites and us to do: Work for his glory, the good of others, and the advancement of his kingdom!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 6 of 7On 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 5 of 7Then 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 4 of 7Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. You are to say everything I command you” (Exodus 7:1-2)God could have set the Israelites free all on his own. He could have taken human form, walked straight into Pharaoh’s palace, and led the Israelites out of Egypt for good. But that wasn’t his strategy as today’s passage makes clear. The Lord said to Moses, “I have made you like God to Pharaoh.” In other words, while God could have done this work on his own, he chose to do it through Moses and Aaron. Why? Was it because God had more important things to do? No. It’s simply because this is how God has always chosen to operate. All throughout Scripture, we see that while God is perfectly capable of working on his own, more often than not, he chooses to work in this world through human beings. That was true with Moses thousands of years ago, and it’s true with you and me today. In the words of Tim Keller, “We are called to stand in for God here in the world…as his vice-regents.” His deputy kings and queens. This is precisely what Paul was getting at in 2 Corinthians 5:20 when he calls you and me “Christ’s ambassadors.” Think about the role ambassadors play on behalf of nations today. They themselves are not sovereign. But they stand in for and represent the sovereign and the values of their kingdom.So it is with God and his kingdom. One of the purposes of our work is to “stand in for God” and be what James Davison Hunter calls a “faithful presence” for him in our places of work. To be “like God,” not to Pharaoh but to our bosses, co-workers, and customers.What does this look like practically? It means exposing evil in our companies and industries (see Ephesians 5:11), “making [God’s] appeal” of salvation to the non-Christians we work with (see 2 Corinthians 5:20), and working “heartily, as unto the Lord” knowing that it is through our work that God feeds, heals, clothes, protects, and helps the world (see Colossians 3:23).The purpose of your work is so much bigger than providing for your needs or fulfillment. You wear what Martin Luther called “the masks of God,” standing in for him in your small corner of creation. Stand in as a bold, joyful, and faithful representative of him today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 3 of 7“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)God just said he would free the Israelites from their oppressive work conditions in Egypt, which undoubtedly brought Moses great joy. After all, he once killed a guy for the way he treated an Israelite worker (see Exodus 2:11-12). But what God said next broke Moses’s grin: “I am sending you,” Moses, to do this work. Exodus 3:11 - 4:10 records four excuses Moses makes for why he’s not the right person for this job. Today, I want to look at two of those excuses we borrow all the time to avoid doing the hard things God calls us to do.Excuse #1: I’m not qualified! Immediately after hearing God’s words in today’s passage, Moses said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11) to which God replies, “I will be with you” (see Exodus 3:11-12). In other words, “You aren’t the point, Moses. ‘I AM.’ I don’t need you to be qualified. I need you to be willing to let me work through you.”The same is true with you and me, believer. Maybe God’s calling you to speak up to your boss about an offensive comment he made to someone who doesn’t have as much political capital at work as you do. It can be easy to say, “Who am I to have that conversation?” But if God is calling you to do it, you can do so boldly knowing that he is with you.Excuse #2: I don’t have all the answers! Exodus 3:13 records Moses as saying to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” Essentially, Moses is saying, “I don’t have all the answers, God!”We use this excuse all the time—especially when it comes to sharing our faith. To be clear, you should know God’s Word well enough to “be prepared to give an answer…for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15) But you also have to realize that you’ll never have all the answers to all the questions. Which is probably why, after commanding his followers to “make disciples,” Jesus reassured them by saying, “I am with you always.” And if he is with us, we can trust that he will give us the answers we need, when we need them.What excuses are keeping you from doing the thing God has called you to do in your work today? Ask God to reveal the answer and prepare your heart to step out in obedience despite your reservations.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 2 of 7The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians. (Exodus 3:7-8a)We’re in a seven-week series extracting wisdom for our work from the exodus, and in today’s passage, we find the impetus and trigger for this monumental event: Work! Or to be more specific, the horrible working conditions of God’s people.The Egyptians had “made [the Israelites’] lives bitter with harsh labor…[and] worked them ruthlessly” (Exodus 1:14), screaming “Get back to your work!” (Exodus 5:4), and, “Make the work harder” (Exodus 5:9). So God’s people “groaned in their slavery....and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God” (Exodus 2:23).And as today’s passage shows us, God heard the cry of his people and acted decisively. The ability of God’s image-bearers to do good work is so important to him that he sent ten brutal plagues and parted the Red Sea in order to free his people.Now, our work today can not compare to the enslavement of the Israelites. But we do deal with less severe “thorns and thistles” of the curse nonetheless (see Genesis 3:17-19). We are forced to put up with non-stop emails that distract us from our families, verbally abusive customers and bosses, and rising costs of living without corresponding increases in income.It can be tempting to think that God is indifferent to these struggles—that he’s got bigger things to worry about than whatever is frustrating you at work today. But the exodus shows us that’s not the case. As one theologian said commenting on today’s passage, "Work, and the conditions under which it is performed, is a matter of the highest concern to God."In light of that truth, how should we respond to the frustrations we face at work? In three ways.First, cry out to God for help like the Israelites did, knowing he hears your lament.Second, fight to improve the job conditions of those you work with, especially if you lead a team. The exodus reminds us that working to make your organization’s culture more equitable, peaceful, and enjoyable isn’t “secular.” It is God-ordained work.Finally, when you encounter frustrations at work today, look forward to when God will “come down to rescue” all of his people and put us to work on the New Earth where we will “long enjoy the work of our hands” (see Isaiah 65:22).

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from the ExodusDevotional: 1 of 7The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. (Exodus 1:15-17)The midwives in today’s passage play a starring role in Exodus 1. What can Shiphrah and Puah teach us about our work today? At least two things.First, that God uses the nobodies of this world to do his work. To fully appreciate this truth, we must understand the context of today’s passage. The King of Egypt (AKA Pharaoh) had a problem. In Exodus 1:9-10 he’s quoted as saying, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us….we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”Pharaoh’s solution is the mandate we see him hand down in today’s passage: Kill all the Hebrew boys. Why? Because they were the ones who would “fight against” Egypt. Girls posed no threat to Pharaoh, and thus, they meant nothing to him. But they meant a great deal to God. Because it is five women that God uses to thwart Pharaoh’s plans: Shiphrah, Puah, and as we see in Exodus 2, Moses’s mother, sister, and the daughter of Pharaoh.Have you ever felt looked down upon at work because of your gender, race, or where you did or didn’t go to school? Know that God sees you, values you, and can use your work for his mighty purposes.Here’s the second thing these Hebrew midwives teach us: God remembers the faithful but not necessarily the famous. Before Moses wrote the words of today’s passage very few people knew Shiphrah and Puah’s names, but everyone knew Pharaoh’s. And yet, in the eternal Word of God, Pharaoh’s given name isn’t mentioned. You see, while Pharaoh was certainly famous in his day, he was an enemy of God, and thus his name has been erased from the history books. But while Shiphrah and Puah were nobodies in their day, their faithfulness to God’s commands ensured that the history books and God himself will remember their names forever.Hebrews 6:10 tells us that “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” God didn’t forget Shiphrah and Puah’s faithful work, and he won’t forget yours, believer. Regardless of how obscure your work is today, know that the Lord sees your faithfulness, will reward it, and will remember it for eternity.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas Vocations Part IIDevotional: 4 of 4For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. (Isaiah 9:6a)We’re in a four-week series exploring the vocations of some of the characters of Christmas. This morning, we come to the principal of the nativity scene: Jesus himself.Now, you may be thinking, Hold up a minute, Jordan, this is a series on “Christmas Vocations” and Jesus didn’t yet have a vocation lying there in the manger. That is precisely what I want you and I to focus on today. While Jesus would one day hold vocations as a carpenter, preacher, and king, for the first years of his life he had no work. Instead, the Creator chose to be entirely dependent on the work of his creatures. Theologian J.I. Packer marveled at this truth saying that “the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.”Do you see the absurdity of this scene? Jesus could have come into the world as a full-grown, independent man. But Christmas reminds us that he chose to rely on the work of a mother to clothe him, innkeepers to shelter him, educators to teach him, cooks to feed him, and a carpenter to train him.And just as God chose to use human work to carry out his plans for his son two thousand years ago, he chooses to use human work to carry out his Son’s plans for the world today. Jesus promised to provide food, shelter, and clothes to those who “seek first his kingdom” (see Matthew 6:25-34). How is he doing that? Through the work of chefs, construction workers, and clothing retailers. Jesus said he came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). How is he doing that? By “making his appeal through us,” mere Christians who work alongside non-believers (see 2 Corinthians 5:11-21).God could do all of this work on his own. But he chooses to do it through you and me. Which is why Paul calls us “God’s co-workers” (see 1 Corinthians 3:9). Your job isn’t just a job. It’s not just a path to income. It is nothing less than the medium through which God feeds, clothes, sustains, reconciles, and renews the world. Thank him for the privilege of inviting you to work with and for him this year!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas Vocations Part IIDevotional: 3 of 4So 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas Vocations Part IIDevotional: 2 of 4After 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:You ask Jesus to approve your plans, rather than guide your imagination and planning from the get-goYou rarely show allegiance to your King and talk openly about your faith with your co-workersYou consult Google and industry gurus more than God’s Word and his Holy Spirit when making hard decisionsYou 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 truthfulnessYou’d rather be seen as tolerant and loving than holy and loyal to your KingFeeling 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas Vocations Part IIDevotional: 1 of 4[Mary] brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (Luke 2:7 KJV)It may surprise you to learn that the infamous “innkeeper” of the nativity is never explicitly mentioned in Scripture. But clearly, someone had to deliver the news to Mary and Joseph that there was “no room for them in the inn.”What can we learn from this nameless hotelier? At least two things.First, God often chooses to reveal himself to us at work. Whoever this innkeeper was, they were undoubtedly swamped that first Christmas Eve as a census brought an influx of travelers to Bethlehem (see Luke 2:1-3). You can imagine the innkeeper rushing to check people in and clean out rooms, just trying to keep his or her head above water. That’s when God literally showed up on the innkeeper’s doorstep. God didn’t meet the innkeeper in the temple but at their place of work, which is one of the most common places we see God showing up all throughout Scripture (see Matthew 4:18-22, Exodus 3:1-2, and 1 Samuel 16:11-12). You see, work isn’t a distraction from “the things of the Lord.” It’s where the Lord often meets us if we are willing to be aware of his presence. How? By setting a reminder to pray at a specific time during your workday, writing a verse near your desk, or attaching a reminder of God’s presence to a physical activity in your office (for more on this last one, listen to this clip from Skye Jethani).Here’s the second thing the innkeeper teaches us about our work: The minute we invite Jesus inside, our secular workplace instantly becomes sacred. The innkeeper wasn’t a priest or religious professional and was probably tempted to view his or her work as “secular.” But on that first Christmas Eve, the innkeeper couldn’t have been more wrong.Why? Because “secular” literally means “without God.” Had the innkeeper welcomed Joseph, Mary, and Jesus into their lobby, God would have quite literally been with them and that secular place of work would have instantly been made sacred the moment Mary’s belly crossed the threshold.The same is true of you today, believer. Don’t believe for one second that your workplace is secular just because your company makes widgets instead of sermons. The same God who appeared to the innkeeper that first Christmas Eve literally dwells in you. And so, the only thing you need to do to make your secular workplace sacred is walk through the door or log on to Zoom.With that in mind, embrace your work as exactly where God wants to be with you and working through you today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: How God's Word Shaped C.S. Lewis's WorkDevotional: 4 of 4For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Philippians 3:18-20)The parallels between C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy are eerie, to say the least. Both men were Irish. Both went by the nickname Jack. Both were war veterans but ultimately gained fame through their writing and speaking. And both men died on November 22, 1963, within one hour of each other.From that point forward, their paths diverged considerably. Kennedy’s death dominated the front page of every major newspaper on earth. In most papers, Lewis’s death wasn’t even mentioned. While more than 800,000 people lined the streets to watch Kennedy’s funeral procession, there was no procession at all for Lewis, his funeral attended by a handful of close friends.But today, nearly 60 years after the men passed, JFK’s legacy has steadily diminished while Lewis’s continues to grow. The New York Times recently called Lewis an “Evangelical Rock Star,” while TIME Magazine named him the “hottest theologian” of the year—42 years after his death. Comparing the legacies of Kennedy and Lewis, The Atlantic was forced to admit that “Lewis’s ideas claim the most lasting influence.”Why such a stark contrast in the acclaim these men received immediately after death and decades afterward? There are many answers to that question. I’ll offer just one: While Jack Kennedy appears to have lived his life in an effort to build his own kingdom—the “kingdom of Camelot”—Jack Lewis lived his life for something that would outlive us all—the eternal kingdom of God.As we’ve seen in this short series, Lewis wrote and lived parables that pointed to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He worked as a living sacrifice, giving up time and considerable amounts of money for the good of others. He viewed himself “as a small, dirty object” and spent his life in service of others rather than his own ego. Why did Lewis work in these ways? Because he knew that ultimately his “citizenship is in heaven.”If like Kennedy, you work for your fame, your agenda, and your kingdom, your work will be forgotten soon after you’re gone. But if like Lewis, you work for Christ’s fame, his agenda, and his kingdom, you can know that your work “is not in vain” (see 1 Corinthians 15:58). Even if nobody in this life remembers your work, you can take it to the bank that God “will not forget” it (see Hebrews 6:10).Believer, this life is a rounding error in the context of eternity. Don’t fight to save it. Like Lewis, spend it in service of the True and Better Aslan.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: How God's Word Shaped C.S. Lewis's WorkDevotional: 3 of 4And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25)We’re in a four-week series exploring how God’s Word shaped the work of C.S. Lewis—the author of Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other beloved works. One of the most obvious ways the Word shaped Lewis’s work is found in today’s passage: For most of his life post-salvation, Lewis was in intentional community with other Christians.During the 1930s and 40s, Lewis met on a near-weekly basis with a group called the Inklings, which was marked by three distinct characteristics.First, the core members of the Inklings were all serious Christians, including Lewis, Hugo Dyson, Charles Williams, and Lord of the Rings creator, J.R.R. Tolkien. Notes from their meetings make clear that their gatherings enabled each other to renew their minds with the truths of God’s Word.Second, the Inklings were also all writers. They didn’t just love the Lord; they loved literature as well, which enabled them to not only encourage each other spiritually but also vocationally.Finally, many of the Inklings were marked by genuine humility and lived out Paul’s command to “in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4). Take Tolkien and Lewis as case-in-point. While these men were great friends, they were also great rivals. And yet Lewis was the chief cheerleader of Tolkien’s work. As Tolkien said of Lewis, “He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought [The Lord of the Rings] to a conclusion.”Knowing that The Lord of the Rings would compete directly with The Chronicles of Narnia, that must have required a great deal of humility on Lewis’s part. But this, Lewis said, is “The real test of being in the presence of God…that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.”If you want to work with increased levels of excellence and obedience to God’s Word, having your own group of Inklings is critical. If you’re in a group like this—maybe in your local church—praise God! If you’re not, find one. Because, in the words of Jen Wilkin, “The Christian faith holds no room for individualism.”

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: How God's Word Shaped C.S. Lewis's WorkDevotional: 2 of 4Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. (Romans 12:1)Before heading off to WWI, C.S. Lewis made a pact with his friend, Paddy Moore: If either were to die on their respective battlefields, the survivor would look after the deceased’s families.Shortly thereafter, Paddy died; and after being discharged on account of a war injury of his own, Lewis made good on his promise and moved in with Paddy’s sister and mother.At first, the Lewis/Moore household was a happy one. But over time, Mrs. Moore became a thorn in Lewis’s side. According to one Lewis biographer, “He would be writing or studying in his room when he would suddenly hear a terrible crash from somewhere downstairs and a plaintive cry from Mrs. Moore. In great anxiety, he would run down to find that she had tripped over something and was not in the least hurt but very ‘shaken.’ [Lewis] would bustle about setting all to rights again and then return to his work, only to be summoned again ten minutes later to go out and buy something or to perform some other minor and largely unnecessary task.”Life went on like this for more than thirty years, and yet, according to multiple Lewis biographers, "no breath of complaint" was ever uttered by Lewis against Mrs. Moore. Why? Because according to Lewis, true "happiness…lies in the path of duty” to God. And what is that duty? Paul answers that question in today’s passage: “in view of God’s mercy…offer your bodies as a living sacrifice.” C.S. Lewis modeled this command exceptionally well in two ways. The first we’ve already seen. While Lewis was intensely serious about his work, he recognized that people are just as much “the work” we’re called to as are the tasks on our to-do lists. And so he sacrificed his productivity without complaint.Second, Lewis was sacrificial with his money. According to one Lewis biographer, “he would gladly give to anyone who asked,” which is all the more extraordinary considering that Lewis remained “convinced of his own poverty” until the day he died.C.S. Lewis understood that because Jesus was a dying sacrifice, you and I are free to be a living one. Go sacrifice greatly for the glory of God and the good of those you work with today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: How God's Word Shaped C.S. Lewis's WorkDevotional: 1 of 4[Jesus] told them many things in parables. (Matthew 13:3)C.S. Lewis was one of the greatest Christian apologists of the 20th century. But up until his early thirties, he was an ardent atheist.How did God bring about Lewis’s radical transformation? By appealing first to his heart and then to his mind.It all started when a 17-year-old Lewis was waiting for a train in England. To pass the time, he purchased a novel titled Phantastes, and as he began to read, something remarkable happened. As one of Lewis’s biographers explains, “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 pastor. Because the novel was no sermon. It was a parable written to awaken desire in the soul rather than preach truth to the mind.This experience, which Lewis dwelled on frequently until his conversion some fifteen years later, lends credence to what the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal once argued—that “there was little point in trying to persuade anyone of the truth of religious belief. The important thing, he argued, was to make people wish that it were true….Once such a desire was implanted within the human heart, the human mind would eventually catch up with its deeper intuitions.”This is precisely what happened to C.S. Lewis, and it’s a philosophy he carried into his own work after coming to faith in Christ, most famously in The Chronicles of Narnia. Christians who read those novels will clearly see Jesus reflected in the lion, Aslan. But many non-Christians won’t. They will only see a story they desperately want to be true.In writing in this way, Lewis’s work followed the form of his Savior’s. As Lewis pointed out, Jesus rarely lectured but instead used “paradox, proverb, [and] parable” to awaken people’s hearts to the beauty of his Kingdom.You and I can do the same today. How? By living a parable of Christ’s love for his enemies, and by seeking to bless our enemies and competitors. By living out parables of Christ’s humility by working to place others in the spotlight rather than ourselves. By telling stories of redemption that are so beautiful and true that “people wish that they were true.”C.S. Lewis’s story reminds us that God can use our subtle parables to make people receptive to our explicit preaching. Work to that end today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Work that Physically Lasts for EternityDevotional: 5 of 5Behold, 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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Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Work that Physically Lasts for EternityDevotional: 4 of 5For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)We’re in a 5-week series exploring this wild idea that some of the work has the chance of literally, physically lasting into eternity. The question, of course, is which work? Scripture doesn’t tell us explicitly. But it does give us some clues.As we saw last week, it appears that some acts of evil will carry on, so long as in their redeemed state they bring God greater glory. The nail scars in Jesus’s hands certainly fit that bill. Isaiah 2:4 says that some swords and spears will last, but they will be turned into “plowshares and...pruning hooks,” which will point to Christ's glory and victory over all wars and violence.But while Scripture alludes to the idea that these cultural goods we would call "evil" will be redeemed, my guess is that God will deem many things totally irredeemable. "What about intercontinental missiles or nuclear submarines? Or pornographic movies?” Dr. Richard Mouw asks. “[Isaiah 60] seems to be sensitive to these kinds of questions. The things [Isaiah] mentions....are items that seem quite capable of being employed in a ‘redeemed’ environment.”But today’s passage may be the most instructive of all in helping us discern which work will survive for eternity. Paul says that fire will ”test the quality of each person’s work” and implies that the work done with "gold, silver, [and] costly stones” will be the only work that “survives” judgment. What do these metaphorical substances represent? Pastor Skye Jethani says they represent “works of high quality” and are consistent "with the character of God." I’ve read dozens of similar answers to that, and I think Jethani is directionally right. Here’s how I’d summarize my biblically informed guess as to which work will last for eternity: Any work we do with excellence, love, and in accordance with God's commands that, if redeemed, will bring God greater glory.Based on that, here are some practical questions for you to meditate on today:Are you designing your client’s website with excellence and with all your heart?Are you building your business with genuine love of every stakeholder? Are you creating lesson plans in obedience to God’s commands?If so, Scripture gives you reason to hope that your work will literally last into eternity. That one day, you might ride the ships of Tarshish into the New Jerusalem with artifacts of your work in hand, and lay them down at the feet of Jesus as an offering of worship.I pray that motivates you to work with excellence, love, and in accordance with God’s commands today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Work that Physically Lasts for EternityDevotional: 3 of 5You 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Work that Physically Lasts for EternityDevotional: 2 of 5The 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Work that Physically Lasts for EternityDevotional: 1 of 5For 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: A God-Honoring Approach to PlanningDevotional: 4 of 4Many 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: A God-Honoring Approach to PlanningDevotional: 3 of 4Now 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!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: A God-Honoring Approach to PlanningDevotional: 2 of 4The 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.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: A God-Honoring Approach to PlanningDevotional: 1 of 4Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. (Proverbs 16:3)You and I are always planning something at work: projects, marketing campaigns, hiring strategies, budgets, goals—the list goes on and on. God’s Word frequently extols the wisdom of planning (see Proverbs 21:5; Proverbs 24:27; Luke 14:28). But it also gives us a lot of instruction for how to plan in a God-honoring way.Today’s passage is a great example: You and I are called to commit our work and our planning to God. To ask him to lead and guide us as we make decisions about the future.Why is this so important? Beyond the fact that God commands it, let me share two reasons.First, committing our planning to the Lord is wise because he knows the future and you and I don’t. As God says in Jeremiah 29:11, “I know the plans I have for you.” Now, this was spoken specifically to the Jews living in exile, but it is also true for us. We believe that God is omniscient. “He knows everything” (1 John 3:20). Not committing our planning to him and asking him for wisdom would be like having the world’s most accomplished mathematician as your father and not asking for help on your homework.Second, we ought to commit our planning to the Lord because he promises to give us wisdom. James 1:5 says that “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.” Not “it might be given to you.” It will if you “believe and not doubt” (see James 1:6). I don’t know about you, but I need wisdom as I make plans for my work and life. I crave it. The good news is that we have a heavenly Father who longs to share his infinite wisdom with us (see Matthew 7:11).What are you planning today at work? An event? A sales strategy? Next quarter’s Objectives and Key Results? Commit your plans to the Lord in prayer right now. Ask for his wisdom and trust that he’ll provide it.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from NehemiahDevotional: 5 of 5So the wall was completed...in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. (Nehemiah 6:15-16)While detained in a concentration camp in 1941, Olivier Messiaen, a Christian and renowned composer, cobbled together a few dilapidated instruments in the camp and miraculously composed a masterpiece called Quartet for the End of Time. Years later, when an esteemed pianist sat down to master Messiaen’s wordless music, she was an ardent atheist. “But as she pored over the music and tried to comprehend what Messiaen was trying to say, it had a profound effect. ‘Little by little,’ she said, ‘I started believing.’” That story powerfully illustrates a truth we see in today’s passage from Nehemiah: Excellent work can preach a powerful sermon about the glory of God! While not a musical masterpiece, Nehemiah’s work rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem was no less impressive than Messiaen’s. The wall was a massive structure and Nehemiah and company faced tons of life-threatening opposition (see Nehemiah 4). Yet they were able to finish the wall in just fifty-two days! Nehemiah’s enemies must have been incredulous, trying to figure out how Nehemiah and team pulled it off. But as today’s passage reveals, the only satisfactory explanation they could come up with was that the wall had been built with the help of Nehemiah’s God.The British novelist, Dorothy Sayers, said that “The only Christian work is good work well done.” And Messiaen and Nehemiah remind us that our “good work well done” can demand the world’s attention and point them to Christ. As Andrew Scott says in his terrific book, Scatter, “If we were to live out our lives with excellence for the purposes of God in every sector of society, we would not have to shout so loudly to make our message heard.”Amen. With that in mind, go and do your work exceptionally well today, praying the Lord will use your good work to serve others well and point them to his inimitable glory!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from NehemiahDevotional: 4 of 5Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. (Ephesians 5:11)Paul is crystal clear in today’s passage that Christians are called to expose darkness. To, as pastor Timothy Keller says, "bring every dimension of life…under the rule and law of God."Now, this doesn’t mean that we hold non-Christians to the same standard as Christians (see 1 Corinthians 5:12). But we can still expose darkness and fight for kingdom principles without appealing directly to “the rule of God” with our non-believing co-workers. Why? Because as C.S. Lewis says, Christian or not, “human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it.” Your co-workers likely agree that discrimination, fraud, and lying are wrong, even if you don’t quote the myriad of Scriptures that call these things sin. So if we aren’t going to run around saying, “Because the Bible tells me so,” how can we expose the darkness we see at work? Scripture gives us a terrific case study to help answer that question in Nehemiah 5. Some people had come to Nehemiah to complain that “their fellow Jews” were charging them interest (see Nehemiah 5:1-5). This was a serious violation of God’s law as outlined in Deuteronomy 23:19-20. What did Nehemiah do in response to this “darkness”? Five things. First, Nehemiah got “very angry” (see Nehemiah 5:6). Not anger that led to sin. But righteous anger at something that went against the Lord’s commands. Second, Nehemiah “pondered” the situation in his mind (see Nehemiah 5:7). He didn’t respond immediately. He was “quick to listen, [and] slow to speak” (see James 1:19).Third, Nehemiah made an explicit accusation saying, “You are charging your own people interest!...What you are doing is not right” (see Nehemiah 5:7-9).Fourth, Nehemiah spelled out what needed to happen to right the wrong, saying, “let us stop charging interest! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them” (see Nehemiah 5:10-11).And finally, Nehemiah held the guilty parties accountable. After they promised to repent, Nehemiah brought others in to hear the people “take an oath to do what they had promised” (see Nehemiah 5:12-13).Where do you see sin and darkness in your office or industry? Take a moment to ask the Lord whether or not he’s calling you to follow Nehemiah’s framework to expose that darkness for his greater glory.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from NehemiahDevotional: 3 of 5…when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod heard that the repairs to Jerusalem’s walls had gone ahead and that the gaps were being closed, they were very angry. They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and stir up trouble against it. But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. (Nehemiah 4:7-9)Nehemiah was leading the people in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls, but they were met with considerable resistance and threats (see Nehemiah 4:7). How would Nehemiah and team respond? Today’s passage provides the answer: “we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat” (emphasis mine).The word “and” is the key to appreciating this text. Nehemiah and company didn’t just pray. They didn’t “let go and let God.” They trusted in prayer and the abilities God had given them to work and protect the wall.We see the same thing earlier in the book of Nehemiah. Even though Nehemiah knew “the gracious hand of...God was on [him]” he asked King Artaxerxes for protection as he traveled to Jerusalem (see Nehemiah 2:7-9). As one commentator notes, “Apparently, Nehemiah did not believe that trusting God meant he should not seek the king’s protection for his journey.”Here’s my point: Trusting God and trusting human beings are not always mutually exclusive. Oftentimes, we demonstrate our trust in God by trusting in our work and the work of others.Let’s make this practical. Pretend you heard a rumor that your company will soon be issuing lay-offs. By all means, pray that you’ll keep your job and trust that God will meet your needs regardless of what happens. But you should also trust in your ability to search for a job, the programmers who build job boards, and the company that manufactured your laptop. In the words of theologian, J.I. Packer, “The Christian’s motto should not be ‘Let go and let God’ but ‘Trust God and get going.’”What challenges are you facing at work today? Trust God and get going, trusting in your work and the work of others to help you “meet this threat.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from NehemiahDevotional: 2 of 5Then I [Nehemiah] said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work. (Nehemiah 2:17-18)As we saw last week, Nehemiah was a Jew in exile, working for King Artaxerxes of Persia (see Nehemiah 1:11 - 2:1) when he heard that his ancestral home of Jerusalem had been destroyed (Nehemiah 2:3). Decades before Nehemiah heard this news, another Jew, Ezra, led God’s people to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (see Ezra 6:14-15). But today’s passage shows us that when Nehemiah made it to Jerusalem, the rest of the city remained “in ruins.” So Nehemiah led the people in the “good work” of restoring and renewing the city that surrounded the temple.This passage reminds us of an important truth we see throughout Scripture: God calls his people to both “sacred” and seemingly “secular” work—to work with both the spiritual and the material world. In fact, the word “spiritual” doesn’t even show up in the Old Testament. Why? “Because in a Hebrew worldview, all of life is spiritual,” says John Mark Comer. “I think if you had asked Jesus about his spiritual life…he would have asked…You mean my life? All of my life is spiritual.” Which is likely why Jesus showed no qualms about working with both the so-called “sacred” and “secular” realms, spending some years making tables and others making disciples.Jesus, Ezra, and Nehemiah remind us that the distinction between the spiritual and the material—viewing work inside the church as more important than work outside the church—is a human invention. It is not from God. The Lord calls people to build temples and cities. Both types of work can honor him. In the words of C.S. Lewis, work becomes "spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly ‘as to the Lord.’”Believer, the temple has been rebuilt through Christ in you (see 1 Corinthians 6:19), freeing you to go to work today and repair what else is broken in creation. So go and embrace your vocation—even one you may have previously deemed “secular”—as nothing less than God’s “good work” today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Wisdom for Work from NehemiahDevotional: 1 of 5I [Nehemiah] took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before, so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.” I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” The king said to me, “What is it you want?” Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king (Nehemiah 2:1b-5a)Scripture commands that we “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17, ESV). But what in the world does that look like at work? Today’s passage helps answer that question. But first, some context.Nehemiah was a Jew in exile, working faithfully as a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes of Persia (see Nehemiah 1:11) when one day, he heard that Jerusalem, “the city where [his] ancestors [were] buried,” was in ruins (Nehemiah 2:3). This grieved Nehemiah so much that King Artaxerxes asked him, “Why does your face look so sad?” After Nehemiah explained the source of his grief, the king asked him, “What is it you want?” And immediately after hearing the question, Nehemiah said he “prayed to the God of heaven and...answered the king.”This prayer couldn’t have been longer than a second, maybe two. It happened in the blink of an eye. There, in the middle of a conversation with his boss, Nehemiah prayed the simplest of prayers, acknowledging God and asking for his wisdom and help. You and I can do the same today.Praying without ceasing doesn’t necessitate that you hole away in your office praying for hours on end. That approach is likely to get you fired! But we, like Nehemiah, can pray continually by quickly asking for the Lord’s wisdom and favor as we send an email, deliver a pitch, or interact with a customer. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “I rarely pray for more than 5 minutes, but I never go 5 minutes without praying." That’s the idea here. As you work today, follow Spurgeon and Nehemiah’s examples in offering up ceaseless, split-second prayers to the Lord.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 7 of 7Remember 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 6 of 7For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. And we are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. What is more, he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering, which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man. (2 Corinthians 8:17-21)For years, my friend had sold millions of dollars in artwork featuring a passage of Scripture. Then he discovered that the Bible translation he was using in the artwork was copyrighted, which could have meant he owed the copyright owners a lot of money in royalties. The chances that the copyright holder would’ve ever noticed my friend’s oversight were slim to none. But my friend knew what he needed to do. So, he hired an expensive attorney, contacted the owner of the copyright, and offered to retroactively pay a huge sum of money in backdated royalties. In this scenario, my friend was an exemplary picture of what the Apostle Paul is talking about in today’s passage: “taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man.”As Christ-followers, we are called to go the extra mile to be totally above reproach—especially at work where our actions are likely to be noticed by many unbelievers. This could mean paying for a few hours of an attorney’s time to make sure you’re above board in how you’re classifying employees and contractors, or asking your finance department the question you don’t want to ask because you’re afraid of the answer, or redoing a piece of work for a client at your own expense, because you know it wasn’t your best.Where do you need to “take pains to do what is right” today? Pray about and respond to that question so that your “ministry will not be discredited” (2 Corinthians 6:3).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 5 of 7Do 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).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 4 of 7All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)On August 31, 2001, millions of children sat in front of their TVs to watch the final episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Eleven days later, a dramatically different scene unfolded on those same screens as the world watched terrorists fly airplanes into the World Trade Center. Recently retired, Mister Rogers was drafted back into service to help comfort children and their parents. After recognizing the horrific events of 9/11, Rogers ended his televised address on a hopeful note saying, “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be 'tikkun olam,' repairers of creation.”Given Rogers’s devout Christian faith, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had today’s passage in mind as he penned those words. Rogers understood that the Kingdom of God isn’t going to come in one fell swoop. It is going to come slowly like a mustard seed growing into a tree or yeast folding into dough (see Matthew 13:31-33). And it’s going to come at least in part through you and me—those who have been given what Paul calls “the ministry of reconciliation.”In today’s passage, Paul makes it clear that that ministry has two parts. On the one hand, we are to “implore” other people to “be reconciled to God.” But human beings aren’t the only thing in need of reconciliation. Paul says that God is “reconciling the world to himself.” The Greek word for “world” here is kosmos meaning that Christ’s redemption truly does flow “far as the curse is found.”What does this mean for our work? It means that the work you do to fix broken processes at work, fight for justice, create beauty, and share the gospel—all of it is a part of your “ministry of reconciliation.” God is “making his appeal” to a broken world "through [you],” believer. Be a joyful ambassador for him and his gospel today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 3 of 7So 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 2 of 7Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. (2 Corinthians 2:12-13)As soon as I left the Zoom meeting, I knew I had screwed up. I was arrogant and defensive in response to a well-intentioned member of my team. My plan was to get back to writing as soon as the call ended, but I couldn’t. I just stared at a blinking cursor knowing that I had to make peace with my team member before I did anything else. Today’s passage was on my mind as I did. It appears that Paul had sent Titus to deliver a severe letter of rebuke to the Corinthians (see 2 Corinthians 2:3-4). But the lack of response appears to have left Paul feeling troubled. So troubled that he couldn’t focus on his work because he "had no peace of mind.” I imagine Paul felt a bit like you and I do the moment after we fire off an angry email. Only Paul didn’t have the luxury of an unsend feature. In the words of one commentary, “[Paul] simply could not attend to his work, his very passion, because of the anguish he felt over his strained relationship with the Corinthian believers.” So what does Paul do? He leaves Troas in order to make things right. Here we see Paul heeding his own command to “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).Here’s my question for you today: Who are you not at peace with right now? A team member you sent a terse message to? A co-worker you suspect might have something against you? A spouse you spoke rashly to this morning?We can’t always drop our work at a moment’s notice to pursue peace. After all, our relationships and our tasks matter to God. But Scripture is clear that we are called to “make every effort to live in peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14). Pursue peace with those you are in conflict with today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 1 of 7We 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 4 of 4No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-5)The science-fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, once remarked that "whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse." I don’t know any Christians who would say those words out loud. But I suspect there are many who have quietly shared in this fear, which is rooted in this half-truth about heaven:Half-Truth #4: We will worship for all eternityScripture is clear that we will indeed worship forever (see Revelation 5:13 as one example). But the reason this is a half-truth is because of our limited understanding of the word “worship.”When we think of worship, we think almost exclusively of musical worship. But Scripture defines worship much more broadly. The Apostle Paul says it’s even possible to eat and drink to “the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). And when heaven comes to earth, we will be doing a whole variety of things in worship of our Lord, including work.We see this explicitly in today’s passage! God’s “servants” (that’s you and me, believer) “will serve him.” We will “reign” with Jesus “for ever and ever.” In a parallel vision of the New Earth, Isaiah says we “will build houses and dwell in them…plant vineyards and eat their fruit….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. They will not labor in vain” (Isaiah 65:21-23).You see, heaven coming to earth isn’t the end of our story. It’s just the beginning! It’s when Jesus will send us out from his throne to rule the earth perfectly on his behalf.This makes even more sense when you study the opposite bookend of Scripture. In Genesis 2:15, when it says that “God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it,” the Hebrew word for “work” is the same word translated to mean “worship” in the Old Testament. Of course, we know that sin made work difficult. But when heaven comes to earth, working, singing, eating, and everything we do, will be perfect worship once again.That brings us to our last whole-truth:Whole-Truth #4: We will worship for all eternity by singing, working, and doing all things for the glory of GodWhether you love or hate your job today, may this promise fuel your hope. Because as Peter Pan once famously said, “To die will be an awfully big adventure!"

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 3 of 4Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2)Last week, we saw that Earth is our temporary home until it is our permanent one. But in my experience, even Christians who understand this can have an anemic view of what life on the New Earth will be like, leading many to believe the third half-truth I want to explore in this series:Half-Truth #3: We are going back to EdenThere is some truth to this. As we see in today’s passage, the “tree of life” from Eden is present once again. In the words of my Bible’s heading over Revelation 22, the New Earth is “Eden Restored.” But it is also much more than that.Notice where the tree of life is located on the New Earth. It is straddling the river in “the middle of the great street of” the New Jerusalem—a city that stands more than seven million feet tall (see Revelation 21:16). The picture here is not of Eden as a remote garden with no civilization. It’s more like Central Park in the middle of Manhattan. Because the Garden has become the “Garden City” which itself is an act of culture as God has refined gold, pearls, and gems in its construction (see Revelation 21:9-27).And it’s not just God’s works of culture that are there, but also some of human hands—what John calls “the glory and honor of the nations” (see Revelation 21:26). We know there will be wine on the New Earth (see Mark 14:25), houses (see Isaiah 65:21), and commerce (see Isaiah 60). In the words of the late theologian Dr. Richard Mouw, “There is an important sense in which the Holy City is the Garden-plus-the-’filling’” that God commanded when he asked humankind to “fill the earth and subdue it” (see Genesis 1:28).Beyond what we see in Scripture, the fact that the New Earth will contain more than people and nature appeals to logic. Jesus described heaven as a “kingdom,” and kingdoms have more than just Sovereigns and subjects. They have art and order, customs and cultures. And we should expect to find all of these things and more on the New Earth. That brings us to our next whole-truth:Whole-Truth #3: We are going back to Eden with the “filling” of the earthGod never said we’re going back to Eden. Christians are destined to go back to the future. What does that mean for our work today? It means that some of our work has the chance of surviving the fire of judgment Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3. Work in light of that today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 2 of 4Then 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 homeIt 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 oneWhat 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 1 of 4“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)“The kingdom of God” was the dominant theme of Jesus’s teachings. But he also preached about “the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 4:17). Are these two separate ideas? The world’s leading New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright says no: “‘God’s kingdom’ and ‘kingdom of heaven’ mean the same thing.” Understanding that detail will be critical as we enter this series unpacking four half-truths about heaven. Here’s the first:Half-Truth #1: Heaven is a place we go to in the futureJesus did say that heaven is a place (see John 14:2). And Scripture also makes it clear that heaven is in the future (see Revelation 11:15). But heaven is so much more than a place in the future.In Matthew 10:7-8, Jesus instructed his disciples: “proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”Here, Jesus isn’t referring to heaven as a physical place, leading theologian R. Paul Stevens to define the kingdom of heaven as "not a realm [or] territory, but the rule of God as King…essentially the spread of the goodness and shalom of God in the world and in human life." Dallas Willard put it even more succinctly saying heaven is “where what God wants done is done.”OK, so heaven is a place and a state of affairs. And not just in the future, but also in the present. Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15) and “has come near” (Matthew 4:17). All of this helps us to replace our half-truth with this whole-truth:Whole-Truth #1: Heaven is a place and a state of affairs where God rules as king both now and laterN.T. Wright summarized this idea well by saying that “‘Entering the kingdom of heaven’ does not mean ‘going to heaven after death’, but belonging in the present to the people who steer their earthly course by the standards and purposes of heaven…and who are assured of membership in the age to come.”This means that you can make your place of work more like heaven today. Jesus told us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This morning, I’d encourage you to replace “on earth” with your place of work and begin the work of applying Jesus’s descriptions of the kingdom to your workplace today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- 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/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 4 of 5 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule…God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:26, 28) After the first six days of creation, the earth was still largely empty. As I say in my new children’s book, The Creator in You, “while in six days God created a lot, there are so many things that He simply did not— like bridges and baseballs, sandcastles and s’mores. God asked us to create and fill the planet with more.” That’s what we see in today’s passage. God never intended for Eden to remain a garden. He commissioned human beings to “rule” over it. To “fill the earth and subdue it.” To work the garden and turn it into something far more. There’s a beautiful detail in the second chapter of Scripture that helps make this clear. Genesis 2:10-12 says, “Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams. The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there).” We all know what gold and pearls are, but for those of us who are not geologists, what in the world are “lapis lazuli?” Google it and you’ll see that it’s a beautiful precious stone. Hang on a minute: gold, pearls, and precious stones. Where have we seen that before? In the opposite bookend of Scripture—the second to last chapter of Revelation where John describes the New Jerusalem as having streets of gold, gates made of pearls, and walls “decorated with every kind of precious stone” (see Revelation 21:18-21). You see it, right? This is God’s poetic way of telling us that the command to “fill the earth” was the command to turn the Garden into a “Garden City.” In the words of John Mark Comer, "creation was a project, not a product." And of course, we see this reaffirmed powerfully when Jesus spent the majority of his adulthood not preaching, but working as a carpenter to “fill the earth” with tables and chairs. What does all of this mean for you and me today? It means that if our work is good work—if it helps cultivate a world where creation and creatures flourish as God intended—then we are free from needing to justify our jobs. We work and create and rule and fill and subdue simply because it’s what God made us to do. It’s who we are as his image-bearers. And that is enough. So go and do the God-ordained “filling” of this earth with freedom and joy today! 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/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 3 of 5 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)As we’ve seen over the past two weeks, we worship a God who works! And next week, we’ll see that God has created us to work in partnership with him. But before we look too closely at God’s call for us to create, we need to remember this: Before God calls us to do a single thing, he calls us to be his child. 1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Before we were given a task, we were given an identity—children created “in the image of God” (see Genesis 1:27). And there was clearly a relationship between God and human beings before he put them to work in the Garden of Eden. There was love and acceptance before they did a single thing. This unconditional relationship that God has with us is illustrated beautifully at Jesus’s baptism. Matthew records the scene saying, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water….And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-17). Now here’s what’s remarkable about this scene: God spoke those words over Jesus before his “public ministry.” Before Jesus preached a word, the Father said he was “well pleased” with him simply because he was God’s son. Believer, through faith in Christ, the same can be said of you. The God of the universe is “well pleased” with you, simply because you are a part of the family! God may have called you to work for him as an entrepreneur, artist, or parent. But before that, he called you to be his child. That is your primary identity. In the words of Os Guinness, “First and foremost we are called to Someone…not to something…or to somewhere.” And in my experience, it’s the security of that primary identity—your status as an adopted child of God regardless of your performance—that leads people to be the best entrepreneurs, artists, and parents. Why? Because working to earn someone’s favor is exhausting. But working in response to unconditional favor is intoxicating. Your Father is well pleased with you before you do a single thing. Rest in that truth today. And then come back next week to see God putting you to work for his glory! 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/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator In You Devotional: 2 of 5 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:8-9) Last week, we worshiped God for the fact that he works. But now we must make one thing clear: God works in ways that are totally unlike the way you and I work today. We worship the God who simply “calls into being things that were not” (Romans 4:17). As I say in my children’s book, The Creator in You, “With just a few words, He made creatures appear, like polar bears, penguins, alpacas, and deer.” My kids love pretending to create animals and magical snow with their words, but so far, their play hasn’t turned into reality. You know why? Because only God can create out of nothing (see Genesis 1:24-25)! As Jen Wilkin says, “We are all hacks, arrangers of Someone else’s palette of colors, wavelengths, and building blocks. The most creative human you know is a rip-off artist, shamelessly (gleefully?) rearranging and recombining existing materials into new forms. No one has ever truly created anything. No one, that is, except God.” OK, so God works totally unlike us, using his words to create out of thin air. But he also works like us, using his hands to unfold creation. That's what we see in today's passage where God “planted a garden in the east.” Gone is the “God said…and it was so” language of Genesis 1. In Genesis 2, we see a picture of God with his hands in the dirt. In the words of pastor Timothy Keller, “God’s own work in Genesis 1 and 2 is ‘manual’ labor.” Interestingly, when Scripture describes “the work of creating” God did in the beginning (see Genesis 2:3), it uses the Hebrew word mlkh—the exact same word used to describe human work throughout the Old Testament. What’s the point? I think the writers of Scripture wanted us to see our work in God’s work because our work is an opportunity to show others a glimpse of God. God works like and unlike us. May that truth lead us to reflect him well and worship him for his inimitable glory today! 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/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com-- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 1 of 5 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17) I begin my new children’s book by saying, “In the very beginning, a long time ago, God created the world so that we would all know that He Himself is a working God, though you might think that sounds just a little bit odd.” Why is it odd to think of God “working”? After all, Jesus worked and made it clear that the “Father is always at his work to this very day” (see John 5:17). I think it sounds odd because we rarely if ever preach or sing about God’s working character. We talk so much about God’s love, holiness, and mercy, that we forget that the first thing he wanted us to know about him is that he is a God who creates—a God who makes things (see Genesis 1:1)! This is unique in the history of world religions. Every other origin story says the gods created human beings to work and serve the gods. Only the Bible says that God himself worked to serve us. What does that radical truth mean for us today? At least three things. First, it means that work is inherently good. Because God works, our work is not a “necessary evil.” It’s not a means to an end to do the “real work of ministry.” By choosing to work himself, God blessed the idea of labor with incomprehensible goodness and dignity. Second, God’s work shows us that creativity is of infinite worth. In our industrial society, creativity and beauty are almost always treated as “second class” to order and function, including within the Church. But as world-renowned painter Makoto Fujimura points out, "God the artist communicates to us first, before God the lecturer." Because God is creative, we must fight against relegating creativity to the fringes. Finally, because God works, Christianity is far more relevant to our daily lives. We don’t worship an elitist god who sits idly by observing others working. We worship a God who created “in the beginning,” and who took on a common trade when he came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. And so, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15). The God of the Bible knows what it means to work. Praise him for that truth and for his creative character today! 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/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked “In the Beginning” Devotional: 7 of 7 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15) What God created “in the beginning” is remarkable. But what’s equally remarkable is what he did not create. He created animals but he didn’t give them names. He created the ocean but he didn’t build a boat. He created stars but he didn’t make a telescope for others to marvel at his glory. Of course, God could have created those things. But instead, he chose to invite us to do that work with him. Today’s passage helps us see this beautiful truth. Before God put humankind in the Garden to “work it and take care of it,” it says that “no shrub had yet appeared on the earth…for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground” (Genesis 2:5). God had no intention of working alone. He always intended for you and I to “work the ground”—to take the blank canvas he laid out “in the beginning” and fill it up. We see this explicitly in Genesis 1:27-28 which says that “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’” Pastor Timothy Keller says this is a call to “civilization, not just procreation.” It’s a call to cultural creation. You see, “the sixth day” wasn’t the end of creation. It was only just the beginning! It’s when God passed the baton to you and me and called us to create plants, art, telescopes, businesses, s’mores, cities, and families that reflect his glory. When we understand that the call to create was God’s First Commission to humankind, we will view our work with God-ordained purpose, enthusiasm, and joy. On April 19, I’m releasing a children’s book to help the kids in your life grasp that truth—to see that “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.” Want your kids to embrace the call to create? Pick-up a copy of The Creator in You here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked “In the Beginning” Devotional: 6 of 7 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9) Spain’s largest church, La Sagrada Familia, has been under construction for more than 135 years. Why? Because more than a century ago, the church’s architect, Antoni Gaudi, laid out intricate plans to create a house of worship that would be senselessly, gratuitously, over-the-top beautiful. Today, annual construction on the church costs roughly $60 million dollars—a price tag that has drawn sharp criticism from many who don’t see the purpose of such lavish art. If Gaudi were alive today, I bet he’d point his critics to today’s passage to remind us that the God his church worships values beauty in and of itself. Think about it: The trees of Eden didn’t need to be beautiful. They were “good for food.” Shouldn’t that have been enough? Evidently not, because “in the beginning” God created with both function and extravagant beauty. This is a theme we see throughout the rest of Scripture, from the impractically beautiful Tabernacle (see Exodus 25-31) to the eternal City of God (see Revelation 21). John tells us that the New Jerusalem’s gates are made of pearls, streets are paved with gold, and walls are “decorated with every kind of precious stone.” And we know that the width of the cubed city is roughly 1,400 miles (see Revelation 21:16). Multiply that by four and we’re talking about 5,600 miles of beautiful gems lining the foundation of the New Jerusalem. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the distance between Florida and Greece. What purpose do 5,600 miles of precious stones serve? My guess is none. But as theologian Gustavo Gutierrez reminds us, "Utility is not the primary reason for God's action." What does this all mean for you and me? It means that not everything we do has to be justified by some functional purpose. It’s OK to redesign a website even if it doesn’t lead to more conversions, or to paint a painting and not sell it, or to decorate your office for Christmas even if you can’t “prove the ROI” of the investment. To create for beauty’s sake is to create in the image of God. Hours before his death, Gaudi was leaving work at La Sagrada Familia when he turned to a member of his crew and said, “Come early tomorrow, Vincente, so we can make beautiful things.” Hear those words spoken to you, believer. Go and make beautiful things like your Heavenly Father today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked “In the Beginning” Devotional: 5 of 7 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. (Genesis 2:1-2) It feels like there’s been a resurgence of Christians committing to rest in general and Sabbath specifically in recent years. As I wrote about last week, I’m all for this! But my fear is that we’ll swing the proverbial pendulum too far in the other direction, with some Christians taking the Biblical command to rest as a license for laziness. Thankfully, God hasn’t left us in the dark regarding the ideal balance between work and rest. He shows us in today’s passage where it says he worked six days and rested one. Talk about imbalance! God worked wholeheartedly, and then he commanded us to mimic his rhythm: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:9-10). This theme of hard work continues through the New Testament with Jesus himself working long hours (see Mark 3:20-21 and John 11:9) and Paul imitating his Savior by working “hard with [his] own hands” (1 Corinthians 4:12). Because, as Paul makes clear in Ephesians 2:8-10, while we have been saved not by works, we have been saved for “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In other words, part of our response to the gospel is to work. Hard. Now there's an important nuance here that’s worth mentioning. Just because the gospel compels us to work hard doesn’t necessarily mean we should all spend six days at the office each week. Why? Because God doesn’t define work the way we often do, as “the thing we are paid to do.” His definition appears to be much broader, so much so that Exodus 20:10 says even animals work. The “work” that we’ll do in six days includes what we do for pay as well as doing laundry, mowing grass, preparing dinner, and doing homework. But even with that caveat, it’s clear that God created us not primarily for leisure and for rest, but for purpose and life-giving work. Why? Because as Jesus said, when others “see your good works” they will “glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). We should be a people marked by uncommon rest. But we should also be a people marked by uncommon work ethic. Reflect God’s character this week by working hard for his glory and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" Devotional: 3 of 7 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:11-12) Today’s passage is just one example of a theme we see throughout Genesis 1: God calling the material world “good.” Why is this important? Because it helps us debunk the lie that “spiritual work” is more important to God than work that is more concrete and earthbound. Let me trace the logic here. Many Christians have grown up believing a misinterpretation of 2 Peter 3:10 which says the earth will be “destroyed by fire” in the end. If we take that literally, then we must assume that our ultimate existence will be disembodied souls floating on heavenly clouds for all eternity. And if that’s the case, the only thing that matters in the present are our evangelistic efforts to “save souls.” But the context of 2 Peter 3 is critical. Peter is comparing “the Day of the Lord” to Noah and the flood that once “destroyed” the earth. Of course, the flood didn’t eliminate the earth. It purified it and washed away what humans had distorted in God’s good creation. So it will be at the end of time. God deemed the material world “good” in Genesis 1 and, in the words of theologian Randy Alcorn, has “never once has he renounced his claim on what he made.” Yes, sin has distorted this world, but creation is still inherently “good.” And one day, God will make it like new again (see Revelation 21-22). This means that the work pastors, missionaries, and biblical scholars do in “the spiritual realm” is no higher a calling than the work you do making lattes, digging ditches, or building a business. In the words of one commentary, because “everything God created is good” (see 1 Timothy 4:4), “a Christian can dig wells, design computer chips, scrub toilets, walk on the moon, fix cell phones, plant crops, or harvest trees to the glory of God.” Amen. Because God has and always will deem the material world good, you can be confident that your work is far from “unspiritual.” It is ordained by God! So do it with joy, excellence, and in accordance with his commands today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" Devotional: 2 of 7 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:3-4) I finished writing my last book on a Friday and started writing the next one the following Monday. I took almost no time to stop, see, and appreciate the goodness of what I had finished before moving on to the next thing. What a contrast to the way we see God working in today’s passage. In the first chapter of Genesis, we are told seven times that God “saw that [his work] was good.” The language here suggests more than just a passing glance. You can envision God taking a step back, breathing deeply, and exhaling in delight as he gazed and marveled at the good work of his hands. He didn’t rush on to the next thing. He took the time to see and delight in what he had already made. Again, what a contrast to the way we work today. You and I are always looking towards the next thing—the next deal, the next promotion, the next project, the next phase of parenting. In the words of President Bartlet, we are always asking, “What’s next?” Some of this is good and unavoidable. God made us in his creative image, and thus, we will always have some level of vision for what’s around the corner for our work and lives. But if we want to work as God works, we will ask “What’s good?” before we ask “What’s next?” We will pause long enough to celebrate what God has already done through our work before we move on to the next thing. So before you ask “What’s next?” on your to-do list or calendar today, take a moment to ask “What’s good?” Reflect on what God has been doing in and through your work as of late and praise him for his good gifts of grace!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: A Gospel Perspective in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 4 of 4 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord—the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.” (2 Kings 22:3-7) The pandemic has ratcheted up the pressure to do our work honorably and with excellence even when our bosses aren’t watching. Because now more than ever, they’re not. With more of us working from home or in hybrid environments, there are fewer people looking over our shoulders than ever before. And while this may lead some of our co-workers to slack off, it should lead us as Christians to strive to earn an unprecedented level of trust from our employers, modeled beautifully by the temple workers in today’s passage from 2 Kings. King Josiah trusted these workers so much that he said, “they need not account for the money entrusted to them.” That would be the equivalent of your boss giving you the company credit card and not asking for receipts. Can your bosses, business partners, investors, or customers trust you that much? They should, for at least three reasons. First, Scripture commands it. The Apostle Paul said, “obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart” (Ephesians 6:5-6). Second, we’re promised that “the Lord will reward each one” who obeys that command (see Ephesians 6:8)! Sure, you could steal some short-term rewards for yourself by fudging your timesheets or scheduling emails after hours to give the false impression you’re working late. But those rewards won by sin will fade away, while the eternal rewards tied to your obedience will last forever. Finally, when we “show that [we] can be fully trusted” at work, Scripture says we “will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10). As we transition into this new era of work post-pandemic, we will be more tempted than ever to work dishonorably. May we be those who are set apart—the ones our superiors and partners can trust 100% of the time—for God’s glory, our eternal rewards, and the advancement of the gospel!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: A Gospel Perspective on Work in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 3 of 4 Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses. (Proverbs 28:27) It didn’t take long after our lockdown two years ago to realize that the pandemic was going to be a massive boon for some businesses—especially tech-centric businesses like Zoom, Uber Eats, and streaming entertaining services mostly staffed by high-wage workers. Conversely, other sectors of the economy such as restaurants and hotels, which are mostly staffed by lower-wage workers, took a massive hit and continue to suffer to this day. Once again, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. How are you and I called to respond to that sobering reality? The way the Church has always been called to respond! As today’s proverb makes clear, we are commanded to give generously to the poor. What could that look like practically in this cultural moment? First, if you’re one whom this economy has blessed financially, it could look like being generous with your money. That could mean overtipping at restaurants, or choosing to donate not just to organizations meeting spiritual needs in your community, but also organizations meeting the material needs of the poor. Second, it could look like being generous with your time. Do you know a single mom who doesn’t enjoy a flexible work schedule like you do? Offer to pick up her kids after school! Are you a talented entrepreneur? Spend some time launching a new business with the explicit intent of creating jobs for those hit hardest by this pandemic. Finally, if you’re a leader of an organization, consider how you can be generous to the poor via your organization’s policies. That could mean choosing to pay your workers every other day instead of every other week to make it easier for them to make ends meet, or raising the question of whether your work from home policies are working for everyone from the top to the bottom of your org. chart. Those are just a few ideas to get you thinking about how you can obey Scripture’s frequent command to be generous to the poor. As you explore your own personal response, remember these words from Proverbs 19:17: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.” May that promise and the pain of the poor around you compel you to loving action today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: A Gospel Perspective on Work in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 2 of 4 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9) Since Disney’s Encanto was released just a few weeks ago, the movie has been played an embarrassing number of times in the Raynor household. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the gist. Encanto is the story of the Madrigal family who live in an enchanted house that magically blesses each member of the family with a unique and extraordinary talent. But as the family’s matriarch frequently points out, the purpose of those gifts aren’t just to serve the individual or even the family—they are meant to serve the broader community outside the family’s magical home. You see it, right? It’s essentially a story about spiritual gifts. And every time I watch the beautiful film, I’m reminded of today’s passage from 1 Peter 2:9. Here’s the connection. Prior to Christ, there were rooms in the Temple devoted to storing gifts that the Israelites brought in (see Nehemiah 10:37-39). The people would come into the Temple and the priest would distribute physical and spiritual blessings to them. But today, “you yourselves are God’s temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16), and all of us are members of the “royal priesthood” called to carry the gifts the Spirit has given us out into the world to be a blessing to others. The gifts God has given us are not meant to be stored away. They are meant to be shared with the world. That truth should radically transform our perspective on “The Great Resignation” and the unprecedented rate at which people are quitting their jobs in the wake of this pandemic. To be sure, many people are handing in their resignations in order to focus on a better opportunity. Others, especially lower-wage workers, are leaving the workforce temporarily for reasonable concerns for their health on the job. But millions of people are not resigning for these reasons. Many are opting not to work at all or to take early retirement. Believer, I pray that’s not you. Our world is more broken than ever before. Businesses are struggling to survive. The poor are getting poorer. And every day, thousands of people are dying separated from Christ. Now’s not the time to call it quits and sit on the vocational gifts God has given you. Now’s the time to roll up your sleeves and use your gifts to make the world look more like the kingdom of God.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:8-10)There are two signs that you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline. Last week, we looked at the first: a failure to extend grace to those who are less disciplined than you. Here’s the second sign: a failure to extend grace to yourself.I can be hard on myself if I fail to complete my to-do list, get my kids to bed on time, or accurately estimate how long it will take to complete a project. But just as the gospel helps me extend grace to others, it is also the key to extending grace to myself. Let me explain.We talk a lot here on The Word Before Work about how the gospel compels us to be ambitious for and disciplined in our work. But there’s a flipside to that coin. The gospel is also our source of rest. How? Because the gospel assures you that God adores you even on your most undisciplined day!Every night as I put my young kids to bed, I say, “Hey girls, do you know daddy loves you no matter how many bad things you do?” They nod their heads. Then I ask, “You know I also love you no matter how many good things you do?” They nod again. Then I say, “Who else loves you like that?” and they reply, “Jesus.” You and I need to hear those same words spoken over our work today. If you believe that Christ died for you while you were his enemy (see Romans 5), surely you can believe that he’ll love you if you don’t finish today’s to-do list.I want to close this series with the same Scripture I started with. In 1 Corinthians 9:25, Paul said, “Everyone who goes in for athletics exercises self-discipline in everything. They do it to gain a crown that perishes; we do it for an imperishable one.” Our crown is imperishable, believer. True, it may have more or less jewels in it based on how we steward this life. But our entrance into God’s kingdom—our position as princes and princesses—is secure forever. May that security lead us, like Paul, to embrace “self-discipline in everything,” while avoiding the dark side of discipline. As we start this New Year, may we be a people who are purposeful, present, and wildly productive on behalf of our King.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--‘Your brother has come [home],’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ (Luke 15:27-30)Self-discipline—whether with time, food, or money—is a good, God-honoring thing (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). The problem is when discipline becomes an ultimate thing and thus turns into a life-sucking idol. How can you know when you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline? One sign is that you are unwilling to extend grace to others who are less disciplined than you.This is perhaps best illustrated in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Most preaching on this parable focuses on the younger son who “squandered his [father’s] wealth in wild living” (Luke 15:13). But as today’s passage reminds us, Jesus’s parable was about two lost sons, not one.In his book, The Prodigal God, Tim Keller says that while “younger brothers” build their self-image around freedom and rebellion, “elder brothers base their self-images on being hardworking, or moral, or members of an elite clan, or extremely smart and savvy.” Sounds like me and probably you if you consider yourself to be a disciplined person. But here’s the problem: As Keller points out, elder-brotherness “inevitably leads to feeling superior to those who don’t have those same qualities.”That last line stings me to the core. If someone shows up late to a meeting or drops a ball on a project, I won’t telekinetically strangle them like Darth Vader, but I may find myself seething with self-righteous anger that attempts to mask the fact that I have made the exact same mistake before.If this is part of what the dark side of discipline looks like for you, let me remind you (and myself) that the root cause of our failure to extend grace to others is a forgetfulness of the gospel. Everything we have—including our ability to be disciplined—has been graciously given to us. James 1:17 says that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” Our ability to be disciplined is a gift of grace, just like salvation, “so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:9).I can’t take credit for being disciplined, and neither can you. God has graciously brought us books, software, mentors, and other resources to help us cultivate self-discipline. And because all of these things were gifts we did not earn, we can be gracious with those who have yet to be given the same gifts.Of course, failing to extend grace to others is not the only sign you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline. Next week, we’ll examine a second symptom.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Don’t you know that when people run on the race-track everybody runs, but only one person gets the prize? Run in such a way that you’ll win it. Everyone who goes in for athletics exercises self-discipline in everything. They do it to gain a crown that perishes; we do it for an imperishable one. Well then: I don’t run in an aimless fashion! I don’t box like someone punching the air! No: I give my body rough treatment, and make it my slave, in case, after announcing the message to others, I myself should end up being disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)If you’ve read my book, Redeeming Your Time, you know that I’m a disciplined guy. I get eight hours of sleep almost every night, I only check email once a day, and I delete and reinstall Instagram every 24-hours so I don’t drown myself in that infinity pool of content.Some of you may be thinking, Man, Jordan, it sounds like you might be a little too disciplined. Maybe. But I make no apologies for my disciplined lifestyle. Why? Two reasons.First, because Jesus himself was crazy disciplined during his time on earth. Mark chapter one provides a good case study to that end. After a late night spent healing the sick, Jesus disciplined himself to wake up “very early” the next morning to commune with his Father (see Mark 1:35). Then, after his disciples asked him for an encore of healing, Jesus said no, disciplining himself to focus on his essential mission of preaching the gospel (see Mark 1:38).Here’s the second reason why I embrace discipline as a gift: As Paul points out in today’s passage, a disciplined life is part of our reasonable response to the gospel. We haven’t been saved to sit around and wait for eternity. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, we have been “created in Christ Jesus to do good works!” That’s why Paul says he doesn’t “run in an aimless fashion” or “box like someone punching the air.” No! Paul exclaims. He ​​exercised “self-discipline in everything” and has called us to do the same.Jesus and Paul show us that discipline is a virtue—one we should embrace in this New Year. But here’s the problem: As with any good thing, we can easily turn discipline into an ultimate thing and thus make it an idol. How do you know when you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline? That’s the question we’ll answer over the next two weeks.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas VocationsDevotional: 4 of 4And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord….So [the shepherds] 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 (Luke 2:8-11,16-17)You just discovered a piece of earth-shattering news. You pull open Twitter or Instagram to share it, but you know you’re going to need some help to spread the message. Who will you tag in your post? @CNN? @POTUS? @TaylorSwift13? If the news is religious in nature, maybe you’ll tag @Pontifex or @YouVersion? Those would all be logical choices. But you probably wouldn’t tag a farmer with a dozen followers who hasn’t logged into his Twitter account in years. But that’s basically who the angels share the “good news” of Christmas with first—shepherds—one of the lowliest vocations of that time.Then some 30-odd years later, we see Jesus doing the same thing. When he kicked off his public ministry, Jesus didn’t enlist the help of Pharisees or other religious professionals to help him spread the gospel of his kingdom. Instead, he called fishermen and tax collectors.What’s my point? While God certainly spreads the gospel through pastors and “full-time missionaries” today, he also—dare I say primarily—spreads it through you and me, regular believers working as entrepreneurs, accountants, zookeepers, artists, politicians, and mechanics.Ever since the angels appeared in the shepherds’ field, God has made it crystal clear that the work of proclaiming the gospel is not reserved for religious professionals. It is the call of everyone who believes.So as we look to the New Year, don’t wait for a missions trip to see yourself as a missionary. Like the shepherds, embrace your work today—whatever that work is—as a vehicle for sharing the good news that a “Savior has been born!” 

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:26-28)It’s likely that Mary worked exclusively inside the home as a wife and mother. What can her vocation tell us about our own? At least three things. First, God sees you and your work, even when the world doesn’t. Mary was a peasant teenage girl living in a backwater town. We don’t know what work she was doing before Gabriel showed up, but we can be certain it was obscure. Mary was the anti-influencer. Nobody knew her name. Nobody, that is, except God.God saw Mary’s faithfulness when nobody else did, and for that, she was “highly favored” in his eyes. This reminds us that even when we work in obscurity—as parents, middle-managers, or struggling artists—the God of the universe “will not forget your work” (Hebrews 6:10). He sees it and will one day “reward each person according to what they have done” (Matthew 16:27).Second, Mary reminds us that God gives great dignity to the work of parenting. In Western culture today, work inside the home is often seen as less difficult, important, and appealing than work outside the home. And yet, in God’s Word, we see an entirely different perspective. In both Matthew and Luke’s accounts of the Christmas story, the work of parenting takes center stage. Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, and Zechariah show us that the work that mothers and fathers do outside and inside the home is of the utmost importance to God.Finally, Mary shows us that parenting is one of our most unique callings. I hate when people say, “God first, family second, work third!” Why? Because Scripture never ranks callings in order of importance. It’s God first, and everything else second. That said, if you have children, parenting is one of your most unique callings. Mary was the only person Gabriel called to mother Jesus. Similarly, God has chosen me alone to father my kids, but he can choose anyone to do the work I do at my laptop. That doesn’t mean my calling as a parent is more important than the call to write these devotionals. But it is far more unique. Thus, I need to be just as, if not more, intentional about the work I do inside the home as the work I do outside of it.If you’re a parent like me, I pray that Mary’s example would encourage you that even the unseen work of parenting is seen by God and dignified, and thus, deserves great intentionality and devotion.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com …an angel of the Lord appeared to [Zechariah], standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John….he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” (Luke 1:11-13,17-20)Before we break down today’s passage, we first need some context. This was the biggest day of Zechariah’s career as a priest. Luke 1:9 tells us that “[Zechariah] was chosen by lot…to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.” As Daniel Darling explains in The Characters of Christmas, this was a “once-in-a-lifetime event, the highest honor in a temple priest’s life. Zechariah…had waited his whole life for this.”As he’s in the temple on his momentous day, something even more momentous happens. An angel appears and tells Zechariah that he will improbably father a son he is to name John (that’s John the Baptist to you and me) who will “make ready a people prepared” for Israel’s Messiah. But Zechariah “did not believe” the angel’s words.Don’t let the irony of this scene pass you by. Zechariah was at the top of his vocational field, doing the job of instilling faith in the people. And yet he is punished for showing a lack of faith himself.Here’s what I think was going on. Zechariah was clearly doing his work for God. And yet his lack of faith revealed that, at least in this one moment, he was not doing his work with God—communing with him and relying on his promises.So the angel punished Zechariah with silence, which of course would have precluded him from doing much of his work. But Zechariah comes out on the other side months later with renewed faith and trust in the Lord (see Luke 1:67-79). Zechariah’s story is a wonderful reminder that God loves us too much to see his children work for him and not with him. We work for God when we view our office as our mission field, create art that shares themes of redemption, and use our businesses to right what’s wrong in creation. We work with God when we slow ourselves down enough to experience his presence, meditate on his promises, and rest long enough to simply enjoy being his child. In his terrific book With, Skye Jethani cautions us not to put “God’s mission ahead of God himself.” I think Zechariah would reply with a hearty “Amen!” encouraging us all to work for and with God today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But after [Joseph] had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21)As we embark on our study of the vocations of some of the principal players in the Christmas narrative, we stop first at Jesus’s earthly father, Joseph.In Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55, we learn that Joseph worked as a “carpenter.” My concordance says the Greek word tektōn that we translate to “carpenter” can also be understood to mean “a craftsman” or “an artisan.” In other words, Joseph worked to create new things for others. And of course, per the custom of the time, Joseph’s children (including Jesus) would have worked alongside him.Here’s what is most remarkable to me about Joseph’s vocation: God could have chosen for Jesus to grow up in anybody’s home. He could have placed Jesus in a priestly household like John the Baptist where he could have devoted his days to prayer. He could have chosen for Jesus to grow up in the home of a Pharisee like the Apostle Paul where he could have spent hours upon end studying the Scriptures. But instead, God placed Jesus in the household of a carpenter, where he would spend his days making things with his hands.On the surface, that truth may appear shocking! But I would argue it’s the least surprising thing in the entire Christmas story. Why? Because the work of Jesus’s earthly father wasn’t all that different from the work of his heavenly one. “In the beginning, God created” (Genesis 1:1). In the beginning, God was productive. In the beginning, God worked.Work isn’t beneath the God of the Bible. It is an essential part of who he is and who we are as his image-bearers (see Genesis 1:27-28). Believer: The work you do today isn’t secular or secondary. It is good and God-like. So do it in line with his character—with excellence, love, sacrifice, justice, and beauty—as a response of worship today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)Today marks the conclusion of this series exploring five simple things all of us can do to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. Here’s a reminder of the first four:Be so good they can’t ignore youBe a friendIdentify yourself as a ChristianPray that God would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the SpiritualAnd here’s the fifth: Be prepared to give an answer for your hope.If you’ve done numbers 1-4 on our list, eventually somebody is going to ask you,Why do you never respond to emails on Sundays?You don’t seem nearly as anxious as the rest of our team. Why?Why did you and your husband adopt instead of having another child biologically?If God is good, why did I get fired?My mom is dying. What do you believe about heaven?The Apostle Peter said that before those questions are ever asked, we are to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” That’s the question underneath all the questions above, isn’t it? What is the source of your hope? We’ve got to be ready to answer that question in the many different forms it takes! How? By knowing God’s Word and being ready to share the gospel.But Peter didn’t just tell us what to do. He also told us how we are to give an answer for our hope: “with gentleness and respect.” This is crucial. And I would argue that we aren’t just called to show respect to the person we’re sharing the gospel with. We must also ensure we are respecting our employers.Remember: Your company is paying you to do a job, and I’m willing to bet that “preaching the gospel” is not in the job description they’ve handed to you. That means we need to prayerfully consider when and where we share the gospel with those we work with, as we are called to obey the Great Commission and Scripture’s frequent command that we serve our employers with excellence (see Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6).I’m praying this series has taken some of the mystery out of how we can effectively witness to the lost people we work with. Because as we saw in the first devotional of this series, Jesus has called all of us to be “full-time missionaries” making disciples “as we go” about our life and work. Go and make disciples today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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:Be so good they can’t ignore youBe a friendIdentify yourself as a ChristianOnce 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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: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.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.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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)We’re in a series exploring 5 simple things all of us can do to put ourselves in a better position to share the gospel with those we work with. Last week, we looked at the first: Be so good they can’t ignore you. This week, we turn to the second: Be a friend.Jesus commanded that we are to love one another as he loved us. And “by this”—by loving others well, by being a good friend—they “will know” we are his disciples.So simple. Yet so profound. We ought to be known as the people in our offices who genuinely love our co-workers, not just the product of their work. We ought to be the ones asking our co-workers about their kids, making time to go to lunch, and delivering meals when a co-worker welcomes a new child into their home.I’ll be honest: I’m not great at this. Today’s devotional is as much for me as it is for you. I can be a very heads-down, get-things-done kind of guy who is so focused on “the work” that I neglect the work of loving people.But in a few instances in which I have done this well, I have seen the Lord use my faithfulness to unlock rich opportunities to share the gospel. One guy (we’ll call him Tim) comes to mind in particular. Tim was one of my direct reports in a tech startup I used to run. And for whatever reason, Tim and I developed a friendship right off the bat. We talked about our kids, played a few games of foosball in the office, and grabbed a beer after work from time to time. Small stuff.Years later, after we both left the company we were working at, Tim called me to say that he had begun wrestling with some of the “big questions” of life and was looking for answers—even if those answers came from the Bible. All because I was a decent (not even a good!) friend, Tim invited me to share the gospel with him. Being a friend. Who knew? Jesus, apparently. Hear his words one more time: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”How can you be a friend to those you work with today? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m praying you’ll answer it, do it, and pray the Lord uses those friendships to bring lost sheep back to their Shepherd.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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 and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)As I’ve written about before, sharing the gospel with those we work with is far from the only way our work matters to God. But it is a way. Your job can be a powerful vehicle for following Jesus’s command to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Now, Jesus is not saying in this verse that you have to change your vocation or location to participate in his “Great Commission.” The Greek word poreuthentes that we translate “go” in “go and make disciples” is what’s called an aorist tense passive participle. What in the world does that mean for you? It means that a far more accurate translation of Jesus’s words is, “Having gone…make disciples.” The going was assumed. Jesus was saying that his disciples had already “gone” as fishermen, tax collectors, mothers, and fathers. It wasn’t about how far they went. It was about what they did while they were going. The same is true for you and me.OK, so the Great Commission is for all of us, not just religious professionals. Every Christian is called to be a “full-time missionary.” But how can we effectively make disciples as we go about our work—especially in this “post-Christian” cultural moment? I think we all are wise enough to know that street preaching in front of our offices or adding John 3:16 to our Zoom backgrounds isn’t going to cut it. So what will?In this series, I want to offer 5 simple things we can do to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. Here’s the first: Be so good they can’t ignore you.In 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, the Apostle Paul writes, “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 and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”Paul worked—and commanded his readers to work—in ways that would “win the respect of outsiders.” I’d argue that’s incredibly hard to do if you’re mediocre at your job. Mastery, not mediocrity, wins the respect of outsiders. Excellence is what is winsome to a watching world.Be so exceptional at what you do that you win the respect of those around you. That’s the first thing you can do to prepare to share the gospel with your co-workers. Next week, we’ll unpack the second.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve….[The next day, upon] reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. (Mark 11:11,15)The life of Jesus and his disciples was busy (see Mark 3:20-21 and John 11:5-9). But as my friend John Mark Comer has pointed out, “[Jesus] never came off hurried.” Pastor Kevin DeYoung put it this way: “[Jesus] was busy, but never in a way that made him frantic, anxious, irritable, proud, envious, or distracted by lesser things.” So, what’s the difference between busyness and hurry? Busyness is having a lot of meetings on your calendar. Hurry is scheduling those meetings back-to-back forcing you to sprint from one to the next without enough time to think. Busyness is having a lot of errands to run. Hurry is getting mad about choosing the “wrong line” at the grocery store because you have no margin for the thirty seconds you lost by choosing lane 3 instead of 4. Busyness is attending three Bible studies a week. Hurry is not having enough time and stillness to listen to God’s voice in between those studies.How can we be busy without being hurried? We must get good at “counting the cost” of our time.Jesus provides an excellent case study of this in today’s passage. Mark 11:15 tells us that Jesus’s plan all along was to overturn some tables and drive out the vendors who were turning the temple into a “den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). So why not do this the night before? Why wait?Of course, we can’t answer those questions definitively, but given Jesus’s track record as a busy but unhurried guy, here’s my guess: I think Jesus had counted the cost of his time. Look at Mark 11:11: Jesus “went into the temple courts…looked around at everything, but since it was already late” decided not to cram any more activity into what had already been a busy day. You can almost hear him muttering to himself “It can wait.” Could Jesus have squeezed in a little table-flipping before he retired for the night? Sure, but he chose not to. He had counted the cost and knew that adding anything else to his already busy day would have tipped the scales from busy to hurry.Jesus’s example brings us to the seventh and final principle we need to redeem our time: Principle #7ELIMINATE ALL HURRYTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must embrace productive busyness while ruthlessly eliminating hurry from our lives.How can we eliminate hurry today? In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share three practical answers to that question, including six questions to ask to help you say “no” more frequently. Want a glimpse at those six questions? Watch this video.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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 #6EMBRACE PRODUCTIVE RESTTo 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)Now more than ever, our world offers the illusion that we can be fully present in more than one place at a time. But it’s just that—an illusion. You know how I know? Because we’re not God and even when God himself came to earth in human form, he traded in his godly omnipresence for the human unipresence you and I experience today.Like us today, Jesus had to deal with frequent distractions that competed for his attention. A man threw himself at Jesus’s feet as he was walking (see Mark 10:17). A woman touched his cloak, distracting Jesus with the knowledge that he had healed her (see Mark 5:27-30). One time, a man literally dropped through the roof over Jesus’s head as he was preaching (see Luke 5:17-20).There were times when Jesus welcomed these distractions. But there were also times when Jesus ignored them in order to focus on the task at hand.My favorite example of this comes from today’s passage. Given that the main point of this passage is Jesus’s words about who is and who is not his family, it can be easy to miss the fascinating “B story.” Jesus is “talking to the crowd,” doing the work the Father sent him to do—namely preaching the gospel. All of a sudden, his family shows up. And Jesus ignores them. When Jesus was told his family was waiting outside, he didn’t say, “That’s all folks. My family’s here. You know the rule: God first, family second, work third!” He continued teaching. At that moment, he was called to work, and he remained fully focused on the task at hand. Conversely, when he was with his family and friends, he was fully focused on them (see Mark 9:30-31). In these and many other encounters in the gospels, Jesus is reminding us that God is omnipresent and we humans are not. When omnipresent God “became flesh,” Jesus embraced the human limitations of being unipresent. If Jesus couldn’t be in two places at the same time, neither can we. That brings us to the fifth principle in this series:Principle #5ACCEPT YOUR UNIPRESENCETo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must accept our unipresence and focus on one important thing at a time.In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share four practices that will help you live out this principle in the 21st Century. In this video, I share a snippet of one of those practices that will only take you 2 minutes to implement, but will be a total game-changer for your ability to stay focused at work. Seriously, it’s one of the simplest and most effective secrets I’ve ever shared. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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 #4PRIORITIZE YOUR YESESTo 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)Now more than ever, we are living in what C.S. Lewis’s devil Screwtape called “the Kingdom of Noise.” And I’m not just referring to the obvious increase in external noise created by nonstop news, entertainment, and the buzzing of the devices in our pockets and purses. I’m primarily referring to what all that external noise creates—namely internal noise that blocks our ability to be silent and reflective.Our lack of solitude stands in stark contrast to the way of Jesus. The number of times the gospels mention Jesus withdrawing to “a solitary place” is staggering. In the third gospel alone, Luke mentions Jesus’s love of “lonely places” three times in just one and a half chapters (see Luke 4:42, 5:15, and 6:12). My favorite mention of Jesus’s pursuit of solitude is when he “withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place” to get away from the crowds (Matthew 14:13). So important was silence to Jesus that he would literally just jump into a boat to get away from all the noise to pray, think, and listen to his Father’s voice. And oh by the way, the busier Jesus got, the more it appears he sought out silence. Luke 5:15-16 says that as “the news about him spread all the more…Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”Jesus’s example leads us to the third principle we need to be purposeful, present, and wildly productive:Principle #3DISSENT FROM THE KINGDOM OF NOISETo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must fight to block out noise and create room for silence, stillness, and reflection.If we want to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others, we, like Jesus, must fight for the quiet solitude we need to think, be creative, and listen to God’s voice. How can we do that today? How practically can we dissent from the Kingdom of Noise? In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share nine practical answers to that question. In this video, I share one of the most life-changing of those practices—”Let Your Friends Curate the News For You.” Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your  ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)Why is it that the worst songs are some of the hardest to get out of our heads? Is it because they’re uniquely catchy? That might be part of it. But there’s actually a scientific answer to this question. Dr. Roy Baumeister explains that if you “listen to a randomly chosen song and shut it off halfway through…the song is likely to run through your mind at odd intervals. If you get to the end of the song, the mind checks it off, so to speak. If you stop it in the middle, however, the mind treats the song as unfinished business….And that’s why this kind of ear worm is so often an awful tune rather than a pleasant one. We’re more likely to turn off the bad one in midsong, so it’s the one that returns to haunt us.”Neurologists will tell you that it’s not just unfinished songs that our minds keep reminding us of. It is also unfinished tasks and unfulfilled commitments which our brains are bursting with. That’s a problem, because God didn’t design our brains to store that much information. And because we know we can’t “keep track of it all,” our mental to-do lists often cause Christ-followers a tremendous amount of anxiety. Why? Because we know that Jesus has commanded that our “‘yes’ be  ‘yes’” which brings us to the second principle of this series:Principle #2LET YOUR YES BE YESTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must ensure that our “yes” is  “yes” from the smallest to the biggest commitments we make.Our solutions for practicing this principle in our modern context are inadequate to say the least. From trying to keep track of to-dos in our head to storing tasks in starred emails, I think most of us would admit that our “yes” is not always “yes” like Jesus commanded, and thus, we’re more stressed than ever.So what’s the solution? In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share five practices that answer that question. In this video, I share a glimpse at one of those practices, showing you how to get all of your commitments out of your head and into a trusted, external system. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)“I’m swamped.” I’ve said it, you’ve said it, we’ve all said it at one overwhelmed point or another.The Bible tells us that Jesus’s disciples were once “swamped” in a different way. As they sailed across the Sea of Galilee “a squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger” (Luke 8:23). You know the rest of the story: Jesus “got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm” (Luke 8:24).This passage perfectly illustrates the core premise of this devotional series—namely that the solution to the disciples being swamped by the wind and waves is the exact same solution to our being swamped by our to-do lists and hurried schedules. The solution is found in Jesus Christ. How? In two ways.First, Jesus offers you peace before you do anything. Nearly every time management guru says that the path to peace and productivity is found in implementing their system. This is what we might call “works-based productivity.” As Christ-followers, we start with the opposite premise in what we might call “grace-based productivity,” which says that through Jesus Christ, we already have peace, and we do time management exercises X, Y, or Z as a response of worship.Here’s the second way that Jesus is the solution to our time management problems: Jesus shows us how God would manage his time. We unpacked this at length last week, so I won’t do so here. But suffice to say that when we read the gospels for the biographies they are, we can see at least 7 timeless time management principles modeled by Jesus Christ—the most purposeful, present, and productive Person who ever lived. Here’s the first:Principle #1START WITH THE WORDTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must first know the Author of time, his purposes for the world, and what he has called us to do with the time he has given us.We see Jesus practicing this principle in Mark 1:35 when “Very early in the morning…[he] went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus prioritizing time with the Father above everything else, including sleep (see Luke 6:12). We must do the same.But let’s be honest. Making “quiet times” a meaningful habit can be hard. I’ve experimented a lot with this practice over the years, and I’ve recorded a quick video that breaks down what works for me. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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-givenTruth #2: Sin has ensured we will all die with unfinished symphoniesTruth #3: God will finish the work we leave unfinishedBut 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more….And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1, 5)Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen that 1) our longing for timelessness is good and God-given, but that 2) sin has ensured we will all die with “unfinished symphonies.”Where’s the hope? Our hope is found in Jesus Christ walking out of the tomb that first Easter morning with a redeemed body that could not be destroyed again. The resurrection was Jesus’s way of declaring that our longing for immortality has been right all along and that through him, we too can experience eternal life. But Easter wasn’t just the beginning of eternal life. Easter marked the inauguration of God’s eternal kingdom which God alone will finish when he brings heaven to earth to make “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). So, if Jesus is coming back to finish his kingdom, why does it matter what you and I do in the present? Why do we care about managing our time well today? Because God has invited you and me to co-labor with him to build for his eternal kingdom (see 1 Corinthians 15:58)! That is what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 3:9 when he calls us “God’s fellow workers.” Our work matters today because it is a means of glorifying God and serving others. But our work also matters for eternity because God can use it to build his kingdom. But because God alone will finish that work and consummate the marriage between heaven and earth, we can embrace this freeing truth today: God doesn’t need you or me to finish our to-do lists. If the things on our to-do lists are on God’s to-do list, he will complete them with or without us. God is directing a master narrative for the world and you and I are just one of billions of actors in that story. In his great grace and wisdom, he has given us exactly as much time as we need to participate in that grand drama and work towards his kingdom. Not a moment more. Not a moment less. In the words of Job, “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (Job 14:5). Thank God for those limits that ensure that he alone will get the glory for finishing the work we leave unfinished.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “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, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)We’re in a series exploring 5 biblical truths about time and productivity. Last week, we saw Truth #1: That our longing for timelessness is good and God-given. Today’s passage reveals Truth #2: That while we still long for timelessness, sin has ensured we will all die with unfinished work.When sin entered the world, death was ushered in alongside it. Human beings, who were created to be immortal, became mortal. Work, which was created to be good, became difficult. Time, which was created to be infinite, became finite. In short, sin has ensured that nobody will ever finish the work they envision completing in their lifetime. Karl Rahner, a prominent twentieth-century theologian, said it this way: “In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we learn that ultimately in this world there is no finished symphony.”Haunting, depressing, and so so true. We will all die with unfinished symphonies. Our to-do lists will never be completed. There will always be a gap between what we can imagine accomplishing in this life and what we can actually get done. Quite an encouraging devotional, huh? But don’t quit this series just yet! I promise great hope is right around the corner, but we have to start here because our grieving over the finiteness of time is the clue that gets us to that hope. How so? C.S. Lewis answered that question when he famously said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”So, if we long to accomplish more than what sin will allow us to in one lifetime, it’s logical to assume that we were made for a different, timeless story. And that is precisely what the Christian narrative is all about—that while it may appear that we will all die with unfinished symphonies, ultimately this is just an illusion as “God is able to bring eternal results from our time-bound efforts” (to yet again quote Jen Wilkin). That is the hope we will turn to next week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)Deep in our bones, we know that we were created to live forever. It’s why we are drawn to stories like Narnia and Frozen in which death is ultimately a lie.But we don’t just long to live forever, we also long to be productive forever. Now, we don’t feel like this every day. Sin has made work and our efforts to be productive difficult. But something in our souls (and God’s Word) shows us that work was meant to be very good (see Genesis 1 and 2).I think we have all caught glimpses of what work must have been like prior to the Fall. You deliver a killer sales pitch and feel completely in your element. Or finish writing a great chapter and can’t wait to share it with your spouse. Or hammer the last nail into a table and step back and admire your creation with healthy pride. If you’ve experienced even just one of these moments, you know what it feels like to want work like that to last forever. You don’t want it to end because we all know that we were put on this earth to do something—to “make a mark” towards some end. Arthur Miller said it best in Death of a Salesman when he wrote 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.”All of this brings us to the first of five truths we’ll see in this series: Our longing for timelessness is good and God-given. Ecclesiastes 3:11 makes this crystal clear, saying that God has “set eternity in the human heart.” In the words of Jen Wilkin, “God…has given time-bound humans a longing for timelessness.”This is one of the main themes of the musical Hamilton. Summarizing what he wants out of life, Alexander says, “I wanna build something that’s gonna outlive me.” But Alexander’s wife, Eliza, can’t understand her husband’s need for immortality. She urges her husband to “Just stay alive, that would be enough.”But we all know that’s not enough. We know that we weren’t created just to stay alive and get through life. Something in our God-designed DNA tells us that we were made for something more. To be human is to work with time that our minds tell us is finite, but that our souls assure us shouldn’t be finite. So why is time finite? That’s the question we’ll answer next week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)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 understand that, it is certainly right to “hustle,” to, as the Apostle Paul said, “strenuously contend with all the energy” we have for the glory of God and the good of others (see Colossians 1:29).The tension between trusting and hustling isn’t meant to be resolved. It is meant to be embraced. How do you know if you are embracing that tension well? I’d argue that the best indicator is whether or not you can rest.Are you unwilling to close your laptop or stop checking email late into the night? Are you unable to sleep because your mind is trying to solve problems that await you at work in the morning? Are you resistant to the idea of taking a day or a few hours to Sabbath and simply enjoy the Lord and his good gifts?If you answered “yes” to any of those questions (and let’s face it, who hasn’t?), then that may be an indication that you have fallen for the lie that you are producing results in your work.If that’s you, take a moment to remember Jesus’s words in Matthew 11:30: Through him, our “burden is light.” That doesn’t mean our work isn’t hard! So long as we live in a fallen world, “thorns and thistles” will ensure our work will be arduous. But the burden on our souls will be light if our hustle and hard work is accompanied by an even greater disposition of trust in the Lord’s provision.But let’s face it: On the trust/hustle spectrum, most of us overcompensate towards hustling. If that’s you, how practically can you hustle less and trust more? Let me suggest three things.First, regularly immerse yourself in the Scriptures we’ve explored throughout this series.Second, take a minute right now to pray to the Lord and recognize that you are powerless to produce results in your own strength.And finally, rest. Shut your laptop down. Put your phone to bed before you hit the sack. Practice Sabbath for an hour or a day this week. Experience the lightening of the burden Jesus promised you.At the end of the day, rest is the best way I know how to remind myself of the truth we’ve explored throughout this series: Our job is faithfulness. God’s job is fruitfulness.Be faithful in your work today. Do it well. Do it “with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). And then rest knowing that the results aren’t in your hands. They are in the hands of Almighty God who knows which results are best for you and his glory.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. (Exodus 14:14)This verse is one of the most frequently quoted by proponents of the “Let go and let God” philosophy of life. But the context of this verse completely undermines this thinking.The Israelites are standing at the edge of the Red Sea about to be obliterated by the Egyptians who are rushing in to take God’s people back into slavery. That’s when Moses utters the words of Exodus 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”Watch what happens next: “Then the Lord said to Moses…Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground” (Exodus 14:15-16).So, immediately after Moses essentially says, “Let go and let God, trust him and be still,” God says, “Move on,” get going, the Egyptians are about to destroy you!And you can only imagine how fast God’s people moved! The Egyptians were on their tails while enormous towers of the untameable sea rose on their right and their left. I’m guessing the Israelites gave new meaning to the word “hustle” that day.And we all know the rest of the story: God in his great grace delivered his people across the great sea so they could serve him.Last week, we saw that God alone produces results in our work, leading us to an uncommon level of trust in him. But today, we see more clearly how God’s Word instructs us to marry that trust with a healthy dose of hustle and hard work.With the full context of Exodus 14 in view, we can understand Moses’s call for the people to “be still” to be a stillness of their hearts and souls, not their hands and feet. It would have been the height of absurdity for the Israelites to verbalize their trust in God and not trust in their God-given legs to hustle across the floor of the Red Sea.Trusting doesn’t mean “letting go and letting God.” Trust is meant to be accompanied by hard work because we believe that God often produces results through our hustle. This is likely why Scripture continually commands us to work hard (see Colossians 3:23, Jeremiah 48:10, Colossians 1:29, 1 Corinthians 15:10, and 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, just to name a few).We are called to trust God to produce fruit through our work, while simultaneously recognizing that more often than not, it is through our faithfulness and hustle that he chooses to deliver that fruit. Trusting God and working hard are not mutually exclusive. They are ideas meant to be held in a healthy tension. How do we know if we are managing that tension well? That’s the question we will explore next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7)I was recently reading Gospelbound by the editors of The Gospel Coalition when I came across these words from John Piper: “My job is faithfulness. God’s is fruitfulness.”I can’t tell you how many times I have shared that quote in the past couple of months. It so beautifully encapsulates an idea I have written about many times before—namely that Christ-followers ought to have a unique relationship with the word “hustle.”Let me explain.The rise of the increasingly dominant “hustle culture” has been well documented for years now. The idea is that if you want things to happen in your career, you have to hustle and make them happen!As we’ll see throughout this series, there are tons of passages of Scripture that command us to work hard—to hustle if you will. This is a point of commonality we can celebrate with our hustle-loving friends, Christian or not. But here’s where Christ-followers ought to diverge significantly from the hustle culture masses. While we embrace the biblical command to work hard, we simultaneously recognize that it is God alone who produces results in our work. As Paul says in today’s passage, we can “plant” and “water” all we want, but at the end of the day it is “only God who makes things grow.”The fourth chapter of Nehemiah offers us a concrete picture of what this looks like. Nehemiah’s opponents were gearing up for an attack to stop God’s people from rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls. What did Nehemiah and company do in response? Nehemiah says, “We prayed to our God AND posted a guard day and night to meet this threat” (Nehemiah 4:9). In other words, they trusted in God and hustled to work to protect themselves.As Christians, we have a unique responsibility to embrace the tension between trusting in God to produce fruit through our work and faithfully hustling in accordance with his commands. How do we embrace that tension well? That’s the question we’ll explore over the next few weeks.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:2)Over the past three weeks, we have been dissecting J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story, Leaf by Niggle, and unpacking how this remarkable parable gives us an eternal perspective for our work.But how can we maintain the perspective we have gained over the past few weeks? How do we “renew our minds” as Paul commands in Romans 12:2? Through study of the Word and fellowship with other believers.Immediately after Paul commands his readers to renew their minds, he writes a long exposition on the value of the Body of Christ (see Romans 12:3-8). Why? Because Paul knew that community is essential to renewing our minds with eternal truths. To his credit, J.R.R. Tolkien knew this too. Throughout much of his career, Tolkien met on a near-weekly basis with a group of Christian friends famously known as “the Inklings.” The group included some of the world’s greatest minds, including Charles Williams, Hugo Dyson, Owen Barfield, and most notably, C.S. Lewis. Nearly every Tuesday throughout the 1930s and 40s, you could find these friends gathered in the back corner of an Oxford pub where they would drink a pint of beer and provide feedback on each others’ work.We know that at one of these gatherings, Tolkien brought up the topic of his neighbor’s “lopped and mutilated” tree and his fear that he would die before finishing his own “internal Tree”—his life’s work, The Lord of the Rings. Shortly after that meeting, Tolkien penned Leaf by Niggle. Was it the Inklings who inspired him to write the parable? We don’t know for sure. But we do know that time and time again, this group of Christian friends (especially Lewis, who is credited as the “chief midwife” to The Lord of the Rings) renewed Tolkien’s mind and encouraged him to persevere in his work.Without regular communion with other believers to refresh their eternal perspectives, Tolkien may have never completed The Lord of the Rings, and Lewis may have never finished The Chronicles of Narnia. As we work and create in this world, it takes regular communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ to renew our minds of the truths we’ve explored in this series and continually “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:18).Still looking for your own group of Inklings? If you’re an entrepreneur, writer, or culture-maker of any kind, consider joining my Community for Redemptive Entrepreneurs for free today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com  Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:23-24)Last week, I recounted the depressing first half of Leaf by Niggle, the short autobiographical parable written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Niggle was an artist who spent many years working on a painting of an enormous tree. But tragically, Niggle died only having completed a single leaf which was soon forgotten, along with Niggle himself. Here’s the second half of the story: After his death, Niggle was sent to the afterlife where we find him riding a bicycle through a heavenly countryside. Suddenly, something caught Niggle’s eye that was so extraordinary, he simply fell off his bicycle. Tolkien writes: “Before [Niggle] stood the Tree, his Tree, finished…‘It’s a gift!’ he said….He went on looking at the Tree. All the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than as he had made them; and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many that might have budded, if only he had had time.”Beautiful, isn’t it?We saw last week that if this life is all there is, then Solomon was right: All of our work is “meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:17).But we know that, through Christ, this life is not all there is, and thus we have hope. In this beautiful short story, Tolkien is illustrating what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15—that because of Christ’s resurrection and the promise of eternal life, you can “know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Somehow, our work matters for eternity.How? There are many answers to that question, most of which I have explored in past devotionals. But today, I want to focus on one promise that is beautifully illustrated by the “gift” of Niggle’s finished tree. Scripture makes clear that while salvation is by faith alone (see Ephesians 2:8-9), there are eternal rewards tied to how we work in this life (see Colossians 3:23-24). Scripture also makes clear that the New Earth will be filled with works of culture (see Isaiah 60 and Revelation 21:26). With these truths in mind, is it possible that the picture Tolkien is painting in his short story could be true? That one of our eternal rewards could be God graciously finishing and perfecting the work we leave unfinished in this life?I don’t think that’s far-fetched at all. We worship a God who works—a God who takes joy in creating with his hands (see Genesis 1-2). A God who loves giving good gifts to his children (see Matthew 7:11). I pray Tolkien was onto something. Because if he was, we have even more reason to “work heartily, as for the Lord” today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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! 

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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. (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)This morning’s short passage offers two startling truths.First, while it’s natural to say that we are drafting an email, delivering a presentation, or waiting tables, it is actually God who is working through us. “In all of [us]…it is the same God at work” (verse 6). Second, because it is God who works through us, all work has dignity and meaning. This can be easy to forget in our culture which looks to work as the primary card in our never-ending game of one-upmanship.A comical example of this is found in the movie Meet the Parents. Pam is introducing her fiance Greg to her family. First, she introduces Dr. Bob, followed by “the world-famous plastic surgeon, Dr. Larry.” Someone mentions that Greg is also in medicine. Amused, Dr. Larry asks Greg which field he’s in. When Greg replies, “Nursing,” the room explodes in laughter. “That’s good. No really, what field?” Dr. Larry insists. “Nursing,” Greg replies. Realizing he’s serious, the room falls into an awkward silence as the obvious disdain for the “lesser” profession has been laid bare.Because God works through us, all work—from doctors to nurses to hospital custodians—has dignity and worth. We don’t just see this in 1 Corinthians. As Tim Keller points out, “…in Genesis we see God as a gardener, and in the New Testament we see him as a carpenter. No task is too small a vessel to hold the immense dignity of work given by God.” Furthermore, in Genesis 2, we see God instructing Adam to do the “manual labor” of gardening (verse 15) and the “knowledge work” of naming animals (verse 19).Now I hear what you’re thinking: Jordan, I get this. I believe in the dignity of all work. While we might know these truths intellectually, the cultural forces that fight against these truths are incredibly strong, which is why we need these reminders.I use the word “we” intentionally here, as I need to be reminded of these truths myself. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have said they wanted to be garbage women or cashiers and I have tried to steer their imaginations to being astronauts or entrepreneurs. Oh, how kids reveal the sin and idols of our hearts!My point isn’t that we and our kids shouldn’t explore the best, most unique opportunities we have to serve God and the world. My point is that deep inside many of our hearts there is an unspoken stigma against some types of work. The biblical truths we’ve explored today cut right through that stigma. All work has dignity and can be used by God to accomplish his purposes in the world!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com In the same way, 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, for I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast….To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. 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)While the Apostle Paul’s work as a church planter is well-known, it’s easy to forget that he also chose to work as a tentmaker (see Acts 18:2-3).Today’s passage makes this clear. Paul says he had every “right” to work as what we might call a “donor-supported missionary.” But he didn’t. Why? Paul chose to work as a tentmaker in order to “become all things to all people so that by all possible means [he] might save some.” He did it “for the sake of the gospel.”Paul understood that those of us who work outside of the four walls of the church are uniquely positioned to spread the gospel, because the workplace is where many of us spend the most time with non-believers!For Paul, tentmaking would have been the perfect opportunity to build relationships with those outside the church. As Dr. Mark Russell points out, “[Paul’s] work as a tentmaker was a deliberate strategy that enabled him to identify with another, primarily different, group of people. By participating in [tentmaking] trade associations and guilds he would have become enmeshed in [previously inaccessible] social networks.” Paul’s work as a tentmaker wasn’t out of necessity or coincidence. It was a strategic choice to make disciples. The same can be true for you and me.Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a marketer, a nurse, a plumber, or a teacher, you have unique opportunities to make disciples with those you’re surrounded by at work. By serving your bosses, employees, co-workers, and customers through the ministry of excellence, you will “win the respect of outsiders” and earn the right for the gospel to be heard (see 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). So go and serve with excellence today and pray that the Lord would open clear opportunities to share the gospel not just with your work, but also with your words.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Corinthians 3:8-15)Today’s passage is one of the richest on the topic of work in all of Scripture. We could spend weeks unpacking these eight verses, but this morning, I just want to focus our attention on three things.First, ”the quality of each person’s work” will one day be tested by God. Work matters greatly to God as it is a means of glorifying him and serving others. Thus, we ought to strive to do our work exceptionally well and in accordance with his commands.Second, this passage makes clear that there are varying rewards tied to how we work in this life. Verse 8 says this plainly: “each be rewarded according to their own labor.” Which work will be rewarded? The work that “survives” the “fire” of God’s judgment. Paul lists six building materials in this passage: three that would survive a “fire” (gold, silver, and costly stones) and three that would not (wood, hay, and straw). The question then becomes, what sort of work is considered “gold, silver, [and] costly stones?” The quality work we do in accordance with the commands of our “foundation…which is Jesus Christ.” In the words of New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, “What we do in Christ and by the Spirit in the present is not wasted.”But, while Paul makes clear that we will all receive varying rewards based on how we work today, he is also careful to ensure we don’t turn this into a false gospel, which brings me to the final thing I want us to see this morning: Regardless of whether or not our work will “burn up” or be rewarded, “the builder…will be saved.” One day, God will test our work and reward us accordingly. But as those trusting in Jesus Christ for the atonement of our sins, our souls have already been judged and our entrance into God’s eternal kingdom is irrevocably secure. While rewards will vary, our statuses as co-heirs with Christ are equal.May that ultimate security lead us to be ambitious for doing excellent, God-glorifying work today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)Have you ever felt less than “influential” at work? Or felt like you were “lowly” or lacked the right “noble” family or pedigree for your career? Have you ever lacked the wisdom you need to do the work God has called you to do? All of us have. So what are we supposed to do with the feelings of inadequacy Paul describes in today’s passage?The burgeoning “self-help” industry’s answer to that question is to replace negative “self-talk” with “positive affirmations.” Is someone making you feel “lowly”? Forget about what they say. What matters is how you view yourself. Feeling like you don’t have what it takes to tackle the problem in front of you? Look in the mirror and tell yourself you can do it and that you are “enough.” In short, the world’s response to feeling inadequate is to inflate your self-esteem with pride. Paul’s response couldn’t be more different. In today’s passage, Paul is calling us to embrace our inadequacies so that God might be glorified in our weakness. In verse 27, Paul says that God works through the “weak things” of the world—that’s us!—”so that no one may boast before” God or man.God used ninety-year-old Sarah to give birth to a nation (see Genesis 17:17). God used ineloquent Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (see Exodus 4:10). And he used lowly fishermen and tax collectors to help proclaim the gospel of the kingdom (see Matthew 4:18-22).Believer, you don’t need to convince yourself that you are capable of doing the work God has called you to do today. The point is that you’re not! And that means that God alone deserves the glory for whatever you accomplish.Paul David Tripp said it best: “God calls unable people to do important things because ultimately what he’s working on is not your immediate success, but that you would come to know him, to love him, to rest in his grace, and to live for his glory.”Amen. Boast in your weakness this morning so that God alone may be glorified through your work!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you….Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip….Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations—their kings led in triumphal procession. (Isaiah 60:1, 4, 6-11)Today concludes our four-week series exploring what Easter means for our work today. Over the past three weeks, we’ve seen how Easter gives us an identity, a King, and a mission. Today we’ll see how Easter points to an incredible incentive to do our work “as unto the Lord” (see Colossians 3:23).But before we look at what that incentive is, we need to pause and appreciate something that is easy to overlook in the Easter narrative—namely that there is a continuation from the present world to the future one. Scripture makes clear that Jesus’s physical body was raised from the dead. This wasn’t an entirely new body. It was a redeemed, perfect version of Jesus’s physical body pre-death. Thus, the hope we have as Christ-followers isn’t for some disembodied existence in the clouds after we die. Our ultimate hope is, like Jesus, the resurrection and restoration of our physical selves.What does this have to do with our work? The promise that our physical bodies will continue on from this life to the next makes it easier for us to grasp how our physical work might do the same. This is what Isaiah is alluding to in today’s passage in his prophetic vision of the Kingdom of God. All the nations are coming into the New Jerusalem, but they are not coming empty-handed. They are bringing their very best work from the previous life. The people of Tarshish bring their ships (v. 9), Midian and Ephah bring their livestock (v. 6), and Sheba brings gold and frankincense (v. 6). Isaiah calls these cultural goods the “wealth of the nations.” John, in a strikingly similar vision in Revelation 21, calls these artifacts “the glory and honor of the nations.”Isaiah and John are showing us how some of our work might physically cross over into the New Jerusalem, used by King Jesus to build and adorn His eternal Kingdom.What sort of work will carry on? Scripture doesn’t say definitively, but I think it’s safe to assume it will be work that is created in line with the principles of King Jesus to whom we owe our allegiance.You and I shouldn’t need an incentive to work with excellence. As we saw a few weeks ago, we should work with excellence as a loving response of worship to the King who redeemed us. But God in His great graciousness does give us incentive—an incentive that our work will be deemed by God to be among “the glory of the nations.” Work to that end today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)Last week, we saw how Easter gives us an identity for our work. This week, we look at how Easter gives us a King to direct our work.Reading through the gospels, it appears that Jesus’s favorite topic wasn’t money, sin, or even individual salvation. What He spoke of more than anything was the “Kingdom of God.” And on that first Easter Sunday, Jesus proved emphatically that He is the prophesied King of that Kingdom.Viewed through that lens, Easter can be seen as a sort of Inauguration Day for Jesus. As we know from our modern experience, the inauguration of new leaders is a big deal. Every detail of an inauguration ceremony is chosen with great care, from the speakers to the songs and even the parade route. And of course, the detail that matters most is how the new leader appears physically as they address their new subjects. It’s why the fictional president-elect in my all-time favorite show The West Wing refused to wear a coat to take the oath of office in negative ten-degree weather. He wanted to portray an image of “youth and vigor” as he came to power.So given that Jesus inaugurated His Kingdom on Easter, it’s interesting to note how He appeared physically to Mary. John 20:15 tells us that Mary mistook Jesus for “the gardener.” Of course, Jesus could have chosen to appear any way He wished. But He chose to be mistaken for a gardener. Why?We can’t know for sure, but here’s my guess: In the inauguration of His new creation, I think Jesus is pointing us back to the first creation and the first gardener, Adam. I think Jesus is showing us that He is the “Last Adam” who is wholly unlike the first one. While Adam sinned, Jesus was sinless. While Adam died, Jesus conquered death ushering in the end of nevermore. While Adam’s reign broke creation, Jesus’s reign is meant to restore it.But Jesus isn’t going to restore creation in one fell swoop. He’s going to use our work—our gardening and cultivation of creation—to bring about His Kingdom. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says, “God’s kingdom, inaugurated through Jesus, is all about restoring creation the way it was meant to be. God always wanted to work in his world through loyal human beings.”You see this in Genesis and you see it again on the first Easter Sunday. In Genesis, God created a blank canvas and called Adam and Eve to fill it. On Easter, King Jesus showed up for Inauguration Day dressed as a gardener as a means of saying, “It’s time to garden again.” It’s time to “fill the earth” again (see Genesis 1:28). Fill it with what? With reflections of the King and His Kingdom—a topic we’ll explore more deeply next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:14-17)Now more than ever, our culture tells us to look to our careers for our sense of self-worth and identity. This, of course, leads us to work out of a sense of fear rather than freedom. I don’t think anyone summarized this idea more honestly than Madonna when she said, “My drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then I feel I am still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I have become somebody, I still have to prove that I am somebody. My struggle has never ended and I guess it never will.”What Madonna is looking for—what we’re all looking for—is a verdict for our lives. We’re looking for someone to say once and for all that we are valuable and worthy—that our very existence is justified. If Madonna can’t find that in her work after becoming one of the most accomplished people in her generation, you and I never will.So, if we can’t find this verdict and identity in our work, where can we find it? We find it at the tomb Jesus walked out of that first Easter morning. On Easter, Jesus secured the most important verdict of your life: Forgiven and, through faith in him, free from the penalty of death because he has conquered it.But our verdict is more than just “forgiven.” Think about a courtroom today. If a defendant is handed the verdict of “not guilty,” they are sent back out into the world to re-enter society on their own. But that’s not how God’s courtroom works. Through Jesus our advocate, we are granted a verdict of innocence. But then the judge, God the Father, does something even more radical: He invites you and me to come home with him to share the inheritance of his Son. We aren’t just forgiven. We are given a new identity as “co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).What does this mean for our work? It means that we can work out of a sense of freedom rather than fear. If we, like Madonna, view our work as a means of chasing an ultimate verdict for our lives, we will never be satisfied. We will constantly be paranoid and afraid because we know the verdict always hangs in the balance. But if we work in response to a secure verdict that is handed down by our Creator, we can work freely as a joyful response of worship.In light of your secure identity as a co-heir with Christ, don’t put yourself back into the courtroom today. Yes, we should be ambitious to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. But Easter assures us that regardless of what we accomplish today, court is adjourned. The jury has left the building. Our identity as adopted children of God is secure.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:4-7)When Israel was in exile, God didn’t call them to retreat and seclude themselves in their own Jewish subculture. He called them to “settle down” and “seek the peace and prosperity of the city.”Paul issues a similar command to us in Galatians 6:10, saying, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”Simply seeking to “do good to all people” and “seeking the prosperity” of our communities is good and God-honoring in and of itself. We are called to be good citizens, good neighbors, and good workers who seek the prosperity of the companies we lead and work for. This is a form of ministry and service. It may not be as overt as the ministry of your pastor, but it’s ministry nonetheless, as good work is an act of obedience to God and service to others.Since Arthur Guinness founded his brewery in 1759, most of his descendants have chosen one of three career paths. There have been the “brewing Guinnesses,” the “banking Guinnesses,” and what some have called the “Guinnesses for God” who have worked as pastors and donor-supported missionaries.To believe this third group is the only one whose work matters to God would be a terrible mistake. As we’ve seen throughout this series, the work of the Guinnesses who “settled down” in Dublin to seek the prosperity of that and countless other cities have contributed significantly to God’s work in the world.It’s clear that all three lines of Guinnesses understood this. In the excellent biography from which much of this series was derived, the author says the Guinnesses “understood that brewing could be done as a holy offering, as a craft yielded in the service of God. They did not see themselves as secular, but rather as called. They did not see themselves as apart from Christian ministry, but rather as in the Christian ministry of industry and trade. They did not think of their brewing work as a menial way to pay the bills, hoping that they might compensate for such worldliness by giving occasional service to the church. No, they had absorbed the great Reformation ideal that everything a man did was to be done for God…They understood that this transformed workbenches into altars and the labor of a man’s hands into liturgies pleasing to God.”The same can be said of you today, believer. Your workbench is an altar. Your desk is a cathedral. Use it to worship today—to “do good to all people” you come in contact with at work, and in doing so, glorify our great God. In the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: “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).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)If God is the one “who gives you the ability to produce wealth,” then He gets to dictate what we do with financial excess, whether it’s abundance from a paycheck or profit from a business. As I’ve studied the life of Arthur Guinness and his descendants, it’s clear that they understood this truth deeply. Generation after generation, the Guinnesses have been marked by their generosity to the communities inside and outside of their breweries. But it’s their generosity towards their own team which stands out most to me.In addition to paying wages 10-20% higher than average, Guinness has been known to provide employees with “everything from subsidies for funeral expenses, educational benefits…and a guaranteed two pints of Guinness beer a day.” These types of benefits might seem standard today, but Guinness has been providing many of these things since the 1700s, at a time when such corporate generosity was unheard of. In the words of one Guinness biographer, “the generosity of Guinness seemed unlimited.” Nowhere is this more evident than in what the firm did in the late 1800s. At the time, “Dublin was the Calcutta of its day, a city…beset with filth and disease.” One young Christ-following doctor named John Lumsden believed Guinness could be a part of the solution. Lumsden had “radical ideas about public health care and the duty of corporations to the poor,” so the Guinness Board hired him as the firm’s Chief Medical Officer. That’s when Lumsden proposed something unthinkably audacious. Understanding that “in the crammed slums of Dublin, housing was the key to public health,” Lumsden proposed that the Guinness Board allow him to visit the home of every Guinness employee and report back with a recommendation for what the company could do to help solve the public health crisis. With the Board’s approval, Lumsden visited 1,752 homes in 60 days, representing nearly 10,000 employees and dependents. In his final report, Lumsden recommended the Board take seven incredibly costly actions, including building quality homes the company’s staff could rent at subsidized rates allowing them to escape Dublin’s slums.Most corporations wouldn’t see public housing as a problem they were responsible to fix. Even if they did, wasn’t Guinness already generous enough with their people and their community? Guinness didn’t think so. Due to the faith of their founders and their understanding that they didn’t create their wealth in the first place, the Guinnesses approved most of Lumsden’s recommendations and were credited for lifting untold Dubliners out of poverty.You may not have financial excess the size of a corporation like Guinness. But most of us will see some financial abundance as a result of the work God does through us. May we be people who, like Guinness, allow the recognition that God alone produces wealth shape how we steward that abundance.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. (John 2:1-11)If you’ve ever launched anything new into the world—a business, a book, a new initiative at work—you know how much thought and planning goes into launching well. That perspective makes John’s account of the launch of Jesus’s public ministry all the more remarkable. For the launch event of his Kingdom, Jesus wasn’t preaching. He was turning water into wine. He was beginning to make all things new.New Testament scholar N.T. Wright points out that Jesus’s “signs” and miracles “were all about new creation: water into wine, healings, food for the hungry, sight for the blind, life for the dead.”In other words, Jesus didn’t come just to save our souls and mend the spiritual realm. Jesus came to save the world—including the material world—as the launch of his public ministry so clearly demonstrates.Why does this matter for our work? Because God uses our vocations as a means of mending his broken creation! The life of Arthur Guinness provides a vivid case study of this truth.When Guinness moved to Dublin in the mid-1700s, he found a city in desperate need of spiritual and physical redemption. At that time, people routinely drank from the same water in which they dumped their garbage and sewage, often dying as a result. This led many to avoid water altogether. Instead, they drank alcohol, as the process of making alcoholic beverages killed the germs in water that led to disease. But soon, excessive drinking set in, leading to “the Gin Craze.” Drunkenness became a major problem, leading to an increase in crime and poverty.It was against this backdrop that Guinness saw an opportunity to put his Christian faith into action. Given his background as a beer-brewing apprentice, Guinness believed he could brew a new style of beer (which would come to be known as stout) which would be nutritious, filling, and much lower in alcohol than gin. As the author of The Search for God and Guinness points out, upon seeing this opportunity to redeem his corner of the material world, Arthur “would have come to see his chosen profession as a service to his fellow man” and “brewing…a moral mandate.”So confident was Arthur that this was the work God created him to do, he signed a 9,000-year lease on the land his brewery still sits on more than 250 years later.Like Guinness, the work you and I do today is about bringing about the new creation Jesus inaugurated during his time on earth. What happens when that work produces more personal or business income than we need? That’s the question God’s Word and the example of Guinness will help us answer next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com [Daniel said,] “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So [the guard] agreed to this and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. (Daniel 1:12-20)Last week, we saw how Daniel respectfully declined to obey his employer’s command to eat defiled food from King Nebuchadnezzar’s table, as doing so would have violated his ultimate allegiance to God’s commands.Today’s passage shares the rest of the story, with Daniel proposing an alternative solution and God graciously producing extraordinary results. Verse 20 says that the king found Daniel and his God-fearing friends “ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.”This is the first time we hear of Daniel setting himself apart at work, but it’s certainly not the last. In Daniel 5:14, King Belshazzar says that Daniel was known for his “enlightenment, understanding, and excellent wisdom.” Daniel 6:3 tells us that “Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.”In short, Daniel was exceptional at his job. He was ten times better than his colleagues. And because of that, he (and more importantly, his God) stood out to the unbelievers in the palace where he worked.Google is famous for encouraging their employees to adopt “10X thinking.” The idea is that unlike traditional corporations who think in terms of making a product 10 percent better, Googlers are expected to make their products 10 times better as that is how you stand out in the marketplace.It’s also how we and the God we serve stand out at work.We shouldn’t aim to be 10% better than our colleagues or competitors. We should aim to be like Daniel—10X better. Not so we can pridefully say we’re the best. And not primarily to land a promotion or bigger valuation. We should strive to model Daniel’s example because the ministry of 10X excellence makes us winsome to unbelievers, serves employers and customers well, and brings glory to our great God who must be credited for our inexplicable results.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service. Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. (Daniel 1:5-8)Are you working in a company or industry that is agnostic or perhaps even antagonistic to the things of the Lord? The book of Daniel reminds you that God can use your position in powerful ways for His glory. In this four-week series, we will study how Daniel leveraged his long career as a public servant to glorify God through his exceptional work.Today’s passage sets the scene. After the Israelites were conquered by the Babylonians, Daniel finds himself in exile, forced to train to serve the Babylonian king. Right off the bat, Daniel’s new masters command him to eat defiled food from King Nebuchadnezzar’s table and thus violate God’s law.What will Daniel do? What are we to do when our employers or the gurus in our industry ask us to do things that are contrary to God’s Word? After all, in Ephesians 6:5 Paul instructs us to “obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”But as Daniel’s example shows us, we are only to obey earthly authorities up to the point in which their directives clearly violate God’s law. You hear Peter echoing these same sentiments in Acts 5:29 when he says, “We must obey God rather than human beings!”Eating the food from King Nebuchadnezzar’s table would have violated God’s law. Thus, “Daniel resolved not to defile himself” and respectfully “asked the chief official for permission” to abstain. Daniel understood what we must understand as we work in a fallen world: that our citizenship is ultimately in the Kingdom of God, not in the kingdoms of this world (see Philippians 3:20). While Scripture clearly commands that we obey earthly authorities, we do so only to the point that those authorities demand that we contradict our ultimate allegiance to King Jesus. Daniel was prepared to face the consequences of his decision. We must be prepared to do the same.Where is your employer asking you to contradict God’s Word? How can you winsomely and respectfully push back on those commands in a way in which God would be glorified?If you’re an entrepreneur, in what ways is the status quo of your industry leading you to subtly violate the Lord’s commands? How might you, like Daniel, step out and courageously seek to redeem what’s broken in your space?I pray we’d all meditate on those questions this morning and, like Daniel, choose to honor King Jesus over the kings of this world.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:5-9)We’re in a series exploring three biblical truths that give us the courage to create and work boldly in the midst of uncertain times. This morning, at the beginning of this New Year, we look at our third and final truth: The Lord is always with us.Throughout the Old Testament, the command to “be strong and courageous” is issued again and again. In today’s passage, the Lord commands it three times in just five verses! Clearly, this is something God wants us to pay attention to.But here’s what I believe is most important for us to see. The command to “be strong and courageous” is almost always connected to the promise of the Lord’s constant presence. Joshua 1:9 is a good example: “Be strong and courageous…for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”Before 2021 takes off, take just a moment to meditate on that: The Creator God is with you wherever you go, including at work.What does that truth mean for our work? In Ephesians 3:20, Paul says that because of “[God’s] power that is at work within us,” he is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a writer, a teacher, a stay-at-home-mom, or a designer, you have an unfair advantage. You have the God who is “able to do immeasurably more” than you can imagine within you.Do your goals reflect that truth? Do your prayers for your work in this New Year show that you believe what Scripture says in these passages?In these uncertain times, may we be the people in our communities who have the courage to create and take big swings this year. Why? Because as we saw two weeks ago, God is working all things for our ultimate good. As we saw last week, we are made in the image of a God who risks. And as we’ve seen this morning, we can “be strong and courageous…for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”What might it look like for you to create courageously in 2021? I’d encourage you to prayerfully consider your answer to that question today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)We’re in a series exploring three biblical truths that give us the courage to create and work boldly in uncertain times. Last week, we saw how the truth that God works everything for our good gives us the courage to create. This morning we look at our second truth: We are made in the image of God who took the ultimate risk to create.It can seem borderline heretical to claim that omnipotent, omniscient God is capable of taking a risk, but pastor Tim Keller argues that’s precisely what we see in Genesis 1-3. Here’s Keller: “You can see the risks and the costs from the very beginning. God made the world filled with human beings made in his image, human beings with free will. So God made the world knowing what it was going to cost him. Knowing what we were going to do. Knowing that [his] Son was going to have to come into the world and experience what he experienced.”When you and I work to create new businesses, medicines, or processes at work, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty. We are not omniscient and thus do not know whether our creations will fail or succeed. But God is omniscient. He is all-knowing. When God created humankind, He knew precisely the risks He was taking and yet still created out of a desire to share His love and glory with us.What’s my point? Creation always requires risk and sacrifice. Risk isn’t just right. Risk and sacrifice in the service of others is God-like.As we enter 2021, our world is more uncertain than ever. It could be easy to hold back, risk less, and play it safe at work in the New Year. But is that really the example the Father holds out for us? You and I are made in the image of God who created knowing that He would have to send His Son to earth that first Christmas day, only to be crucified some thirty years later.To serve others well in 2021, you may need to risk capital, a potential promotion, or being misunderstood. But none of us will risk more than God did when He created us. Let that truth give us the courage to create boldly as a means of glorifying our Father in the New Year!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)When will this virus get under control? What will happen to our once-booming economy? What will that economy mean for our work? More than ever before, we have far more questions than answers.My fear is that amidst all this uncertainty, we Christ-followers will hold back and be less courageous in our work than we have been before. I fear we’ll set smaller goals, dwarf down our God-given visions, and “play it safe” in the New Year.There are certainly times when it may be wise to risk less, but I’d hate to see us—the Christians in our work communities—earn the reputation for having a lack of courage during these times.To be clear, I’m not talking about the courage to fly on an airplane or go to a restaurant. I’m talking about the courage to create—to take big swings to create new things (or grow existing things) as a means of glorifying God and serving people well.2 Timothy 1:7 reminds us that “God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power” (emphasis mine). Because of the Spirit’s power within us, we should be the boldest people on the planet—the ones daring greatly to create new businesses, medicines, initiatives, art, and hope.Where can we look in Scripture as we search for the courage to create? Over the next three weeks, we’ll explore three passages that answer that question, beginning with today’s passage: Romans 8:28.We can risk boldly because we know that in success or failure, God is working “all things” for His glory and the good of His Church.How can failure be worked for “good”? There are many answers to that question, but the one I’ve personally found to be most compelling is that our reaction to professional failures can preach a powerful sermon of the gospel to the lost.One of my non-Christian friends frequently comments on how much he admires my ability to “take big swings” and risks in business and in life. This friend knows my failures and my successes, but it’s my courage to create in the face of great risk that is winsome to him. This friend once said to me, “You have no fear.” I explained that’s absolutely not true. I have fears, but I also have Christ, and it’s the security of His love that enables me to risk.I’ll close today’s devotional with Jesus’s words in John 16:33: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”As you look towards 2021 and pray about what God may be calling you to chase after professionally, “take courage; Jesus has overcome the world” and is working everything for His glory and your ultimate good.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. (Ephesians 6:5-9)Today, we conclude our study of Ephesians with a passage that contains some of the most direct instructions about work in all of Scripture for both “slaves” and “masters” (or in our modern parlance, employees and employers).First, let’s look at the most obvious commands. If you work for someone else, Paul commands you to obey them “with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” If you employ others, you are to “treat your [team] in the same way”—with respect, honor, and a lack of favoritism.Those are the clearest and most direct commands in this passage. But I’d also invite you to take a closer look at verses 7-8, which command all of us to “serve wholeheartedly” at work. Why is Paul calling us to work with enthusiasm?First, because in serving others at work we are “serving the Lord” (verse 7). This is our primary motivation for doing wholehearted, exceptional work. Excellence is ministry and part of how we love our employers, employees, and customers as ourselves and glorify our great God. That is motivating in and of itself.But let’s not ignore the fact that Paul also holds out extrinsic rewards for good work as a secondary motivator. You see it right there in verse 8: “Serve wholeheartedly…because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.” This is far from the only place that Paul claims that there are eternal rewards tied to how we steward our vocations (see 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, and Hebrews 6:10-12). Jesus also suggested the same thing in the Parable of the Talents (see Matthew 25:14-30).Scripture couldn’t be clearer: There are eternal rewards for how we work in this life and it is good and right for those rewards to lead us to care deeply about serving others, and by extension the Lord, through the ministry of excellence at work. May that promise lead you to work with great enthusiasm today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. (Ephesians 5:15-17)Today, we’re looking at what my friend Matt Perman calls “the core New Testament passage on productivity.” But before we take a closer look at Ephesians 5:15-17, we need to establish some context.After expounding upon the gospel of grace in Ephesians 1-4, the apostle 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? Today’s passage contains part of the answer to that question.Paul is saying that part of our response to the gospel is to “[make] the most of every opportunity.” I prefer how the NKJV translates that phrase as “redeeming the time.”The Greek word exagorazó which we translate to mean “redeeming” in “redeeming the time” literally means to “buy up” or “ransom.” If you’ve ever said, “I wish I could buy more time,” that’s the idea here. As Christians, we are called to “buy up” as much time as we can, managing our time as carefully and wisely as possible towards the purposes of our Father. Commenting on this passage, Tim Keller said, “Christians are solemnly obliged not to waste time. Time-stewardship is a command!”Why are we commanded to steward our time wisely? Not so that we will have more time to spend on selfish pursuits. We are called to redeem our time because “the days are evil” and we are running out of time to do the will of the Lord. Jen Wilkin puts it this way: “We are commanded to be time redeemers, those who reclaim our time from useless pursuits and employ it to the glory of God.”Amen. Paul is showing us that good time management isn’t “unspiritual.” It is a proper response to the gospel and our adoption into God’s family. God is at work in the world and He has invited us to participate in that work through our vocations. With that in mind, let us be “time redeemers” who make the most of this short life for our Father’s great glory.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)John 14:12 records what I have to imagine was one of the most shocking things the disciples ever heard Jesus say: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”Upon hearing this, the disciples must have been floored. They had seen Jesus give sight to the blind, feed the five thousand, and raise Lazarus from the dead. We’re going to do “greater things than these” Jesus? Yes.Paul is reminding us of this same truth here in Ephesians 3, saying that God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, God chooses to work through us and our “good works” to bring His Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” Combine this with Jesus and Paul’s reminders of God’s “immeasurable” power, and I think we all can admit that our prayers for our work are far too small.This isn’t name-it-and-claim-it “theology.” Far from it. We aren’t to pray big prayers to increase the size of our paycheck. Lord knows, that would be the worst thing to happen to most of us. No, we ought to pray bigger prayers with an aim towards expanding the Kingdom through our work!We should be praying that poverty would be eradicated in our cities because our businesses have provided meaningful work and a living wage to every one of its citizens. We should be praying that we’d have the privilege of seeing every one of our co-workers come to know and follow Jesus. We should be praying that millions more customers would smell the aroma of Christ through how we work and the exceptional products we create.Of course, our motives are never fully pure. But through the Holy Spirit groaning on our behalf (Romans 8:26), God is able to take our prayers for our work and turn them into words that honor Him. Take a minute this morning to pray that the Lord would enlarge your vision for your work, not as a means of accumulation, but as a means of service to God and others.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 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)For good reason, Ephesians 2:8-9 is one of the most quoted passages of Scripture in the Church. But in my experience, it’s rare to hear someone preach all the way through verse 10. That’s a shame, because the marriage of verse 10 to verses 8 and 9 could not be more important for our work. When read in its entirety, this passage shows us that the gospel is our ultimate source of rest and ambition.The first half of the passage couldn’t be clearer: Our status as adopted children of God is “by grace….through faith,” and thus “not by works.” What a glorious truth! While we were His enemy, Christ died for us, gracing us with salvation we could never earn and thus can never lose.Years ago, in an effort to help my kids grasp this truth, I borrowed a nighttime routine I learned from Tim Keller. Before I turn out their lights, I ask my girls, “Do you know I love you no matter how many good things you do?” They nod their heads. “Do you know I love you no matter how many bad things you do?” They nod again. Then I ask, “Who else loves you like that?” and they always reply, “Jesus.”You and I need to hear those same words applied to our work. God loves you and I no matter how productive or unproductive we are today. Ironically, it’s that truth that gives us the ambition 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 many good things you do,” you want to be productive for His agenda as a loving act of worship.That’s a good thing, because as Paul makes clear in verse 10, one of the very purposes of our salvation is to do “good works” for others. Jesus made this equally clear in Matthew 5:16 when he 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.” The very purpose of our lives—the reason we were created and saved—was to do “good works” that advance God’s Kingdom and glorify Him.We don’t do these “good works” to earn His favor. We are ambitious for good work because His favor is graciously secure, leading us to work for His agenda as a loving act of worship. Worship Him by doing good, excellent work for others today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ….I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:8b-10…18-21)What is the will of God? “To bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (see verse 10). Heaven and earth are not meant to be separate forever. They are destined to be married together, and one day they will be as Revelation 21 makes clear.What does that future hope mean for our work today? Everything! As those “under Christ” and His authority, we are called to work in a way that makes the world long for heaven to come to earth. We are called to work through the rehearsal dinner if you will, giving a glimpse of the glorious wedding that is to come.If you’re an entrepreneur, that means you lead your venture in adherence to the Bridegroom’s commands. If you’re an artist, that means you tell stories that cause people to long for redemption and hope. If you’re a teacher, that means you work to develop a hunger for truth in the hearts of your students. All of us are called to work in ways that are so different, so compelling, so exceptional that the world groans for more of the Christ-like qualities that make our work unique.Sound like an impossible task? It is if we work in our own strength. But as verse 19 reminds us, you and I have the “incomparably great power” of God working through us via the Spirit. The same God who created the heavens and the earth works through you. The same God that raised the dead to life works through you. The same God who will one day finish our work and make “all things new” works through you.Take a moment to let that truth sink in this morning. You and I have unfathomable capacity to create for the Kingdom. Let us work boldly towards that end, that those we work with would want to see more of our King in this earth.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. (1 Corinthians 12:7-11)After William Wilberforce’s conversion to Christianity in 1786, he defined the “Great Object” of his work in Parliament as nothing less than the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British Empire.To his credit, Wilberforce sensed that this change could not immediately be legislated. First, the hearts and minds of his countrymen would need to be transformed. To accomplish that, Wilberforce knew he “desperately needed someone in the world of culture.” He found that someone in Hannah More, the prolific playwright, poet, and author I’ve been introducing you to in this series.By all accounts, Wilberforce and More hit it off from their first meeting. Over time, More would become Wilberforce’s “closest collaborator,” the two forming one of the most powerful partnerships of all time. As Wilberforce’s biographer wrote, “How Wilberforce came to be the chief champion of abolition—and how he was able to succeed in ending the slave trade in Great Britain in 1807, after twenty years of battling—has everything to do with Hannah More.”Soon after their first meeting, the partners were in agreement: Wilberforce would fight the battle against slavery with legislation in Parliament, while More would fight with quills and public poems.Almost immediately, More went to work, writing a poem titled Slavery which was designed to help sway public opinion on the slave trade and influence members of Parliament to vote for Wilberforce’s proposed bill. Through this poem and other works of art, More “helped the average Briton see the humanity of the African slaves for the first time….Her words pricked the consciences of millions, who came to feel that their country—which called itself a Christian country—must have no part in such an evil. Eventually hundreds of thousands of Britons signed petitions against the slave trade, which were brought by Wilberforce into Parliament and swayed its members toward abolition.”The work went on like this for more than 45 years—Wilberforce introducing bill after bill, More writing poem after poem—until finally, legislative change came with the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.What can we learn from the partnership between this poet and parliamentarian? At least two things.First, as we’ve seen throughout this series, cultural change almost always precedes legislative change. We must work to change hearts before we can work to change laws.Second, Wilberforce and More show us that each of us has a different, important role to play in creating for God’s Kingdom. Today’s passage shows us that each of us has received different gifts to be leveraged “for the common good.” We aren’t to keep our God-given gifts to ourselves. We are to use them to shape culture for our King.Next week, we will look at that call even more closely.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:4-7)As we saw last week, the most proven strategy for cultivating large scale cultural change is not electing the “right people” and trusting them to force legislative change from the top-down. Mass change happens when hearts and minds are transformed. And hearts and minds are transformed not by laws but by acts of culture. As Andy Crouch says in his exceptional book, Culture Making, “The only way to change culture is to create more of it.”But if we’re honest, creating for change requires a level of engagement that many in the Church aren’t used to. Part of the appeal of merely voting for change is that it is relatively easy. If you don’t like the direction the world is heading, it’s far easier to sit on social media and rage against the machine than it is to roll up your sleeves and actually do something. So we vote and pray that politicians in Washington, London, or Brasília will do the work for us.In a way, this is a form of retreat. This is our “temporary home,” so rather than work to change the world, we create Christian subcultures and sit back and wait for eternity. But as today’s passage shows us, that is not the call of the Church. Like Israel was in Babylon, we too are in exile, awaiting the arrival of our eternal home. But that doesn’t let us off the hook in the present. No, we are called to create and engage—to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city.”Hannah More understood this call well. In 18th-century London, More was a prolific playwright and author “whose works at the time outsold Jane Austen’s ten to one.” From humble beginnings, More was catapulted into great wealth, fame, and the distinction by historians as “nothing less than the most influential woman of her time.”More’s remarkable influence had everything to do with how she used her talents to advance God’s Kingdom. She didn’t view her faith as a private thing to be disconnected from her work. More saw her work as a means of shaping culture and putting every square inch of creation under the lordship of Jesus Christ.As More’s biographer wrote, “She did not wish to retreat from culture into a religious sphere, but rather to advance with the wisdom and truth of religion into the cultural sphere.” Indeed, themes of the “wisdom and truth” of the gospel made their way into much of what More wrote, making her a powerful combatant in the “culture wars” of her own day.As she once wrote, “One must not merely rail against the darkness, but must instead light a proverbial candle by creating literary and cultural works that rival and surpass the bad.”As we’ll see next week, the greatest “darkness” of More’s time was the abomination of slavery. And it would be this poet’s partnership with a politician named William Wilberforce that would lead to slavery’s abolition.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:27-28)It seems like every day a new skirmish breaks out in our never-ending “culture wars.” Whether the fight is over COVID, race relations, abortion, or gender equality, we are more divided than ever in the battle over right and wrong.Every four years, the American political machinery pitches the same strategy for winning these culture wars: Elect the right person and they will introduce new laws or appoint the right judges to legislate our desired brand of change.But is this really how large-scale cultural change happens?The evidence suggests that it is not. Just as Adam and Eve were called to “fill the earth” before they were called to “rule” it, so it appears that cultural creation precedes political change.Take the LGBTQ+ cause as an example. This movement started to gain meaningful traction, not after a law was passed, but once Hollywood got intentional about writing empathetic and entertaining gay characters. As Vice President Biden said in 2012, “When things really begin to change is when the social culture changes. I think Will & Grace did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has done [politically] so far.”Look at the abolitionist movement in the U.S. as another quick case study. The tide against slavery turned long before the Civil War or President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Anti-slavery sentiment took off after the massive success of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. So great was the impact of that cultural good that upon meeting its author, Lincoln said, “So, you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.”Across the pond in Great Britain, we see the same story. As I pointed out in a recent devotional series, William Wilberforce is credited as the man chiefly responsible for abolishing the slave trade in the British Parliament (paving the way for Stowe and Lincoln in the U.S.). But as many historians have pointed out, Wilberforce’s legislative change would have never happened without the cultural change that preceded it. As one Wilberforce biographer points out, “The genius of the abolitionists—and the likely reason for their ultimate success—is that they understood that their battle was not merely political and went to great lengths to make the cultural case against slavery and the trade as well….How Wilberforce came to be the chief champion of abolition….after twenty years of battling…has everything to do with Hannah More.”Who was Hannah More? Not a politician, but a culture maker like you and me. Over the next few weeks, I want to introduce you to this remarkable woman, and in doing so, outline the most proven playbook for creating large scale cultural change for the Kingdom.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)Today is the final devotional in a series that I pray has helped you dispel the idea of waiting to “feel a peace” about decisions at work and at home. Over the past two weeks, we have looked at a couple of biblical truths that can help us grow in confidence as we make tough choices:First, God rarely gives us all the information we want before making a decision.And second, God doesn’t need us to make any specific decision.Today, we look at the third and final truth, which is related to the second: So long as we are obeying God’s Word, we can’t make a “wrong” decision.When we read today’s Scripture (Romans 8:28), we typically think of “all things” in the context of negative things that happen to us: losing a job, shutting down a business, losing a loved one. Of course, Romans 8:28 promises that God will work all of those things “for the good of those who love him.” But it’s not only those things He will work for good. He will also work every one of our decisions for our good and His glory.Last week, we saw a similar promise in Proverbs 19:21 which reads, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Commenting on that verse, pastor Tim Keller said, “In a sense, for a Christian, there is no ‘plan B.’”If you believe that God’s purposes will prevail no matter what and you believe that He will work everything for your good and His glory, then so long as a decision isn’t out of line with God’s Word, there’s no such thing as a “wrong” decision, believer! You are free to choose.What decision is weighing on you today? Whether to stay or leave your job? Whether to launch that product or the other? Whether to donate to that ministry or the other?Whatever it is, don’t wait around for a vague feeling of peace about the decision. Look for wisdom in God’s Word. Seek counsel from other believers. And then choose.How can you choose with confidence? By remembering the truths we have explored in this series and the concrete promise of peace you have as an adopted child of God. Whatever you decide, His will will be done and your status as a co-heir with Christ will be secure.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)We’re in a series debunking this idea that Christians should wait on a “sense of peace” before making big decisions, replacing that myth with three biblical truths that can grow our confidence to make tough choices. Last week, we saw the first truth, that God rarely gives us all the information we want before making a decision. Today, we look at the second: God doesn’t need us to make any specific decision.If you’re reading these devotionals, it’s because you care deeply about doing your most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. That is your overriding passion at work, and that of course is a wonderful thing! But that burning desire can easily lead to over-analyzing certain decisions, which ironically holds us back from participating in the work God is up to in the world.I know I have struggled with this before: What if this partnership isn’t God’s will for my business? What if I make the wrong choice in this hire? What if we picked the wrong marketing campaign?Here’s what I’m learning: So long as our decisions are not out of line with God’s Word, I don’t know that God particularly cares about the specific decisions we make. I think He cares deeply about what’s going on in our hearts as we make our decisions, but not the decisions themselves. Why? Because no matter which decisions you and I make, the Lord’s purposes will prevail (see Proverbs 19:21).God doesn’t need you to take that specific job.He doesn’t need you to launch that specific product.He doesn’t need you to send your kids to that specific school.Regardless of what we choose, His purposes will prevail.If I die tomorrow and God wants these devotionals to carry on, He will find someone else to do it. That may sound depressing to you, but to me, it sounds liberating!This truth means that when we are faced with big decisions in our work and lives, we have the freedom to choose. Of course, we should take time to wisely evaluate important decisions, but at some point, we just have to make a choice, even if we don’t “feel a peace” about the decision.Recognizing the biblical truth that God doesn’t need you or me to make any specific decision helps us do that. Next week, we’ll look at one final biblical truth that can grow your confidence as you seek to make wise decisions at work and at home.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8)Last week, we debunked the myth that Christians should wait for an amorphous “sense of peace” before making big decisions.This morning, I’m sharing the first of three biblical truths that can grow our confidence to make decisions at work and at home. Here it is: God rarely gives us all the information we want before making a decision.That may not sound freeing, but trust me, it is. Hang with me for a minute.Genesis 12:1 tells us that God asked Abraham to leave behind his country, people, and family and head to an undisclosed location—clearly information Abraham would have loved to have known before deciding whether or not he would obey. But as we just read in Hebrews 11:8, Abraham obeyed God despite the fact that “he did not know where he was going.” Do you think Abraham experienced a warm and fuzzy “feeling” of peace about making this move? I doubt it.Just like Abraham, God doesn’t give you and me all the information we feel we need to make important decisions at work and at home. Through His Word, His people, and the Spirit’s leading, God often only gives us clarity about one step at a time. He gives us wisdom to discern “the next right thing” and then expects us to step out in faith even if we don’t “feel a peace” about where that next right thing might lead. At the risk of offering two Frozen II references in a single paragraph, oftentimes God calls us “into the unknown.”This truth is paradoxically freeing. If we grasp this, we can stop waiting for an unreliable feeling of peace, and start relying on the certain peace that comes from recognizing that if God took care of our eternal needs, He will surely care for our temporal ones.Here’s what one of my favorite Bible teachers, Jen Wilkin, says on this topic: “We want a peek into what’s next. For the unbeliever, it’s horoscopes, palm readings, and tarot cards. For the believer, it’s much the same thing, loosely draped in religious trappings: asking God for an extrabiblical sign, claiming a Bible promise out of context…We tell ourselves that if we knew the future, we would put that knowledge to good use, but how likely is that? It’s far more likely that we would use that knowledge to stoke the flames of our self-reliance and to forward our own interests.”Man, that’s good.Chances are that God’s not going to give you all the information you want before you make a decision about that job, product launch, or move. Let that truth free you to make a choice and rely more on Him and His assurance of peace in the process.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)When we are engaged in the work God has called us to do in the world, some level of persecution is inevitable. For William Wilberforce, who had chosen to make abolition of the powerful slave trade the “Great Object” of his life, the persecution was intense.Wilberforce had every reason to be afraid for his life. During his decades-long fight to end slavery, multiple slave-ship captains threatened Wilberforce’s life. One even challenged him to a duel. As one of his biographers wrote, Wilberforce “seriously believed he was likely to die violently when some enemy of abolition made good on one of the several threats he had received since becoming the cause’s chiefest champion.”Thank God Wilberforce was surrounded by other believers who encouraged him to fear God more than man. On his deathbed, the great preacher John Wesley wrote this to Wilberforce: “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you?”Reminders of biblical truths like these kept Wilberforce going, even when he was in fear for his own life. But Wilberforce wasn’t just afraid for his life. He also had good reason to fear for his reputation as he diligently and boldly shared the gospel with his fellow Parliamentarians. In his journal, Wilberforce kept a list of friends, and next to each name, a series of what he called “launchers”—topics and angles he planned to bring up to steer conversations with that person to the subject of eternity.Wilberforce understood that Jesus has called each of us to be “full-time missionaries” sharing the gospel as we work in every square inch of creation—even if it means damaging our reputations. When Wilberforce was first elected to Parliament, there were 3 members who identified themselves as serious Christians. Fifty years later, there were nearly 200. In the words of his biographer, “Wilberforce’s influence [to this end]…is hard to avoid.”As you go to work today, fear God, not man. Whether you’re in fear for your life or your reputation, whether you’re fighting evil or sharing the gospel with co-workers, remember that if God is for you, no one can truly be against you (Romans 8:31).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15–16)After William Wilberforce’s conversion to Christianity at the age of 26, his “Great Change” led to immediate and practical changes in two areas of his life: how he spent his money and time.In the words of one of his biographers, “Before ‘the Great Change,’ Wilberforce had reckoned his money and time his own, to do with as he pleased….But suddenly he knew that this could no longer be the case. The Scriptures were plain and could not be gainsaid on this most basic point: all that was his—his wealth, his talents, his time—was not really his. It all belonged to God and had been given to him to use for God’s purposes and according to God’s will.”While Wilberforce’s relationship with money changed greatly post-conversion, the way he managed his time changed even more dramatically. After the Lord grabbed ahold of his life, Wilberforce grieved over how he previously spent his life. “I condemned myself for having wasted my precious time, and opportunities, and talents,” he said. And so he wrote this resolution in his personal journal: “To endeavour from this moment to amend my plan for time. I hope to live more than heretofore to God’s glory and my fellow-creatures’ good.”Wilberforce’s response to the gospel was remarkably practical. He understood that God had saved him to do good works in the world and redeem what was broken in creation. And that led him to deeply internalize Paul’s command to manage his time wisely: “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15–16).Wilberforce started making sure he got adequate sleep, his journal filled with disciplined notes to himself such as, “Go to bed at eleven and wake at six.” He started walking around London with an inkwell and quill in his pocket in order to capture productive thoughts as they entered his head. And perhaps most significantly, Wilberforce began spending long chunks of time in Scripture, reading it daily and using long walks to meditate, pray, and recite passages to himself.Being intentional about how we manage our time may seem “unspiritual,” but if we believe that we were created to work for the glory of God and the good of others, it is one of the most spiritual things we can do. As Paul wrote, “the days are evil.” Let us, like Wilberforce, be intentional about stewarding them well.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:14)If you’ve ever watched the TV show Heroes, you’ll likely recall the show’s famous line: “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” The idea was that if the characters of the show could save the life of a cheerleader named Claire, they could save the universe from destruction. And with this charge, the characters focused on that singular goal.As I’ve argued in this series, the Church often takes an equally myopic view of which activities matter for eternity, believing that the only way in which our vocations matter is if we share the gospel with those around us.As I hope I’ve made clear, while sharing the gospel is a good, Jesus–commanded thing to do, it is far from the only God-honoring thing we do through our work. As we’ve seen, our work can be a means of glorifying God, loving neighbor as self, building for the Kingdom, and spreading the aroma of Christ.Today, I want to explore this question: What if spreading the aroma of Christ—or, in other words, working to restore all of creation and not just the souls who dwell in it—can be a means by which people come to faith in Jesus? In other words, what if saving the world is a primary means by which we save the cheerleader?Let me offer one more analogy that I think might be helpful.My wife Kara and I love to travel. It is one of the things we miss most in this post-pandemic world. Recently, Kara and I were talking about how we wanted to go to San Diego because of the city’s gorgeous beaches, clean downtown, world-class zoo, and friendly people. Believe it or not, the mayor of San Diego never once came up in our conversation. We don’t travel because we’re interested in the character or the policies of the person who rules a particular city. We are attracted by what that person’s policies produce.What if the same is true of the Kingdom of God? What if one of the primary ways that God brings people to submission to his kingship is by giving them tastes of truth, justice, and joy—tastes of the Kingdom?Revelation 21 makes clear that one day, Jesus will finish the building of the Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” But until then, he has called you and I to be his agents in the world, spreading his aroma and the news of his kingship through our work. As N.T. Wright says, “[God] calls his followers to live in him and to be new-creation people here and now, bringing signs and symbols of the kingdom to birth on earth as in heaven.”Let us all embrace our vocations—our attempts to bring “signs and symbols” and the “aroma of Christ” into the world—as good, and God-honoring things in and of themselves, as well as a means of making people long to submit to the lordship of the One True King.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. (Revelation 21:24-26)As we saw last week, the work you and I do today matters for eternity far beyond using our positions of influence to share the gospel. But before we go any further, let me clearly state the obvious: Sharing the gospel is a good, Jesus-commanded thing.As I’ve written many times before, regardless of our vocation, we should all view ourselves as “full-time missionaries” making disciples of Jesus Christ as we go about our work. The point I want to make today is that Scripture hasn’t commanded us to only share the gospel, and by focusing so myopically on “saving souls,” we can miss Jesus’s bigger mission for his Kingdom and the bigger story for our work.So, aside from using our work to share the gospel with co-workers and customers, what does Scripture have to say about how our work honors God? Here are three answers to that question.First, our work matters because it is a means of glorifying God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 makes this clear, saying that we can do all things—even our work—for the glory of God. According to John Piper, “‘Glorifying’ means…acting in ways that reflect his greatness, that make much of God, that give evidence of the supreme greatness of all his attributes.” We worship a creative, productive, working God (see Genesis 1) and “reflect his greatness” when we work with excellence.Second, our work matters because it is a means of loving our neighbors as ourselves. The pursuit of mastery in our work is one way in which we obey this famous command of our Savior. Excellent work is good and God-honoring in and of itself. Jesus didn’t say, “Love your neighbor as yourself…so that you can share the gospel.” “Love your neighbor as yourself” was a complete sentence.Finally, our work matters because Scripture tells us that some of our work will physically last into the New Jerusalem. We see that clearly in today’s passage as well as its parallel passage in Isaiah 60. As Tim Keller, N.T. Wright, and others have made clear, some of the physical things you and I create in this life (that are made in the Spirit and in-line with the principles of our King) have a chance of being considered “the glory of the nations,” laid at the feet of Jesus on his New Earth.Those are just three ways in which Scripture makes clear that our work matters beyond using our vocations to share the gospel. Next week, I’ll add another to this list, showing how our work can cause Christians and non-Christians alike to long for the Kingdom.

Devotional 1 of 4 in the "Beyond Saving Souls" series

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the Lord has commanded. Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.” (Exodus 36:1-5)We’re in a series exploring the few passages of Scripture that focus on the life of Bezalel—the first person the Bible says was filled with the Spirit of God—extracting applications for our own work as culture makers today.This morning’s passage from Exodus 36 focuses our attention on this truth: Culture making is never a solo endeavor. All of us need community to create.In Exodus 31:6, we are told that God “appointed Oholiab…to help [Bezalel]” in the creation of the Tabernacle. So God, in His graciousness, gave Bezalel a partner. And in today’s passage, we see that the general-contractor duo of Bezalel & Oholiab received help from the broader community, with the people of Israel bringing “freewill offerings” that were “more than enough” to “carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary.”Bezalel needed to rely on others to bring his creations to life. The same is true for you and me. In order to do the work God created us to do, we must learn to create in community.Take these devotionals, for example. My name may be the one you see in your inbox, but make no mistake, there is an army of others behind each email. My friends help me work through the ideas before they’re written. My assistant proofreads each draft. And an email marketing company enables me to distribute these devotionals all around the world.Not only do we not create alone, but in a way, even God created in community. When we tell the story of Genesis, we tend to only picture God the Father speaking the world into existence. Sometimes we forget that the Spirit was there “hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2) and that Jesus was present and engaged in creation (John 1:2-3).Nobody creates in isolation. All creation happens in community.Why does this matter? Because the embrace of community is in line with God’s design, it breeds humility, and it can protect us from the Enemy’s inevitable attempts to sabotage our creative endeavors.In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is isolated from his community while at the same time being hunted by his enemy, Voldemort. Harry receives some wise counsel from his friend, Luna Lovegood, who says, “If I were You-Know-Who [Voldemort], I’d want you to feel cut off from everyone else; because if it’s just you alone, you’re not as much of a threat.”You and I need each other to do the work God created us to do. Embrace the community around you as you work to do your most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God….And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him….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. (Colossians 3:3,17, 23-24)In the past few weeks, I’ve made the case for why Christians should focus on pursuing mastery of one thing at a time vocationally and what we should be looking for in our “one thing.” Today, we’ll take a glimpse at how you can achieve mastery of your craft for the glory of God and the good of others.In my team’s extensive research for my new book, Master of One, three keys to mastering any vocation came up time and time again.Key #1: ApprenticeshipsIn James 4:6, we are told that “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” The Lord’s faithfulness to this promise shone through vividly in our research. More than any other quality, humility marked the stories of every Christ-following master I interviewed.Once we have found the work we are going to sink our teeth into, it is of the utmost importance that we humble ourselves and seek out the mentorship of others who are already masters in our chosen field.Key #2: Purposeful PracticeIt is well known that master performers in any field spend thousands of hours practicing their crafts. But here’s what’s less known—it is only what researchers refer to as “purposeful practice” over long periods of time that leads to mastery.Purposeful practice is characterized by four things: specific goals, intense focus, frequent discomfort, and perhaps most importantly, rapid feedback.As Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” For the Christian, the purpose of mastery isn’t our own fame and fortune. We pursue mastery primarily for the glory of God and the good of others. And it is simply impossible to know if we are loving and serving others well through our work if we aren’t regularly seeking their advice and feedback.Key #3: Discipline Over TimeTo become truly masterful at any vocation, you must have the discipline to spend thousands of hours purposefully practicing that craft. This is why it is so important to take the proper time to explore many different career opportunities before choosing to commit to any one. Because it’s not enough to make a choice. In order to do our most masterful work for the glory of God and the good of others, we must find one vocational thing worth staying committed to over a significant period of time. As Scripture reminds us time and time again, nothing but “diligent hands will rule” (Proverbs 12:24).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you….Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip….Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations—their kings led in triumphal procession. (Isaiah 60:1, 4, 6-11)Over the past three weeks, we have seen Jesus appear to us first as creator, then as a carpenter, and last week, as a gardener.Today, we look ahead to the final advent, where Jesus assumes his eternal throne as Christ the King.The passage above is one of my favorite in all of Scripture. In this text, Isaiah is painting a prophetic vision of the “new Jerusalem” of Revelation 21 where “[God] will dwell among the people,” and Jesus will reign as king forever.But pay attention to what else is happening in this scene. People from all nations are coming into the new Jerusalem, and they’re not coming empty-handed. The people of Tarshish are bringing their ships. The people of Midian and Ephah are bringing their livestock. The people of Sheba are bringing gold and frankincense. Jesus is inviting these people to bring their very best works of culture—“the wealth of the nations”—into his eternal Kingdom.New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says in his book Surprised by Hope, “What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing…building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems…loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly…They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”In other words, the work we do in between the first and final advent matters.The Kingdom of Heaven is not devoid of culture. Based on this passage and other clues throughout Scripture, I’m willing to bet it is filled with it.My prayer is that that hope will inspire us all to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. And who knows? Maybe one day, Christus Rex—Jesus the King—will graciously take those creations and work them into our forever home.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16)Let us begin by meditating on Jesus’s first appearance to humankind at the very beginning of time.Today’s passage makes clear that Jesus—along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit—was present at the creation of the world. Furthermore, “all things” were created through Christ. In other words, Jesus is the Creator God we read about in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created.”Before God tells us he is love, before he tells us he is holy, before he tells us he is Savior, God wants you and I to know that he is a creative, productive, working God.As I’ve written about before, this idea of a God who works is unique in the long list of stories of the origin of the world. Every other religion claims that the gods created human beings to work and serve the gods. None would dare to say that God himself works—much less introduce that fact in the first breath of the story.This truth carries the utmost significance for the work we do today. Work is not a fringe thing or a meaningless means to an end. Work is central to who God is, and thus, central to who we are as his image bearers. That’s one of the great meanings of the first revelation of Jesus Christ.And it’s not just any work that God does. It’s creative work—the work of taking risks to create new things for the good of others. It’s the work of entrepreneurs and artists, storytellers and sales executives, marketers and mothers. And as we will see next week, it’s the type of work Jesus did at his second appearing as he was born into the home of a carpenter.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.comSince, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)The third chapter of Colossians starts with a stark reminder that as Christians, we have “died” and our “life is now hidden with Christ.”What does this truth mean for our work? Does it mean that we are no longer to care about our work and the things that captured our attention pre-salvation? Is that what we are to assume Paul meant by his command that we “set our minds on things above, not on earthly things”?Not at all. If that is what Paul meant, he wouldn’t have called us to “work with all your heart” just a few verses later (Colossians 3:23). Paul is not calling us to forget about work or “earthly things.” But he is calling us to completely replace our motivations for work, aligning our hearts with the heart and agenda of our Caller and working to reveal the characteristics of His Kingdom here and now.Immediately following the passage above, Paul calls us to “put to death” the things that may have characterized our work pre-Christ, including sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying (see Colossians 3:5,8-9).Paul says, “You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived” (verse 7), but again, we Christians are called to “put to death” our sin and “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (verse 10).Our new selves look starkly different than our old ones, clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, unity, peace, and thankfulness (see Colossians 3:12-15).Turning our minds away from “earthly things” doesn’t mean that we turn our minds away from the work God put us on this earth to do. It means that we continually work to replace the character of our old selves with the characteristics of Christ.As you begin your work week, I’d encourage you to spend a few minutes meditating on the characteristics listed by Paul above, allowing the Holy Spirit to show you which aspects of your old self you still need to put to death in order to become more like Christ at work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 1:28 – 2:3)In this four-week series, we are walking through each of the four chapters of Colossians, honing in on a few passages that are particularly relevant to ambitious professionals like you and me.Today, I’d like us to focus on Paul’s description of his work ethic, in which he says, “I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me” (Colossians 1:29).In the past few years, there seems to have been a dramatic rise in the number of books and other pieces of content encouraging us (especially Christians) to slow down and rest. Given our modern addiction to work and increased susceptibility to workaholism, I think most of this trend is good (in fact, I myself recently published a devotional series on the topic of rest).But in the midst of all of this talk about rest, I beg that we be careful not to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. All throughout Scripture (and in Colossians in particular) we are called to work hard or as Paul so eloquently says here, to “strenuously contend with all the energy” we have for the work we were created to do.Why? To what end are we called to expend this much energy in our jobs?Paul answers this question in verse 28: We are called to work hard as a means of proclaiming Christ in everything we do so that others may see and know him.Doing just enough work to get by and earn a paycheck is the norm in our world today. What is rare is to “strenuously contend” for exceptional work because we are compelled by a mission bigger than ourselves or even the companies we lead or work for.What is that larger mission? To “proclaim” Christ (1:28) so “that [others] may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ” (Colossians 2:2).Our work provides perhaps the most significant arena through which we can make Christ known through the way we live, the way we talk, and the way we energetically work to produce exceptional things in service of others.So yes, let us be sure to rest and combat workaholism wherever that temptation may lurk. But let us also be known as those who work hard as a means of making the Creator God known to those around us.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16)Here, in the first chapter of Colossians, we find a profound theological truth: “all things were created” and “all things have been created through [Jesus Christ].”So, Jesus was present at the beginning of time, creating all “things in heaven and on earth.” But, as we know, on the sixth day, God passed the baton of creation to us, calling us to “fill and subdue” the earth with our own acts of cultural creation.This begs the question: When we create today, is it God who creates, or us?John 1:3 tells us that “Through [Christ] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” And in Hebrews 3:4, Paul says that “For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.”I love this verse in Hebrews as it may be the most succinct and concrete description of what I believe the Bible has to say about our work as co-creators with the Creator God. Yes, “every house,” every company, every bridge, and every piece of art is “built by someone.” And yet “God is the builder of everything.”How can both be true?As the first chapter of Colossians reminds us, we worship a God who works, a God who creates, a God who is productive in making new things in service of others. And through our faith in the work of Christ on the cross, we have that same Creator God working in and through us (Colossians 1:27).As Christians, we do not create on our own. Christ creates in and through us. This truth brings to mind one of my favorite modern hymns:To this I hold, my hope is only JesusFor my life is wholly bound to HisOh how strange and divine, I can sing: all is mine!Yet not I, but through Christ in meThe “products of our own creations” aren’t that at all. They are products of “Christ in me.” This truth should lead us to great humility as well as a deep desire to work and create as a means of revealing the character of Christ in us.Let that ambition be what fuels our work this week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)Believing that Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was his way of “repairing creation,” Fred Rogers was intensely serious about his work. As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, that sense of calling heavily influenced Rogers’s motives for his work as well as what he produced on-air. But his faith also influenced how he went about his work in three prominent ways.First, before Rogers left for work each morning, he committed himself to the reading of Scripture. Without daily reminding himself of the gospel, Rogers would have been unable to effectively demonstrate the love of Christ on television. As one of Rogers’s former staffers once said, “I think [Fred] had very Christlike qualities, and that is part of what drew children. Children know a fraud more than anyone….He was one of the most authentic and Christlike people that I have ever known.”Second, once Rogers arrived at the studio each day, he would pray over his work and that of his team’s. As Rogers once said, “I’m so convinced that the space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground. And what we put on the television can, by the Holy Spirit, be translated into what this person needs to hear and see, and without that translation it’s all dross as far as I’m concerned. When I walk in that studio door each day, I say, ‘Dear God, let some word that is heard be Yours.’” So, while Rogers worked hard at communicating the gospel through his work, he ultimately relied on the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of his audience.Finally, Rogers’s faith compelled him to work with an “iron insistence upon meeting the highest standards without qualification.” But Fred Rogers’s definition of excellence was quite different from other children’s television producers at the time who focused on elaborate sets, flashy special effects, and the highest “production value.” None of these things were “essential” in Rogers’s eyes. As a quote on his desk constantly reminded him, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Fred Rogers’s exacting standards applied to how he and his staff loved people on and off-air and how well the show communicated difficult concepts to children. Rogers was known for scripting out every single word of Neighborhood and rewriting scripts in the middle of production to ensure they were speaking in the clearest and most loving terms to the show’s television neighbors. Fred Rogers believed that because we are called to do our work for the glory of God and the good of others, only our most excellent work will do.Whether you’re called to create a TV show, a book, a business, or a new process at work, the fact is that all of us have been called to be “repairers of creation”—influencing culture for the sake of the gospel. I pray we can all learn from Fred Rogers’s example and allow our God-given calling to change the way we think about why we work, what we create, and how we live out our vocations.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)Fred Rogers had a vision for a children’s television show that would “make goodness attractive.” But not just any “goodness.” Rogers was convinced that he could make the goodness of Christ and the gospel winsome to the world.Due to the public funding of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Rogers couldn’t be explicit with the gospel message on-air. But he was convinced that wasn’t necessary. Instead of preaching the gospel explicitly from his television pulpit, Rogers created a show that consistently modeled Christ-like character and, most prominently, loved every neighbor as himself. As his friend, Reverend George Wirth, said, “Fred’s theology was love your neighbor as you love yourself.” And this was the ultimate theme that came through in the thirty-plus year run of Neighborhood.The name of the show itself and Rogers’s daily “Hello neighbor” greeting to his television audience served to set the stage for what he hoped to communicate in his entire television ministry. Throughout the show, there were countless examples of Rogers displaying what at the time seemed like radical displays of Christ-like love to the overlooked and the marginalized. In one episode in 1969, during the heat of racial tensions across America, Rogers and a black man washed their feet together on screen. In another episode, Rogers took a significant amount of time to patiently sing a song with a disabled boy in a wheelchair. And of course, in each of the show’s 912 episodes, Rogers showed children their inherent God-given dignity, treating them as important and valued as adults. To Fred Rogers, the idea that everyone has inherent dignity was obvious; if you said otherwise, for him, “you might as well go against the fundamentals of Christianity.”By loving every neighbor in the Neighborhood as himself and treating everyone with the utmost dignity, Fred Rogers modeled the gospel to millions of children every day, and in so doing, created one of the most beloved cultural goods of the twentieth century. In Rogers, we find an example to follow in our own efforts to influence culture for the sake of the gospel. While it may not be possible or effective to preach the gospel explicitly through our work, all of us are called to demonstrate Christ-like character and make the goodness of Jesus attractive to those around us. This truth significantly influenced what Rogers created on-air; and as we will see next week, Rogers’s faith also impacted how he went about his work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31)Just before graduating from college, Fred Rogers turned on a television for the first time, and what he saw totally appalled him. “I saw people dressed in some kind of costumes, literally throwing pies in each other’s faces,” Rogers later recalled. “I was astounded at that.”Rogers’s first impression of TV was that it was gimmicky and even demeaning—especially to children. But while Rogers “hated” what he saw in that first show, he was also intrigued by a vision he had for how the medium of television could be redeemed and used for good, particularly in demonstrating Christ-like character to children. Not only that, but in television, Rogers saw an opportunity to channel all of his varied gifts in a single direction. “And so I said to my parents, ‘You know, I don’t think I’ll go to seminary right away; I think maybe I’ll go into television,’” Rogers said.Eventually, Rogers did both, attending seminary classes on his lunch breaks while producing his show. But upon graduation from Western Theological Seminary, Rogers knew he had to choose between TV and pastoral ministry. For Rogers, the decision to commit to a career in television was a relatively easy one, as he felt that’s where he could be of the utmost service to his “neighbors.” In the mind of Fred Rogers, there was no divide between the sacred and the secular. He understood that man’s first calling in the Garden was to emulate the Creator Father by creating new things (Genesis 1:28) and that the path to having the greatest cultural impact for the gospel is often found in embracing the call to create.While Rogers didn’t want to pastor a church, he did desire to be ordained by the Presbyterian Church with an explicit call to ministry through television. But the Presbytery had its reservations. At a meeting in which the local Presbytery was debating the issue, Reverend Bill Barker addressed the elders on Rogers’s behalf, saying, “Here’s an individual who has his pulpit proudly in front of a TV camera. His congregation are little people from the ages of about two or three on up to about seven or eight …This is a man who has been authentically called by the Lord as much as any of you guys sitting out there.”The Presbytery eventually did ordain Rogers, but this action only served to formalize what Rogers already knew to be true: that he was called to create as a means of influencing culture with the Christian values he held so dear. Later in his career, Rogers said, “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be ‘tikkun olam’—repairers of creation.” As we will see over the next two weeks, that deep sense of calling to “repair creation” with the gospel message impacted what Rogers produced on Neighborhood and how he produced the show, giving us a model to follow as we seek to influence culture for Christ.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)Long before he zipped up a cardigan sweater and became Mister Rogers, Fred Rogers was a young man who loved Jesus and was eager to discern his calling. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Rogers had many interests and talents, including music, puppetry, and children’s education. The question in Rogers’s mind was how he could combine these different gifts in a single opportunity to best serve others.Dr. Junlei Li, the former co-director of The Fred Rogers Center, explains that “Fred was guided by a deep sense of service, of wanting to be useful to the world. He was driven by service even if in his mind it was vague for years as to how to best leverage his considerable talents in service of others.” Fred Rogers embodied Romans 12:1, deeply understanding that as Christians, the gospel of Jesus’s selfless sacrifice should compel us to view our whole lives as service to others. When it comes to our work, the proper response to the gospel is not to seek out the work that will earn us the most fame and fortune. The goal should be to find the work we can do most exceptionally well in service of God and others. In the words of Rogers himself, “You don’t set out to be rich and famous; you set out to be helpful.” As Rogers’s biographer points out, this “relentless sense of service to God drove every moment of Fred Rogers’s life,” especially in how he thought about his work.But how would he serve? Where was Rogers being called to put his gifts to work for the glory of God and the good of others? These were the questions Rogers grappled with for many years.Rogers had a term he loved to use when referring to discerning one’s calling. He called it “guided drift.” The idea was that, while it is good and wise to make plans, “one needed to live a life that was open to change,” led by the Holy Spirit. As Rogers was wrapping up college in the spring of 1951, he was planning a career in pastoral ministry, as this was how he thought he could be of utmost service to others. But just before starting seminary, Rogers saw television for the first time. As we’ll see next week, this seminal moment produced a major jolt to Rogers’s guided drift, setting him down a path to creating one of the most influential pieces of culture of the 20th Century—a TV show that would make Christian values attractive to millions of children.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6:23-27)In this series, we are exploring a few of the many instances in which Jesus said “no” in order to unpack what our Savior’s example means for us and our work.In today’s passage, we find the crowd who had witnessed Jesus’s miraculous feeding of the five thousand, chasing him down the next day in search for more bread and fish. Before they can even utter their request, Jesus steps in and says “no,” refusing their request for more food. Jesus isn’t being lazy or maliciously withholding. He says “no” in order to offer the people something better. While the people came to ask Jesus for bread for the day, Jesus said “no” in order to offer the Bread “that endures to eternal life.”There are two applications I see from Jesus’s gracious “no” in this passage. First, as so many of us have likely experienced, sometimes God says “no” to our own requests in order to sanctify us or prepare us for something better. We are all so fond of quoting Romans 8:28 which promises that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” but we forget that sometimes, what is best for us is for the Lord to say “no” to our prayers. Is there something you’re asking God to do that just isn’t happening? The Lord may be using that “no” to refine your character or draw you closer to him.The second application I see in this passage is that Jesus’s example should inspire us to say “no” in order to offer something better to those we serve. My kids ask for donuts almost every day. I say “no” most days in order to offer them something better (a longer life without diabetes). This principle plays out in the workplace all the time. When your boss asks you to attend a meeting that you know will be a waste of your time, the most gracious thing for you to do might be respectfully saying “no” to the invitation so you can focus on excelling at the project the boss wants completed by the end of this week. Or, when a customer demands that you build a certain feature into your product which you know won’t solve their problem, it is actually kind of you to say “no,” bringing your knowledge and experience to bear to say “yes” to a more effective solution.Just as in Jesus’s encounter above, sometimes a polite but firm “no” can be one of the kindest and most generous things we can do in order to serve others better.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)In this passage, we see Jesus clearly saying “no”—not to something that is being asked of Him, but to Martha’s busyness. Martha, it appears, was much like us today, busy spreading herself across many things while failing to take the time to discern the most essential thing. In this scene, we see her multitasking, trying to prepare a meal and also trying to spend time with Jesus, while her sister Mary sat with singular focus at the Teacher’s feet.Martha, understandably perturbed, asks Jesus to step in and encourage Mary to help with the preparations. But Jesus says “no.” Why? He says that while Martha is worried about “many things…few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better.” In other words, Jesus said “no” because Martha wasn’t focused on what mattered most. In that moment, the most essential thing was not cooking another dish or cleaning up the house—it was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Commenting on this passage, Dr. Timothy Keller said, “[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.”The world is constantly pressuring us to be more like Martha than Mary, convincing us that the path to happiness and impact is in saying “yes” to more commitments, more jobs, and more responsibility. But here, Jesus offers us a better, simpler, saner way. He offers us the gift of saying “no” to the relatively unimportant in order to focus on the essential. He is offering us the path of less but better. “Few things are needed … indeed only one.”It’s important to note that Jesus wasn’t asking Martha (or us for that matter) to do anything he hadn’t. Jesus was crystal clear on what his one essential thing was (preaching the gospel in preparation for the Passion he would perform on the cross) and he pursued that mission with relentless focus. Just before this exchange with Mary and Martha, we are told in Luke 9:51 that Jesus had “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Once Jesus was clear on his mission—what he was saying “yes” to—he got in the habit of saying “no” to the many nonessential things along the way. As you and I gain clarity on what is essential in our business and lives, we must do the same.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 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 2:23-28)Last week, we saw how Jesus reframed the idea of Sabbath-rest as a gift to be enjoyed, rather than a law to be obeyed. So, if Sabbath was, in the words of Jesus, “made for man,” (Mark 2:27), the question becomes, what does man need? As we saw in the first week of this series, we need an antidote to restlessness, namely regularly exchanging life-sucking things for life-giving things, practicing thankfulness, and reminding ourselves of how Jesus’s work on the cross frees us from the pressure to work ourselves into the ground.How and when we go about doing these things is going to look different from person to person. With Jesus as the new covenant, we are no longer locked in to a particular day of the week to rest from our restlessness. You can “Sabbath” or rest every night after you lay your kids down for bed, or on an annual summer vacation, or, as tradition would have it, on a set day each week.My family and I embrace the gift of a Sabbath-like rest every Sunday, when we attempt to only do things that are “life-giving” and try as best as we can to cease all striving and productivity. For us, that looks like staying off of our phones, eating our favorite foods, spending more time in God’s Word, and enjoying time with our closest family and friends. But the most restful thing for me is that for one day, we intentionally suspend any productive conversation. That means no talking out ideas for my next book, no planning our next vacation, and no discussing calendars for the upcoming week. For one day, as best as we can, we simply rest and appreciate the good things, work, and people God has given us—not striving for anything more.As my wife and I began to practice Sabbath a few years ago, it quickly became clear why Jesus said the Sabbath is for man and not the other way around. The Sabbath is an opportunity to rest from the relentless pressure of the world to constantly be accomplishing, solving, entertaining, spending, posting, and doing. It is a day to look at our life, our work, and the cross and say with great contentment, “This is enough!”This type of rest doesn’t come easy for me. Not even close. But the more I practice these regular breaks, the less restless and anxious I become. If you’re restless like me, I’d encourage you to hear Jesus telling you that Sabbath-like rest is for you. It is no longer a legalistic command. It is a gift that is more relevant today than ever before. I pray you will embrace it.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)Last week, we established that the solution to our restlessness can be found in Sabbath-like rest from the sources of our restlessness. Next week, we will look at how practically we as Christians do that in the 21st Century. But first, we must look at what Sabbath is not for today’s Christian. And the best place to start is the origins of Sabbath itself.When God handed down the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai, he commanded that the Israelites rest on the seventh day of each week. This was meant to be a sign of God’s covenant with His people. And, of course, Sabbath was modeled after God’s own day of rest from the work of creation on the first seventh day.In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was observed with strict rules and regulations. For example, the Israelites were prohibited from lighting fires (Exodus 35:3), gathering food (Exodus 16:23-29), and selling goods in the marketplace (Nehemiah 10:31). And the punishment for intentionally violating the Sabbath was nothing short of death (Exodus 31:14-15).Over time, the Israelites took the Sabbath to its most legalistic extremes, to the point in which, by the time Jesus came to earth, they even viewed healing on the Sabbath as a sin. When the Pharisees saw Jesus healing and picking grains in a field on the Sabbath in Matthew 12, they confronted him, calling out his seeming unlawfulness. Jesus responded by proclaiming “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8) signaling that a new covenant was here in the person of Christ. In Mark’s account of the same events, Jesus is recorded as saying that “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). In other words, Jesus is saying that through Him, the Sabbath is no longer a command of the Law. Instead, it is a gracious gift for the restless.What did Jesus mean that Sabbath is now for man? How, practically, can we take advantage of that gift? And how can we rest regularly today, without making our rest legalistic and life-sucking? Those are the questions we will seek to answer next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate. (2 Thessalonians 3:6-9)In Acts 18:1-3, we are given a front-row seat to the third and final reason why Paul appears to have chosen to work as a tentmaker: so that he could effectively disciple other Christians. In these verses, we are told that, upon arriving in Corinth, Paul met Priscilla and Aquila, “and because [Paul] was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them” (Acts 18:3). Many theologians believe that Priscilla and Aquila had already converted to Christianity by the time they met Paul. But by working shoulder-to-shoulder as tentmakers, Paul was able to disciple the couple and bring them further along in their faith.In his book, The Missional Entrepreneur, Dr. Mark Russell, says, “It is very possible that Paul taught [Priscilla and Aquila] how to blend workplace excellence and effective evangelism. They became tentmaking missionaries themselves, traveling on to Ephesus no doubt still practicing their trade and teaching the Way to people like Apollos. Paul modeled teaching in the context of daily life, which made spiritual instruction seem natural and flowing rather than forced and uncomfortable as it is commonly perceived. Due to this style…[Paul’s] converts became teachers and their converts became teachers and the positive feedback cycle continued.”As we saw in the first week of this series, Paul didn’t work because he needed to, and he didn’t just do the bare minimum amount of work necessary in order to fund his “real ministry” of preaching within the four walls of local churches. Paul chose to work as a part of a deliberate strategy to “become all things to all people,” to preach the gospel to unbelievers in the workplace, and to disciple fellow Christians.But in 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul alludes to another reason why he worked, saying, “we worked night and day…in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.” Through God’s Word, we can hear Paul saying those same words to us today. Whether you’re a tentmaker, an entrepreneur, an artist, a salesperson, a stay-at-home dad, a janitor, or a teacher, your work, like Paul’s, is not something separate or disconnected from the work of making disciples. The Lord has called each of us to use our chosen vocations in intentional ways to win the respect of outsiders, to preach the gospel, and to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Let that truth and Paul’s example challenge and inspire you as you go about your work today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: 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 and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)After spending the first twenty-one verses of 1 Corinthians 9 defending his right to raise financial support to preach the gospel, Paul gives us the clearest explanation as to why he chose to continue to work as a tentmaker. In verses 22 and 23 he writes, “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.”Paul understood that, in order for the gospel to be heard, followers of Christ must first be able to relate to those we are ministering to. And there is perhaps no more effective place to do this than in the workplace where we spend the majority of our waking hours and have a natural environment for building genuine relationships with believers and non-believers alike.For Paul, tentmaking would have been the perfect opportunity to build relationships with those outside of his immediate social circles. As Dr. Mark Russell points out in his extensive study on Paul’s work, “Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen of high education so he could easily identify with those from similar backgrounds. His work as a tentmaker was a deliberate strategy that enabled him to identify with another, primarily different, group of people. By participating in [tentmaking] trade associations and guilds he would have become enmeshed in [previously inaccessible] social networks.”Before the gospel can be heard, the messenger must win the respect of the intended audience. Paul knew that being an excellent tentmaker outside the four walls of the church was one of the most effective ways to win the respect of non-Christians, which is why he encouraged the Church at Thessaloniki and us to follow his example, saying, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).Once we’ve won respect of outsiders, we, like Paul, will be put in positions to preach the gospel in word and deed. And that brings us to the second reason Paul chose to work which we will explore next week. 

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. 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 9:20-23)The apostle Paul is one of the great heroes of the Christian faith—the man the risen Christ chose to help spread the gospel and accelerate the growth of Christianity throughout the world. While Paul’s work as an effective preacher is well-known, what the Church almost never talks about is the fact that throughout his career planting and preaching to churches, Paul also worked as a tentmaker (Acts 18:2-3).The lack of discussion in the Church about Paul’s work as a tentmaker appears to be a symptom of a deeper problem—namely that many Christians tend to treat some callings (such as preaching) as more eternally significant than others (such as tentmaking). But Paul’s own writings make clear that he never fell for this unbiblical myth. As we’ll see throughout this devotional series, Paul didn’t view his work as a tentmaker simply as a means of financing his preaching ministry. He viewed his work as a tentmaker as a core component of his strategy to make disciples of Jesus Christ. But before we more deeply explore why Paul worked, it’s critical that we understand what wasn’t motivating Paul to work as a tentmaker.First, it’s important to point out that Paul did not need to work as a tentmaker. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul makes it abundantly clear that he had the right and the ability to live as a “donor supported missionary,” focusing 100% of his time and energy preaching the gospel in the churches and synagogues. But he chose not to exercise that right. In 1 Corinthians 9:15, he says, “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.”Not only did Paul not work out of necessity, he also appeared to work tirelessly—far more than was needed to fund his preaching ministry. In 1 Thessalonians 2:9 and 2 Thessalonians 3:8, Paul says he worked “night and day,” and in Acts 20:34 it says that Paul earned enough money to provide for others, suggesting that there were at least seasons of Paul’s career as a tentmaker in which he was earning far more than he needed to support himself.So, if Paul could have raised support to finance his preaching, why didn’t he? Furthermore, why would the great preacher spend more time than was necessary in his work as a tentmaker?As we will see over the next three weeks, Paul didn’t view his work as a tentmaker as a distraction from his work to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Rather, he chose to work as a part of a deliberate strategy to “become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22), to preach the gospel in word and in deed, and to disciple other believers. And this, as we will see, has tremendous applications to our own work today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5)In the final chapter of James (and verses 1-5 in particular), the author has some strong words of warning for the rich and powerful. In verse 4, James condemns how the “rich” he’s addressing in this passage acquired their wealth, by unfairly withholding wages from their workers. While this isn’t the place to comment on what does and does not constitute “fair pay,” it is important for us Christians to be cognizant of both overt and subtle abuses of power that might put us into the category of those James is condemning. Modern day examples of these abuses in pay include misclassifying workers as contractors instead of employees and paying women and minorities less for doing the same job as others.In verse 4, James appears to be admonishing employers exclusively. But in verses 1, 2, 3 and 5, James has words of warning for anyone who is more privileged, powerful, and wealthy than somebody else, sharply criticizing the hoarding of wealth, as well as “self-indulgence” and living “in luxury.” The question of what constitutes luxury and over indulgence is a complex and personal one. But when reading these verses, it’s important to keep in mind that James’s chief concern in this passage (and much of the book) is the poor. So, a good question to ask to discern whether or not we are ones James is calling “self-indulgent” may be “Does the way I spend my personal wealth and the profits of my business endeavors enhance or diminish the lives of the poor?”Finally, as busy, ambitious professionals, we would be wise to take James’s words in verses 2 and 3 to heart, remembering that the wealth we accumulate in this life will fade away. But the acts of service we do unto others won’t. And that is really the heart of the entire book of James. When you and I love our neighbors and employers by doing our work exceptionally well and when we focus on the needs of the powerless and poor above our own careers, we are living more closely in line with the image of Christ, glorifying the Father, and storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)Busy professionals love to plan. We meticulously plan out our days and weeks. Some of us even plan out our careers five years at a time. Planning is a good thing, as it is the process by which we steward the time, money, and other resources the Lord has entrusted us with. But as James 4:13-16 points out, our planning is “evil” and dishonoring to the Lord when we plan without humbly recognizing that it is the Lord—not us—who is in control of the outcomes of our planning.This is an especially hard truth for busy professionals to grasp and remember day-to-day, as so much of our time is spent planning for the future. We spend weeks putting together strategic plans. We sell investors and customers on visions of the future. We set-up meetings and appointments weeks and months in advance. With so much confident planning, it can be easy to fall for the lie that we are the ones controlling the future. But as James reminds us, this type of planning is better known as “boasting” and “evil.” Why? Because when we confidently predict the future without even a mention of God’s sovereignty, we are sending a message to ourselves and those around us that we are not truly trusting in the Lord’s grace and daily provisions. We are relying solely on ourselves and our plans for the future.Planning without recognizing the Lord’s sovereignty can also cause us to forget to be on the lookout for where the Lord might be moving to take our plans in different directions. The Christian professional who humbly submits their plans to the Lord and watches for the Holy Spirit to mold them over time will be more at peace, more aligned with God’s design for their lives, and even more effective.Finally, in verse 14 James reminds us of the brevity of life, comparing our time on earth to “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” This sobering reminder gives us all the more reason to plan, but to do so by humbly recognizing the Lord’s ultimate control and being willing to surrender our plans to the Lord’s will.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:14-17)In James 3, we find plenty of wisdom for busy Christian professionals. Which of us doesn’t need a reminder to tame our tongues so that we might be more accurate reflections of Christ amongst our colleagues? But today, I want us to dig into the second part of James 3, and look at what the Scriptures have to say about ambition.In verse 14, James warns us not to deny “selfish ambition,” but to recognize it for what it is: “earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” Those are some strong words. But James isn’t finished. He goes on to say that “where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”What exactly does selfish ambition look like? This is what James and we have already explored in James 2 with the admonition not to focus on what the rich and powerful can do for us and our careers, but instead being primarily concerned with how we can serve the powerless. Selfish ambition is when our work is primarily motivated by our own advancement, fame, and fortune, rather than service to others.But while James comes down hard on selfish ambition, we must be careful not to write-off ambition altogether. Ambition itself isn’t what James is condemning here. Selfish ambition is. The Bible makes clear that there is a different kind of ambition that is not only acceptable, but commanded by the Lord.Colossians 3:23 demands that “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” You and I aren’t called to simply punch a clock. We are called to lean fully into the work God has called us to do, and to do so ambitiously for his glory and the good of others. In the words of 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”How do we glorify God in our work? By obeying his commands, summarized by Jesus when he called us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). When God’s glory and the good of others is our primary motivation for our work, our ambition will be anything but selfish. Our ambition will be as James says in James 3:17, “pure…peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” Let that encourage us today as we ambitiously pursue the work the Father has given us to do.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. (James 2:1-9)This week, we’re taking a closer look at James 2:1-9, where James strongly commands that “believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.” Right off the bat, James gives us an example of favoritism from his own cultural context, comparing how first century Christians might treat two very different people who show-up to the same church gathering: a rich man “wearing a gold ring and fine clothes” and “a poor man in filthy old clothes.”It’s clear that James is referring to favoritism based on something deeper than the physical appearance of these men. James is pointing out something that hasn’t changed in the centuries since he authored this letter: There will always be two groups of people in our lives—those that have the power to serve us (the rich) and those we have the power to serve (the poor).In our modern context, the rich man might not be flashing a gold ring as he walks in the door, but he might have two million Instagram followers and be connected to someone on LinkedIn that we really want an introduction to, while the poor man could be someone who, on the surface, has nothing to offer that would advance our careers or social status. Or the poor woman might be the intern at our office that has little to offer our careers today, while the rich woman might be a boss we are trying to impress.In this passage, James is encouraging us to view the world through the lens of those who can serve us and those we can serve. And he’s saying crystal-clearly that showing favoritism to the rich and powerful is nothing less than sin. What exactly is the offense? The sin is not loving our neighbor as ourselves (verse 8). The sin is paying particular attention to those who can serve us, while neglecting to serve those we are in a position to help.Obeying this command to not show favoritism to the powerful is far from easy. After all, God often uses the rich and powerful to pull us along in our careers. This can lead us to justify showing favoritism to these people. But all throughout Scripture, Jesus and authors like James instruct us to focus first on serving those who can’t do a thing for us in return, while trusting that God will provide for our every need. Often times, it is that type of “servant leadership”—of spending noticeably more time and energy serving those less powerful than us—that is noticed and rewarded at work.Every day, we are faced with multiple opportunities to show favoritism to the rich and powerful. Be mindful of those opportunities today and look for opportunities to love and serve both the powerful and the powerless well.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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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Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters (Colossians 3:23)When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, he replied, “Love the Lord your God…and…Love your neighbor as yourself.” As we saw last week, excellent work is one way in which we fulfill Jesus’s command to love God by revealing his character of excellence to those around us. As we’ll see today, excellence is also necessary for keeping the second commandment in our work.As Christians, we can’t say we are seeking to love our neighbor as ourselves and then do our work with mediocrity. Think of the extreme example of a Christian doctor. While that doctor may pray with her patients, share the gospel with her co-workers, and donate money to her church, her most basic form of ministry is in being an excellent doctor. If she were a mediocre medical professional, her patients’ lives might be at risk. The doctor’s first responsibility in her work ought to be the ministry of excellence—serving her patients as best she knows how, giving them the same level of care she would expect for herself and her family.Now, for most of us, the relative skill of our work isn’t going to mean the difference between life and death. But we all have an opportunity to obey Jesus’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves by choosing to do excellent work and going far beyond the minimum standards required in our jobs. I love what Matt Perman says on this topic: “Slack work is like vandalism because it makes life harder for people—just like vandalism. Christians are to be the opposite of vandals and slackers in their work. We are to do work that will truly benefit people by going the extra mile rather than just doing the minimum necessary. Excellence in our work is actually a form of generosity and love, and poor quality is a form of stinginess and selfishness. Shoddy work is not just shoddy work; it’s a failure of love.”As Christians, we shouldn’t seek to do the bare minimum in our jobs to collect a paycheck. If we believe our work is a calling from God, we will “work heartily, as working for the Lord (Colossians 3:23),” seeking to glorify God and love others well by being the most focused and excellent doctors, entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, carpenters, and executives we can possibly be. Excellence in our work isn’t just a means to some personal gain. Excellence is our most fundamental form of ministry in our work. Let this truth encourage you to focus on pursuing mastery of your craft, becoming the most exceptional version of yourself for God’s glory and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)The purpose of our work is no different than the purpose of our lives, namely to glorify God in everything we do (1 Corinthians 10:31). “Glorify” is a word we throw around so much that it can become difficult to define. As John Piper says, to glorify God simply means to “reflect his greatness” or reveal his character to others.So, if the purpose of our work is to reveal the Lord’s character to the world, what exactly are his characteristics? The Bible describes God in many ways, but it is his character of creative excellence that is perhaps most visible to us. You can’t stare out at the Grand Canyon and not marvel at the masterful work of God. You can’t go to a zoo without appreciating the creative supremacy of the Creator. And you can’t take a baby by its hand and not stare in wonder at the excellence it takes to make millions of cells form together to create life. As we saw in last week’s devotional passage, God’s character of excellence also shone through in Jesus’s life on earth, with his contemporaries marveling that “he had done everything well.” We worship the preeminent God. A perfect God. “Excellent” is far too trite a word to describe the God of the universe. But it is the closest we as mere mortals can hope to understand and attain.As God’s children, we are called to be image bearers of our exceptional Father. In Ephesians 5:1, Paul instructs the Church “as beloved children” to “be imitators of God.” Commenting on this passage, theologian Andreas Köstenberger says, “How should we respond to God’s excellence? In short, we should seek to imitate and emulate it…As God’s redeemed children, we are to strive to be like God. This, it appears, includes striving for excellence.” John Piper puts it this way: “God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion—namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.”In other words, we glorify God when we imitate his character of excellence and in doing so “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We live surrounded by darkness in a world that is desperate for something excellent and true. There is perhaps no more influential “sphere of life” for us to shine the light of Christ than in our chosen work. When we work with excellence, we have the great privilege of glorifying God and proclaiming his excellencies to the world around us. Go forth and do your work with excellence today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He [Jesus] has done everything well,” they said. (Mark 7:37)Today’s passage is one of my all-time favorite descriptions of Jesus: “People were overwhelmed with amazement. ‘He [Jesus] has done everything well’” [emphasis mine]. As followers of Christ, this passage should give us great pause. As those seeking to imitate Jesus in every way imaginable, can we say we are doing everything well? Can we say we are doing everything with excellence at work and at home?The fact is that all of us have areas of our lives where we are falling short of Jesus’s excellent standard. I think this is truer today than ever before. Why? Because now more than ever, we believe the lies that we have to do it all, be it all, and have it all. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed, making a millimeter of progress in a million directions because we fail to discern the essential from the nonessential in our work and in our homes. This is a recipe for mediocrity, not excellence, and I would argue the problem is epidemic in the Church today.Why should we care? Because anything less than excellence falls short of the standard we Christians have been called to. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul writes, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” The late great pastor Dr. James Kennedy used to paraphrase this passage, calling his congregation to “excellence in all things and all things to God’s glory.” That is the standard we are called to.There are many good reasons to pursue excellence in all things, especially in our chosen work. Excellence in our vocations advances our careers, makes us winsome to the world, grants us influence, and can lead to opportunities to share the gospel. But none of these good things should be the primary motivators for us as we pursue excellence in our work and the other roles God has called us to fulfill in our lives. We pursue excellence for a much more fundamental purpose—because excellence is how we best reflect the character of Christ and love and serve our neighbors as ourselves. In other words, excellence is our most everyday form of ministry. As we will see over the next two weeks, it is through the ministry of excellence that we glorify God and love others well through our work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)What’s the Biblical response to the mounting anxiety in our lives? As we saw in the first week of this devotional series, we must first confront our anxiety honestly, recognizing our stressors for what they are. Second, we take the Lord up on his offer to cast our anxieties and worries upon him, for He cares deeply for us. Finally, as we will see in this final devotional of this series, once we have confronted our anxieties and cast them upon the Lord, we must carry on in the work the Father has created us to do. We rise up from our confession full of faith. We believe that God has graciously taken our anxieties upon Himself and that He has become our burden-bearer. We trust that, because God cares so much for us, He does not desire for us to exist in a perpetual state of anxiety. He does not want us anxiously obsessing over the things in our lives that we can’t control. So, He takes them from us. That which brought us worry and a disquieted spirit no longer rests on our shoulders. Therefore, we need not be fixated on the anxieties of the past. We are able to carry on with great freedom.We see this truth in Jesus’s call in Matthew 11 when He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus knows that we get stressed. So he calls us to come to him in faith. To hand over our burdens. And, in turn, to receive rest. Not a passive rest, but an active relief. Relief that is activated by trust. Relief that then motivates us to live and work without worry, but with great freedom and boldness.Each of us has been given unique work to do for the glory of God and the good of others. When we launch a new business, ship a product, create a piece of art, finish a presentation, or sweep a floor, we aren’t just doing a job—we are being God’s hands and feet at work in the world, serving the human community. But it is impossible for us to do our best, most creative work out of a place of fear and anxiety. I pray the Scriptures expounded upon in this series give you the strength to confront your anxieties, cast them upon the Lord, and carry on in the work the Father created you to do with the utmost boldness!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. (Psalm 55:22)Last week, we opened up about the realities of stress and anxiety related to our work. We noted that there are a whole host of workplace issues and experiences that contribute to our ever-increasing levels of stress. Many of these things are out of our control. And that is precisely what causes us anxiety. On the surface, there appears to be nothing we can do to remedy this unfortunate reality, but as we began to explore yesterday, that is simply not true. The Bible speaks extensively about the issue of anxiety, offering us practical ways to relieve the stress in our lives.First, as we saw previously, we must recognize and confront our anxiety. Today, we will look at the second thing Scripture commands us to do with our anxiety: cast it upon the Lord. In 1 Peter 5:7, the Apostle Paul instructs us to, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.” Once we have confronted the realities of the stress and worry that comes as a result of our work, we are not left to carry our anxiety alone. In His graciousness, the Lord has invited us to cast those anxieties upon him. Why? Because he cares for us. If the God of the universe cared enough about our sin to sacrifice His Son on a cross, surely he is capable of caring for whatever is stressing us today. When we find ourselves unable to cast our anxieties upon the Lord, let us remember that He carried the far greater burden of our sins all the way to the cross. For as Jesus promises, “his yoke is easy and his burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). And, in some mysterious way, through this radical exchange, God takes our worry and stress away from us once we have cast it upon him.The act of casting our anxiety upon God is not merely cathartic. When we confess to the Lord our sins, struggles, and anxieties, He takes those burdens upon himself. They are no longer ours to bear. We are given peace, all because of God’s unfathomable care for us.So when the stress of job security or the anxiety of looming deadlines or shrinking profits comes upon us, we are ready for the fight. First, we recognize the stress and confront it. Then, while prostrate before the Lord, we cast our worries and trepidation, laying it all before our immensely compassionate God. For there, in Him, we shall begin to find true relief and peace.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” Genesis 1:28-31 (NIV)The Bible gives us very little detail of Jesus’ life between the ages of twelve and thirty, when He began his public ministry. One of the only things Scripture notes about this significant chunk of time is that Jesus was known in His community for His work as a carpenter. This is remarkable! The only thing the Bible tells us about what Jesus was doing for half of His life was doing the work of a creator and entrepreneur, revealing to us this important characteristic of the Trinity.Given Jesus’ ultimate purpose for coming to earth, you might have expected God to choose for the Messiah to grow up in the home of a priest, like the prophets Samuel and John the Baptist, or maybe in a Pharisaical household, like the Apostle Paul. Instead, God placed Jesus in the home of a carpenter, where for eighty-five percent of His working life, He would reveal God’s character as a creator and an entrepreneur, creating new things for the good of others.In just three years of public ministry, Jesus revealed countless characteristics about His Father. To the five thousand, Jesus showed us that God is our provider. To Lazarus, Jesus showed us that God is the giver of life. And on the cross, Jesus showed us that “God so loved the world” that He would sacrifice His only Son in order to spend eternity with us. If Jesus was able to reveal so much of God’s character in such a relatively short period of time, the fact that Jesus spent twenty years revealing God’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit should stop us in our tracks.Think back to the first week of this devotional series. What God created in the first six days is astonishing, but what’s equally remarkable is what He did not create. After six days of work, God left the earth largely undeveloped and uncultivated. Then He called you and I to join Him as His co-creators, “filling and subduing” the world. When we create, we are emulating the entrepreneurial and creative character of the Godhead: Father, Spirit, and Son. Your work as a creator is not “secular” or “less than” the work of a “full-time missionary” or pastor. No, you are doing God-like work for His glory and the good of others. Glorify Him through your creating today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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 (NIV)The first thing God reveals about Himself in Scripture is not that He is loving, holy, omnipotent, gracious, or just. No, the first thing God shows us is that He is creative. In Genesis, He brings something out of nothing. He brings order out of chaos. He creates for the good of others. In short, God is the first entrepreneur.“Entrepreneur” is a title thrown around so much today that it has become very difficult to define. I would submit that an entrepreneur is anyone who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others.Using this definition, the Creator of the universe certainly qualifies as the first entrepreneur. In Genesis, He is clearly creating something new. Before creation, “the earth was formless and empty” until the First Entrepreneur spoke. Then, in six days, His voice brought forth the heavens, the earth, light, evening, morning, sky, land, sea, vegetation, sun, moon, stars, animals, and man.Not only did God create something original, He also created for the good of others. God certainly didn’t need to create the world and humankind. So why did He? Before creation, the Father, Spirit, and Son had been enjoying perfect community, serving and loving each other for all eternity. If the Trinity reveals the others-orientation of the Godhead, it stands to reason that one of the reasons why God created was to share the perfect love the Trinity has been experiencing for all eternity with us.So, while God clearly created something new for the good of others, did omnipotent, omniscient God really take a risk when He created? Certainly He didn’t take a risk in the way you and I do when we launch a new business, compose a new song, or write a new book. But He did risk in a different, far more profound way. As Pastor Timothy Keller explains, “God made the world filled with human beings made in His image, human beings with freewill. So God made the world knowing what it was going to cost Him. Knowing what we were going to do. Knowing that [His] Son was going to have to come into the world and [die for us].”God doesn’t stop revealing His character as creator and entrepreneur in Genesis. As the devotionals over the next two weeks will show us, the Godhead continues to reveal these characteristics throughout Scripture through the Spirit and Son.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations— their kings led in triumphal procession. For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined. The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the juniper, the fir and the cypress together, to adorn my sanctuary; and I will glorify the place for my feet. The children of your oppressors will come bowing before you; all who despise you will bow down at your feet and will call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 60:1-14 (NIV)Over the past two weeks, we have been digging into the story of the Tower of Babel as a case study in unbiblical ambition, using our work as a means of making a name for ourselves. In response to the Babylonians attempted glory-robbing, God “scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city” (Genesis 11:8). To God, the motives behind our ambition obviously matter a great deal.But we have still yet to answer the question that I posed at the start of this devotional series: As Christians, is it possible to be ambitious in our work and still have our self-worth and identity firmly rooted in Jesus Christ? In other words, what does proper ambition look like as we create?Today’s passage from Isaiah 60:1-14 provides a beautiful answer to those questions. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah is pointing us to a picture of the reversal of the events that transpired at the Tower of Babel. Rather than the people being scattered out of the city to the ends of the earth, Isaiah shows us a picture of all the nations coming back together into “the City of the Lord.” This isn’t Babel. This is a glimpse of the New Jerusalem on the New Earth.But here’s what’s most fascinating about this glimpse of our eternal home: While the Babylonians were scattered throughout the earth because of their desire to create to make a name for themselves, Isaiah shows us people from around the world entering the New Jerusalem with cultural artifacts in hand. The people of Tarshish bring their ships, Midian and Ephah bring their livestock, Sheba brings gold and frankincense. “The wealth of the nations,” the best creations of the nations, are being brought into the eternal city to glorify the One who called the people to create. Unlike in Babel, the people are not using their creations to glorify themselves, they are laying their creations down as an offering of worship to God.Scripture commands us to “work…with all your heart” (Colossians 3:23). We are called to be ambitious, to work hard, and to be good stewards of the talents God has given us. But we are called to do these things not for our own glory, but to “do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). When our work is motivated by a desire to glorify God, serve others, and create something that may be considered “the wealth of the nations,” laid down as an offering to God, then we have proper ambition to create with everything we’ve got.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (NIV)As we saw in Genesis 11 last week, the Babylonians were driven by improper ambition to create a tower that would reach the heavens and make a name for themselves, a temptation that still plagues humankind today. When we create out of a desire to make a name for ourselves, or, to put it in more modern terms, to accumulate fame and fortune, we are essentially trying to save ourselves.When the Babylonians invented the art of brick making, they weren’t content simply putting that innovation to work to build better roads and homes. They had to leverage their creation to make a name for themselves. Why? What is it about the human condition that causes us to use our work as a tool for proving something to the world? Deep down, all human beings know there is something wrong with us. We know we are flawed. We know we aren’t “right.” Deep down, we know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).Ever since Adam and Eve committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden, we have been trying to cover up these flaws, not with fig leafs, but with our accomplishments. We think that if we write a bestselling book, or sell a business for millions of dollars, or sign a record deal, or get 100,000 Instagram followers, or build the world’s tallest tower, then we’ll be able to mask our sinful human condition. Essentially, we use work as a means of saving ourselves.But as Christians, we know that the work of salvation is complete! Because Jesus said, “It is finished,” we no longer have to use our work as a means of saving ourselves. What incredible freedom we will experience when we let that truth really sink into our hearts! Because of the gospel, we are free to work and create not as a means of making a name for ourselves, but as an act of worship to the One who made us, saved us, and called us to create. As we will see in next week’s devotional, this truth replaces our improper ambitions with healthy ambition that flows out of a love for Christ and a desire to make His name famous throughout this earth and the next.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:1-9 (NIV)The world tells us that ambition is essential to accumulating wealth, fame, and glory for ourselves. The meta-narrative of work today is that it is the primary means by which we make a name for ourselves in this life and prove to the world that we are important, valuable, and worthy.Of course, this is nothing new. Since the Fall, human beings have been using work to make a name for themselves, rather than to glorify God and serve others. Take the Babylonians as an example. In Genesis 11 we read the account of these ancient entrepreneurs discovering the incredible technical innovation of brick making. With the invention of the brick making process, the Babylonians could build better homes, roads, and cities—all wonderful things; but driven by pride, the Babylonians’ ambition wasn’t to glorify God through their work. Their ambition was to make a name for themselves. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). And if there was ever a question as to whether or not our motives matter to the Lord, the rest of the passage provides the answer. “The Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city” (Genesis 11:8).Creating a tower, a new business, a piece of art, or a piece of music is not inherently bad. Our cultural creations can and do reveal God’s character and love and serve others. But when we create something out of a motivation to make a name for ourselves, we are attempting to rob God of the glory that is rightfully His.While Scripture makes clear that creating to make a name for ourselves constitutes improper ambition, the Bible makes equally clear that ambition can indeed be God-honoring, so long as it flows out of a response to the work Christ did on our behalf on the cross. That is the subject we will turn to next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Proverbs 16:3 (NIV)All throughout Scripture, we are told that it is God, not us, who produces results through our work. 1 Chronicles 29:12 says “Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things.” Deuteronomy 8:17-18 reads, “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.”In an age in which anyone can launch a business, write a book, or start a podcast, it can be tempting to think that it is our hustle that is producing results through our endeavors. As we will see next week, God commands that we hustle and uses our hard work to produce results through us. But as we enter into any new work, we must begin by recognizing the indisputable fact that results are ultimately being produced by the Lord.In Proverbs 16, Solomon sets forth a sequence of trusting, hustling, and resting that should mark any endeavor we Christians pursue. In verse three of the passage, the wisest man who ever lived commands, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” So before we hustle, we are to commit our work to the Lord. What does this look like, practically?For starters, it looks like keeping verses like the ones above close to our hearts, there to continually remind us that it is God, not us, who produces results. Secondly, we commit our work to the Lord when we go to Him in prayer and verbalize our trust in Him. Finally, in addition to verbalizing our trust in God to ourselves and to God, it is important that we verbalize this trust to those around us. In a culture that celebrates the ability to “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” we Christians will be set apart in the world when we explicitly recognize that it is God, not us, who is responsible for producing results through our work.But as we will see next week, trusting is just one piece of the puzzle. In order to be effective instruments in the hands of our Caller, we must hustle hard in our chosen work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:26-27 (NIV)Immediately before Jesus spent forty days in the desert resisting relentless temptation by the adversary, he was baptised in the Jordan River. The last two verses of Matthew 3 recount the event: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”The very next verse (Matthew 4:1) says, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” The fact that these events are found back-to-back aren’t coincidental. Before Jesus kicks-off his public ministry with what must have been an agonizing forty days alone in the wilderness with Satan, God the Father audibly speaks to Jesus, reminding him that he is the Son of God, that he is loved, and that his father is “well pleased” with him.Even for divine Jesus, it must have felt pretty amazing to hear those words spoken over him in public. You and I know the rest of the story. Jesus goes on to boldly launch his ministry, resist temptation, reveal his divinity, and save the world through his sacrifice on the cross.So, what does this account have to do with how you and I respond to adversity and failure? Everything! Galatians 3:27 reminds us that “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Paul is pointing us back to Jesus’ baptism, saying that, through our faith in Jesus, we are symbolically joined up with Jesus in his baptism. Because of the work of Christ on the cross, we can hear the Father speaking the same words he spoke to Jesus to us: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”Cling tightly to those words, not because you are at risk of losing them, but because they give you and me the same boldness Jesus exhibited when he stepped out of the Jordan River. Whatever failure you are experiencing, remember that you are a son or daughter of the King. You are loved. The King is well pleased with you. God’s words are true and unchanging. No amount of success or failure is going to change who he declares you to be. Let that give you the boldness to respond well to failure, to be transparent about your shortcomings for the sake of the gospel, and to be eternally hopeful because you are “clothed with Christ.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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 soulSpafford 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 soulAs 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.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 (NIV)Contrary to what some “spiritual self-help gurus” preach, the God of the Bible does not promise us success. If anything, Scripture makes clear that Christians are all-but guaranteed adversity and failure. From Paul to Peter, from Joseph to Job, the Bible is filled with stories of men and women who experienced great failures both personally and professionally. Throughout these stories, Scripture reveals a God who isn’t concerned with our “success,” but is very much concerned with our sanctification and how our failures can be used to mold us into His image.Today, more and more Christians are embracing the call to create, taking risks to bring about new businesses, ministries, art, books, music, and other forms of culture as a means of serving others. It’s never been easier to follow God’s call to create! But we must remember that the nature of creating new things is that it is risky. Failure and adversity—at least at some level—are inevitable for the Christian who is working to create things that didn’t exist before. Knowing this, how can we Christians respond to failure in a way that preaches the gospel to ourselves and others?It all starts with transparency—a principle that the Church is severely lacking in today. We come to church on Sunday mornings, put on a happy face, and pray that we never have to progress past small talk. “Hey, how are you? I loved the picture you posted on Instagram last night! Did you watch the game?” Instead of treating our fellow Church members as brothers and sisters in Christ, our conversations are not much deeper than those we carry on with the barista at our favorite coffee shop. For many of us, church has become a country club to showcase our best selves rather than a community that gathers to honestly share our struggles and failures, secure in the grace of our brothers and sisters, and ultimately, God.Why aren’t we more vulnerable? Because at the end of the day, we aren’t fully tapping into the gospel of Jesus Christ for our day-to-day functional salvation. Sure, we understand that it is “by grace [we] have been saved through faith,” relying on Jesus for our ticket to Heaven. But we live as if we still have something to prove, someone to impress, or something we need to do to demonstrate our worth. We treat the gospel as a “fire suit,” great for keeping us out of Hell, but not much else. In reality, the gospel is the only thing that will allow us to face struggles and failures with true peace. In the words of Timothy Keller, “Christians should be known to be calm and poised in the face of difficulty or failure. This may be the most telling way to judge if a person is drawing on the resources of the gospel in the development of personal character.”When we are transparent about our failures, we are preaching a sermon to ourselves and the world that says our identity is rooted in Christ alone. Don’t miss this opportunity to allow God to use your failure for His glory and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore 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 28:16-20 (NIV)Over the past three weeks, we have been exploring the biblical truth that every Christian is a “full-time missionary” and unpacking what I’m calling the Three Myths of Missions which block us from really embracing our roles as disciple-makers. The third and final myth of missions that we will unpack this week is that in order to fulfill the Great Commission, you must “go” away from your current vocation and location.A few years ago, I heard one of the most life-changing sermons preached on the Great Commission by Dr. Kennon Vaughan. Focusing on the word “Go” in Jesus’s command in Matthew 28:19, Dr. Vaughan said, “The word ‘go’ will “unlock the meaning for us as to when we are to carry out the Great Commission. The word ‘Go’ literally means ‘having gone.’ ‘Go’ is not a command, [Jesus] is not commanding them to go, as much as He’s saying, ‘Having gone…turn men into disciples!’ The going is assumed. In other words, Jesus is saying, ‘Having gone from here, as we go, as you go, turn men into disciples.’ Jesus didn’t go more than 200 miles away from His own hometown, and yet He is saying go make disciples of all nations, and I would venture to say Jesus is the greatest disciple maker in the history of the world. It wasn’t about how far He went. It was about what He did while He was going. The same is true for you and me.”I don’t know about you, but until a few years ago, I had never heard the Great Commission preached like this. “As you are going…make disciples.” That changes everything.While God may indeed be calling you to change your vocation or your location, that is certainly not a requirement for fulfilling the Great Commission. The truth is that Jesus has called each and every one of us to be a full-time missionary, making disciples as we go throughout our work and our lives.When we understand that work is inherently good and meaningful, that the calling of the clergy is no higher than the calling of the congregation, and that Jesus has commanded us to make disciples as we are going throughout life…that changes everything.Now it doesn’t matter what your job title is—you are commanded to make disciples.It doesn’t matter if you live in New York or New Delhi—you are commanded to make disciples.It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur, an artist, pastor, a student, a stay-at-home-mom, an accountant, or a barista—you are commanded to make disciples.Not at some point in the distant future. Not when you retire from your current vocation. Not just on the next short-term missions trip. Today. You are a full-time missionary. What an awesome privilege. What an incredible responsibility.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?” Mark 6:3 (NIV)In order to embrace the idea that every Christian is a full-time missionary, there’s a second myth of missions that we need to look to Scripture to refute. Here it is: The calling of pastors and “full-time missionaries” is somehow “higher” than the call to other vocations.As we saw in last week’s devotional. God called human beings to work, giving all work inherent meaning; thus, there should be no sense that one person’s vocational calling is higher, more meaningful, or more eternally significant than another.But the fact is, there is an unspoken hierarchy of callings in the Church today that says that if you are really sold out for Jesus, you will abandon your current work and spiritually “level-up” to the role of a pastor or donor-supported missionary.This idea isn’t new. It’s a myth the Church has been fighting for centuries. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other leaders of the Protestant Reformation fought vehemently against this man-made hierarchy of callings, arguing that all work is as much a calling from God as the work of a pastor or priest.What’s particularly laughable about this myth is the fact that we worship a God who spent the majority of his time on earth working as a carpenter! The Bible gives us very little detail of Jesus’ life between the ages of twelve and thirty, when He began his public ministry. One of the only things Scripture notes about this significant period of time is that He was known in His community for His work as a carpenter (see Mark 6:3)!Think about this for a moment: From the very beginning of time, God knew that He would have to send Jesus to earth to ransom humankind. Knowing this—and knowing the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ life on earth—the fact that God chose for Jesus to grow-up in the home of 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 no, God placed Jesus in the household of a carpenter where He would spend more than half of his life ministering to others by making what we have to imagine would have been some really exceptional tables.To act as if the calling of the clergy is higher than any other calling is nothing less than a slight at Jesus Christ. It is an unbiblical myth that there is some sort of hierarchy of callings. The truth is that we worship a God who works and that gives dignity and meaning to all vocations.Thank God for the work He has given you to do today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'” Genesis 1:28 (NIV)The idea that every Christian is a full-time missionary may sound new or at least like a fresh perspective. Why is that? As we will see throughout this devotional series, God’s Word makes crystal clear that each of us is called to make disciples of Jesus Christ no matter what job we have or where we live. So why does this concept sound new? I believe it’s because the Church has bought into three myths of missions which we will look to Scripture to refute over the next three weeks.The first myth that the Church has subscribed to for some time now is that work is largely meaningless unless you work as a “full-time missionary.”Have you ever felt like your work is less important or eternally meaningful than that of a pastor or “full-time missionary”? This feeling is so prevalent today, but the good news is that it is totally unbiblical.Genesis 1:26-31 reminds us that work was a part of God’s original, perfect design for the world. In this passage, we see God commanding humankind to co-create with Him—to “be fruitful”—to “fill the earth and subdue it.” This is a call to more than just procreation. This is a call to civilization. It’s a call to cultural creation, to follow God’s lead in working to bring about things that were not there before.If you open up Genesis 2:15, you will see that God put Adam in the Garden of Eden and called him to “work it and take care of it.” In verse 2:19, He invites Adam to give names to every living creature. God is calling Adam to be a ruler, a gardener, a branding agent—jobs that today we might be tempted to call “secular” or at least view as less meaningful than the jobs of a pastor or missionary overseas.But here’s the truth: God called human beings to work prior to the Fall. Thus, all work is inherently meaningful and is a primary means by which we reveal the character of our Creator God and serve others.Your work matters. Deeply matters. Do it with excellence today for the glory of God and the good of others.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore 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 28:16-20 (NIV)I grew up dreading sermons on the topic of missions. It’s not because I don’t love missions; in fact, I can think of nothing more exhilarating than sharing the name of Jesus with a lost world. I love as 1 Peter 2:9 says to “declare the excellencies” of our God, telling others about the miraculous work Jesus has done on my behalf. But for years, any time I heard that a pastor would be preaching on missions or that we were entering into another “missions week,” I cringed because I knew the sermon was going to fill me with nothing but guilt that I wasn’t “going” to “all nations” to make disciples of Jesus Christ.I’ve never lived outside of the U.S. and I have never been in a vocational role that would traditionally be considered “full-time ministry.” I’ve spent my career as a tech entrepreneur and an author. I build companies and write books for a living. And through that work—work many in the Church might call “secular”—I have seen the Lord do incredible things to reach hurting people with the gospel.It’s unfortunate that when most churches talk about missions today, they speak of it almost exclusively in terms of Christians leaving the jobs and geographies God has called them to to move overseas as “full-time, donor-supported missionaries.” I hate the way many in the Church talk about missions, because I love the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I am tired of being told—subtly and not so subtly—that because you and I spend 40+ hours a week building businesses, going to school, crunching numbers, creating art, and carpooling kids, we are not “full-time missionaries” committed to making disciples of Jesus Christ wherever we go.Calling a Christian a full-time missionary is redundant. It need not be said. Whether you’re a student, a businessperson, a barista, a doctor, a janitor, a lawyer, a mother, or a teacher, you are a full-time missionary called to make disciples as you go throughout life! God’s Word makes clear that you and I can be obedient to the Great Commission without changing our vocation or location. You can view your work as full-time missions starting today.If this idea sounds new or fresh, it’s because the Church has bought into three unbiblical myths of missions that we will look to Scripture to refute over the next three weeks.