Work As To The Lord

Good Morning,

Colossians 3:23-24 (NIV)
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Too often we think that being in the ministry means that we've got to go to Bible College or Seminary, obtain our degree, be ordained by a local church or denomination, and then go to work in a local church. That really isn't what ministry work is all about at all. Ministry work, that is the work of Christians every day they live, takes place in everything we do, everywhere we go, everything we say, in whatever people observe as we go about our normal, everyday activities. We are ALL called to be ministers when we accept Jesus as Savior and give our lives over to Him.

Paul wrote, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord..." This is EXACTLY how we should go about our jobs, no matter where we work and no matter what it is we do. Unfortunately, there are many of us who sometimes forget that EVERYTHING we do can be considered "ministry" work. We get so used to going to a job every day that we have a hard time remembering that the very work we are doing can, and IS, really an extension of the ministry work that we have all been called to do. When we remember...and it sometimes takes an effort to remember...that we are the Lord's ambassadors on this planet and represent Him in all that we do, it becomes so much easier to do a really good job in our work places. Think about it for a moment. If Jesus was present there in your place of work, don't you think that you'd maybe do just a bit better job? I know it would certainly affect me! Well, here's the thing...He IS there with us as we work each day. He's there with us as we go out to the grocery store. He's there with us in everything we do. And, everything we do is a reflection of who we are in Him. You see?

When we forget that we should be doing all we do "as working for the Lord," we fall into that trap of believing we only work for other men. That's when we fall down on our jobs of ministry to the world, and everyone in it. When people see that we are somewhat different in the ways we go about our jobs and our everyday activities, they will notice those differences. Some, maybe even many, will wonder about the "why" of those differences. Some then will ask us why we do our work as we do and why we give the extra effort and why we are at peace in our work. That is when we definitely become active ministers of the Gospel and when we have the opportunity to explain what serving the Lord is like.

I guess what we need to do is to remind ourselves every day as we go out to face the world that we are really doing all we do as though we are doing it for God...and not for the world. If we can get that fact firmly planted into our minds, then it will be much, much easier to actually DO what we do in ways that make a difference.

Love, peace, and blessings,

David