No part of our lives should remain untouched by our faith. Yet the single biggest consumer of our time (our job) often does remain disconnected from that faith. How it got to be that way is a question for another time. The question for now is how we integrate our faith and our work so everything we do is affected by our service to Jesus Christ.
Whenever a person makes faith a separate part of their lives and excludes work from having a role in that faith, that same faith may be rendered all but useless in the Kingdom of God.
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Genesis 2:7 describes the perfect world God created, one in which work had a place. True, work became more difficult as a result of sin’s entry into Creation, but it is clear from Scripture that work itself has a place in the Kingdom of God. In passages throughout the Old and New Testament, the value of a person’s work to the Kingdom of God can be viewed.
Your Faith Isn’t Just For Sundays
The goal then, is to break down the barriers between our Sunday faith and our Monday work so our faith is woven into the fabric of our entire life, including the jobs we do the rest of the week. The key to doing that is restoring the Word of God—the Bible—to its rightful place as a key source for action, a key guide for living and serving, even in our work lives.
Our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior restores the broken relationship between God and us. That restored relationship gives us the ability to make changes in our lives that are not only obedient to God’s commands in the Scriptures, but also more useful in His Kingdom.
Drawing from the principles outlined in the Bible, Christians have an opportunity to experience a faith that teaches them much more than just how to share that faith with other people. The same Scriptures that tell us how to find our way back to God also teach us how to deal with difficult coworkers or bosses, how to behave ethically in an environment not necessarily friendly to our faith, how to balance the competing demands of work and family, how to define success, how to use our resources effectively, and much, much more.
God is Present at Your Work
In fact, there’s no area of our work lives (indeed, no area of our lives at all) that can’t be touched by the Bible. It isn’t that God isn’t there with us on the job, it’s that we’ve been conditioned to believe He isn’t there.
As noted Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer reminded us, God is there and He is not silent…and He’s heard most clearly through His Word.
Written by Randy Kilgore, Senior Writer and Workplace Chaplain for Desired Haven Ministries. Photo by Emmanuel Ikwuegbu on Unsplash All rights reserved. Content distributed by WorkLife.org > used for non-profit teaching purposes only.