Laboring for Love and Glory

I believe it's easy to forget that work existed before the fall. 

God created the world and everything in it including man. "And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done." ( Genesis 2:2 ) 

God gave Adam work - to tend a garden, name the animals, and to care for his wife. To be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion as the pinnacle of God's workmanship, to care for the earth.

Work is good.

But I believe it isn't so easy to forget that work exists now among the weeds this side of Eden after the sin of our first parents. ( Genesis 3:15, Romans 5:12 ) Work is still honorable and needful and God-given, yet its labor is carried out through groans and grunts, challenges, in the thick of the thorns and thistles that now fill the landscape of our world.

We were created to work. Even in these often difficult conditions, we can find great joy in our work. And we should. As believers, we know that God has ordained "good works" for us to do, ( Ephesians 2:10 ) and he promises to help us complete them for his glory. ( Philippians 1:6 ) 

And all work that we engage in, not just "ministry" work or seemingly "big" work, is in fact considered "big, ministry work," according to the Scriptures. Whether the work be raising our children or the smallest act of kindness we show to others in service to them or preforming heart surgery, ALL work is honorable if done for the glory of God. This is how we must view work.

Nothing is trivial. Not in God's kingdom.

One day when Jesus makes all things new, ( Revelation 21:5 ) God will redeem work. Until then:

"Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!" ( Psalms 90:16-17 ) 

Let's labor for our Lord!

Happy Labor Day!