Work And Wages

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

1 Corinthians 3:8

How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying opened on Broadway in 1961 and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1962) and seven Tony Awards. After its 1,417 performances, the musical was later made into a movie of the same name and reprised on Broadway in 1995 and again in 2011. It told the story of the seemingly miraculous rise of a young window washer to the vice presidency of the World Wide Wicket Company.

Such transformations in the business of life are mostly the stuff of fiction. For most people, success is achieved slowly and steadily, the result of hard work, diligence, and a focus on the long view. Not surprisingly, the same is true in the spiritual life. It’s no coincidence that the term labor appears nineteen times from Acts through Revelation, almost always referring to the labor involved in making spiritual progress. If you are averse to hard work generally, you’ll probably resist laboring to see Christ “formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

God has promised rewards for those in Christ who labor faithfully for Him and for His Kingdom. The work is now—the wages are yet to come.

Faith believes as if it did not work, and it works as if it did not believe.

THOMAS WATSON^a