Work As Worship - The One Year Praying the Promises of God

Work hard and become a leader; be lazy and become a slave.

Proverbs 12:24

Jesus has transformed work into worship: “Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (Ephesians 6:7).

When we work with our focus on Jesus rather than on others, our work can take on new meaning. The work God gives us to do, whatever the arena, becomes another setting in which he can reveal himself through us. We won’t have to worry about getting proper acknowledgment or about being sure we don’t have to do more than our share. We are not working for anyone or any purpose other than as an act of love and worship to the Lord.

We can’t compartmentalize our lives into secular and sacred, because the Christ who lives in us lives in us all the time. Doing our work with integrity and discipline demonstrates the character of Christ. All work is then sacred.

God promises us that if we are diligent in our work, we will become leaders. We can’t take that to mean that we are guaranteed the biggest salary or the grandest title. But we can be sure that if we work with rightly focused hearts, others will follow our examples and will be influenced by how Christ demonstrates himself through us. Not everyone will, but someone will. We will be leaders to someone.

On the other hand, if we neglect our work or do it poorly, we will become enslaved. Enslaved to others, and enslaved by the work. Have you ever neglected something that needed to be done? Did that neglected work hang over you and oppress you and steal your joy? Neglecting our work can rule our attitudes and our emotions.

So embrace the wisdom in this promise. Take that work that you are neglecting, for whatever reason, and do it as if you are doing it for the Lord. Offer it as worship. Stop letting it rule you.

In fact, start redefining all your work as worship. If your work itself seems to have little effect, don’t worry. Your obedience is having great effect.

Lord, accept as worship the work of my hands.

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

Brother Lawrence(1614–1691), French lay monk and writer