From the beginning, work was God’s idea …

“The hardest thing about milking cows,” observed a farmer, ” is that they never stay milked.”

Work never stays done, does it?

It just isn’t possible to go into the office and work hard enough in one week that you can spend all the rest of your time pursuing leisure.

Actually, a life of nothing but leisure, lounging, recreation, and pleasure was never God’s design for us. From the time of creation, God intended human beings to work:

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it,” Genesis 2:15 (NASB).

Okay, it’s true that God’s original concept of human work was radically different from the kind of work we are saddled with for life today. Because humans marred God’s intent for them with rebellious sin, this is what we struggle through:

“And to the man he said, ‘Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return,'” Genesis 3:17-19.

It didn’t have to be that way. God putting the first man in the garden to to “cultivate and tend it” wasn’t a “sweat of the brow” punishment for existing! Instead, God took a perfectly crafted man (initially without sin), with a marvelous mind, perfectly healthy body, and a direct relationship with Him, and invited him to participate with Him in crafting and caring for His creation. It was an invitation to create (not like God our creator creates), to take God’s magnificent creation and do good things with it.

Without the thorns or thistles or sweat of the brow.

The original idea of work was marvelous!

But that’s not what many people think of “work” come Monday morning.

So, as redeemed children of God, how can our work be redeemed so that it can a marvelous thing once again?

Consecrate it. Simply put, make it a sacred thing that glorifies God. That is actually what the Bible directs us to do:

“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people,” Colossians 3:23.

See your work as a God-provided means of blessing others. Another way we can redeem our work is to use it as God’s enabling us to be generous to others.

“And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the Scriptures say, ‘They share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever.’ For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God,” 2 Corinthians 9:8-11.

See your work as your assigned mission field. The pastors at your church aren’t going to show up at your office, cubicle, shop, or wherever you work and share the Gospel with your co-workers.

But someone needs to.

God’s design is that every Christian has been appointed as ambassadors for Jesus Christ. When you show up on the job, you’re Christ’s ambassador in that place. As you cultivate relationships and have opportunity, God wants to make His appeal to your co-workers and customers and vendors and others through you:

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

Be thankful for it. Not everyone can work. Some people have physical or mental impairments that don’t allow them the opportunity to be employed or fully employed. Others struggle to find work for a variety of reasons. To be able to “go to work” and make it a sacred offering to God, something that glorifies Him, that provides you with the ability to be generous to others, and is a mission field in which you can bring the Good News of Jesus Christ — plus, is a means for which you can provide for yourself and your family — is something we should be thankful to God for.

On this Labor Day, make a little time to reflect on how you have redeemed the work God has given you to be something more than the prick of thistles and sweat on your brow.

Scotty