The Word Before Work

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 4 of 7All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)On August 31, 2001, millions of children sat in front of their TVs to watch the final episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Eleven days later, a dramatically different scene unfolded on those same screens as the world watched terrorists fly airplanes into the World Trade Center. Recently retired, Mister Rogers was drafted back into service to help comfort children and their parents. After recognizing the horrific events of 9/11, Rogers ended his televised address on a hopeful note saying, “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be 'tikkun olam,' repairers of creation.”Given Rogers’s devout Christian faith, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had today’s passage in mind as he penned those words. Rogers understood that the Kingdom of God isn’t going to come in one fell swoop. It is going to come slowly like a mustard seed growing into a tree or yeast folding into dough (see Matthew 13:31-33). And it’s going to come at least in part through you and me—those who have been given what Paul calls “the ministry of reconciliation.”In today’s passage, Paul makes it clear that that ministry has two parts. On the one hand, we are to “implore” other people to “be reconciled to God.” But human beings aren’t the only thing in need of reconciliation. Paul says that God is “reconciling the world to himself.” The Greek word for “world” here is kosmos meaning that Christ’s redemption truly does flow “far as the curse is found.”What does this mean for our work? It means that the work you do to fix broken processes at work, fight for justice, create beauty, and share the gospel—all of it is a part of your “ministry of reconciliation.” God is “making his appeal” to a broken world "through [you],” believer. Be a joyful ambassador for him and his gospel today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 3 of 7So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)If you’re not careful, this well-known verse can be easily misinterpreted to mean that the only thing of eternal significance at work are the souls we come into contact with.But based on what we see throughout Scripture, we know that can’t be right. Isaiah 60 makes it clear that some of the things we make today will physically last forever. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said that some of their work would “survive” God’s judgment (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). And of course, Jesus’s own ministry was just as much about redeeming the “seen” material world as it was about the “unseen” spiritual one. He turned water into wine, multiplied food, and spent as much time healing physical bodies as he did preaching to immaterial souls.OK, so if Paul is not telling us to ignore the material world of work, what does 2 Corinthians 4:18 mean? The answer is found in the context of this passage. In verse 17, Paul says, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” Paul’s not saying that the seen material world is bad and the unseen immaterial world is good. He’s saying that in light of the unseen eternal rewards awaiting those who persevere in the Lord, the “troubles” we can see in this life are relatively inconsequential.So, what troubles are you experiencing because of your faith today? Are you choosing to make less money so you can be at home to disciple your kids? Are you ostracized at work for sharing the gospel with your co-workers? Have you lost your job for calling out injustice within your company? The troubles these things produce are real and seen. But they cannot compare to the unseen “glory that far outweighs them all.” Fix your eyes on that hope today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 2 of 7Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia. (2 Corinthians 2:12-13)As soon as I left the Zoom meeting, I knew I had screwed up. I was arrogant and defensive in response to a well-intentioned member of my team. My plan was to get back to writing as soon as the call ended, but I couldn’t. I just stared at a blinking cursor knowing that I had to make peace with my team member before I did anything else. Today’s passage was on my mind as I did. It appears that Paul had sent Titus to deliver a severe letter of rebuke to the Corinthians (see 2 Corinthians 2:3-4). But the lack of response appears to have left Paul feeling troubled. So troubled that he couldn’t focus on his work because he "had no peace of mind.” I imagine Paul felt a bit like you and I do the moment after we fire off an angry email. Only Paul didn’t have the luxury of an unsend feature. In the words of one commentary, “[Paul] simply could not attend to his work, his very passion, because of the anguish he felt over his strained relationship with the Corinthian believers.” So what does Paul do? He leaves Troas in order to make things right. Here we see Paul heeding his own command to “as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).Here’s my question for you today: Who are you not at peace with right now? A team member you sent a terse message to? A co-worker you suspect might have something against you? A spouse you spoke rashly to this morning?We can’t always drop our work at a moment’s notice to pursue peace. After all, our relationships and our tasks matter to God. But Scripture is clear that we are called to “make every effort to live in peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14). Pursue peace with those you are in conflict with today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: 2 Corinthians on WorkDevotional: 1 of 7We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8-9)While it is absolutely true that God “will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13), the cliche that “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is an unbiblical lie. Paul says so directly in today’s passage. He says the “troubles” and “pressure” he experienced while working in Asia were “far beyond [his] ability to endure.” Later in this letter to the Corinthians, Paul explains that one of those many “troubles” was “a thorn in [his] flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Three times, Paul “pleaded with the Lord” to take this thorn away from him. But God said no, telling Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In other words, “No Paul. I won’t remove this thorn. Because I will get greater glory as I produce extraordinary results through you in spite of your weaknesses.”God’s words lead Paul to say, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).What challenges are you facing at work today? A sudden loss in revenue? A difficult boss? A “thorn in your flesh” that’s prohibiting you from fully engaging with the work God created you to do? These things may indeed be more than you can handle in your own strength. And that’s the point. May our weaknesses lead us to a greater reliance on the Lord. And may others see God’s great glory as he works through us in spite of our inadequacies.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 4 of 4No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:3-5)The science-fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, once remarked that "whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse." I don’t know any Christians who would say those words out loud. But I suspect there are many who have quietly shared in this fear, which is rooted in this half-truth about heaven:Half-Truth #4: We will worship for all eternityScripture is clear that we will indeed worship forever (see Revelation 5:13 as one example). But the reason this is a half-truth is because of our limited understanding of the word “worship.”When we think of worship, we think almost exclusively of musical worship. But Scripture defines worship much more broadly. The Apostle Paul says it’s even possible to eat and drink to “the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). And when heaven comes to earth, we will be doing a whole variety of things in worship of our Lord, including work.We see this explicitly in today’s passage! God’s “servants” (that’s you and me, believer) “will serve him.” We will “reign” with Jesus “for ever and ever.” In a parallel vision of the New Earth, Isaiah says we “will build houses and dwell in them…plant vineyards and eat their fruit….For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain” (Isaiah 65:21-23).You see, heaven coming to earth isn’t the end of our story. It’s just the beginning! It’s when Jesus will send us out from his throne to rule the earth perfectly on his behalf.This makes even more sense when you study the opposite bookend of Scripture. In Genesis 2:15, when it says that “God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it,” the Hebrew word for “work” is the same word translated to mean “worship” in the Old Testament. Of course, we know that sin made work difficult. But when heaven comes to earth, working, singing, eating, and everything we do, will be perfect worship once again.That brings us to our last whole-truth:Whole-Truth #4: We will worship for all eternity by singing, working, and doing all things for the glory of GodWhether you love or hate your job today, may this promise fuel your hope. Because as Peter Pan once famously said, “To die will be an awfully big adventure!"

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 3 of 4Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2)Last week, we saw that Earth is our temporary home until it is our permanent one. But in my experience, even Christians who understand this can have an anemic view of what life on the New Earth will be like, leading many to believe the third half-truth I want to explore in this series:Half-Truth #3: We are going back to EdenThere is some truth to this. As we see in today’s passage, the “tree of life” from Eden is present once again. In the words of my Bible’s heading over Revelation 22, the New Earth is “Eden Restored.” But it is also much more than that.Notice where the tree of life is located on the New Earth. It is straddling the river in “the middle of the great street of” the New Jerusalem—a city that stands more than seven million feet tall (see Revelation 21:16). The picture here is not of Eden as a remote garden with no civilization. It’s more like Central Park in the middle of Manhattan. Because the Garden has become the “Garden City” which itself is an act of culture as God has refined gold, pearls, and gems in its construction (see Revelation 21:9-27).And it’s not just God’s works of culture that are there, but also some of human hands—what John calls “the glory and honor of the nations” (see Revelation 21:26). We know there will be wine on the New Earth (see Mark 14:25), houses (see Isaiah 65:21), and commerce (see Isaiah 60). In the words of the late theologian Dr. Richard Mouw, “There is an important sense in which the Holy City is the Garden-plus-the-’filling’” that God commanded when he asked humankind to “fill the earth and subdue it” (see Genesis 1:28).Beyond what we see in Scripture, the fact that the New Earth will contain more than people and nature appeals to logic. Jesus described heaven as a “kingdom,” and kingdoms have more than just Sovereigns and subjects. They have art and order, customs and cultures. And we should expect to find all of these things and more on the New Earth. That brings us to our next whole-truth:Whole-Truth #3: We are going back to Eden with the “filling” of the earthGod never said we’re going back to Eden. Christians are destined to go back to the future. What does that mean for our work today? It means that some of our work has the chance of surviving the fire of judgment Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 3. Work in light of that today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 2 of 4Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. (Revelation 21:1)Countless sermons and songs have convinced us of this half-truth about heaven:Half-Truth #2: Earth is our temporary homeIt is true that when we die, our “spirit returns to God” (Ecclesiastes 12:7), departing earth to be with Jesus in what theologians call the “present heaven.” The lie is that we stay there.One of Jesus’s most famous references to heaven is in John 14:2 where he says, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” Get this: The Greek word for “dwelling places” is monē, which denotes temporary lodging.Why temporary? Because God’s plan all along was to bring heaven to earth and live with us here! Not ultimately to “fit us for heaven to live with thee there.” This is what we see in Revelation 21:1-5 as John “saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven” to earth where God “will dwell among [us].”But wait, Jordan, I thought the earth was going to be destroyed in the end? This idea is rooted in a misinterpretation of 2 Peter 3 which I discussed at length a few weeks ago. In case you missed that, here’s the gist: The earth will not be obliterated like the Death Star in Star Wars. It will be renewed like Te Kā turning back into Te Fiti in Moana. Haven’t seen these great films? No worries. John Mark Comer explains this concept well without cinematic metaphor: “Heaven is not our home. Earth is. Not Earth as it is now, but Earth as it will be in the future. Our hope isn’t for another place, but another time. Yes, as followers of Jesus, we go to heaven when we die, but we don’t stay there. If Jesus is a “ticket to heaven,” as the preacher says, then he’s a round-trip ticket, not a one-way. Because at the resurrection, we come back.” All of this brings us to the next whole-truth:Whole-Truth #2: Earth is our temporary home until it is our permanent oneWhat does this mean for our work? Randy Alcorn, in his terrific book, Heaven, explains that “When we think of Heaven as unearthly, our present lives seem unspiritual, like they don’t matter. When we grasp the reality of the New Earth, our present, earthly lives suddenly matter. Conversations with loved ones matter. The taste of food matters. Work [matters]....Why? Because [these things] are eternal.”Believer, lean into the work you do today, knowing that just like this earth, it has eternal consequence.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Half-Truths About HeavenDevotional: 1 of 4“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)“The kingdom of God” was the dominant theme of Jesus’s teachings. But he also preached about “the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 4:17). Are these two separate ideas? The world’s leading New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright says no: “‘God’s kingdom’ and ‘kingdom of heaven’ mean the same thing.” Understanding that detail will be critical as we enter this series unpacking four half-truths about heaven. Here’s the first:Half-Truth #1: Heaven is a place we go to in the futureJesus did say that heaven is a place (see John 14:2). And Scripture also makes it clear that heaven is in the future (see Revelation 11:15). But heaven is so much more than a place in the future.In Matthew 10:7-8, Jesus instructed his disciples: “proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”Here, Jesus isn’t referring to heaven as a physical place, leading theologian R. Paul Stevens to define the kingdom of heaven as "not a realm [or] territory, but the rule of God as King…essentially the spread of the goodness and shalom of God in the world and in human life." Dallas Willard put it even more succinctly saying heaven is “where what God wants done is done.”OK, so heaven is a place and a state of affairs. And not just in the future, but also in the present. Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15) and “has come near” (Matthew 4:17). All of this helps us to replace our half-truth with this whole-truth:Whole-Truth #1: Heaven is a place and a state of affairs where God rules as king both now and laterN.T. Wright summarized this idea well by saying that “‘Entering the kingdom of heaven’ does not mean ‘going to heaven after death’, but belonging in the present to the people who steer their earthly course by the standards and purposes of heaven…and who are assured of membership in the age to come.”This means that you can make your place of work more like heaven today. Jesus told us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This morning, I’d encourage you to replace “on earth” with your place of work and begin the work of applying Jesus’s descriptions of the kingdom to your workplace today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 5 of 5 The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23) In this short series, we’ve seen that God works and called us to work on his behalf. But why? To what end? How exactly does our work matter to God? There are many answers to that question. Our work is part of how God sanctifies us, how he meets the needs of others, and one of the primary ways we win the respect of non-believers. But perhaps most foundationally, our work matters because it is part of how we show the world what God is like. As we saw last week, God created us in his “image” (see Genesis 1:26). And what’s the point of an image? “The point of an image is to image,” John Piper says bluntly. “Images are erected to display the original. Point to the original. Glorify the original. God made humans in his image so that the world would be filled with reflectors of God. Images of God. Seven billion statues of God.” Got it. So we were created to image or reflect God. But reflect what specifically about God? Well, up until Genesis 1:26, we know only one thing about the image of God—that he is a God who creates! So it naturally follows that one of the primary purposes of our lives will be to reflect his creative, working character to the world. And when we do that—when we live and work in line with God’s character—we bring our Father joy. Psalm 37:23 says that “The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” Did you catch that? God doesn’t just delight in watching you go to church or study your Bible. “He delights in every detail” of your life! He smiles watching you serve clients, prepare meals, and coach your team in ways that reflect his character. Rick Warren says, "The smile of God is the goal of your life." How can you make God smile today? By reflecting his image as you work. Here’s how I put it for my kids and yours in The Creator in You: “Because when you work or you make something new, you are doing what God has made you to do. You are showing the world what your Father is like—a God who creates to bring people delight. And when you show others the Creator in you, you bring joy to the world—and to your Father too.” Go and work the way God would work today, knowing that as you do, you are bringing delight to your Father! P.S. Want the kids in your life to understand the truths we’ve explored in this series? Pick up a copy of The Creator in You (https://www.amazon.com/Creator-You-Jordan-Raynor/dp/059319313X/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 4 of 5 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule…God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:26, 28) After the first six days of creation, the earth was still largely empty. As I say in my new children’s book, The Creator in You, “while in six days God created a lot, there are so many things that He simply did not— like bridges and baseballs, sandcastles and s’mores. God asked us to create and fill the planet with more.” That’s what we see in today’s passage. God never intended for Eden to remain a garden. He commissioned human beings to “rule” over it. To “fill the earth and subdue it.” To work the garden and turn it into something far more. There’s a beautiful detail in the second chapter of Scripture that helps make this clear. Genesis 2:10-12 says, “Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, and from there it divides into four headstreams. The name of the first is Pishon; it runs through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is pure; pearls and lapis lazuli are also there).” We all know what gold and pearls are, but for those of us who are not geologists, what in the world are “lapis lazuli?” Google it and you’ll see that it’s a beautiful precious stone. Hang on a minute: gold, pearls, and precious stones. Where have we seen that before? In the opposite bookend of Scripture—the second to last chapter of Revelation where John describes the New Jerusalem as having streets of gold, gates made of pearls, and walls “decorated with every kind of precious stone” (see Revelation 21:18-21). You see it, right? This is God’s poetic way of telling us that the command to “fill the earth” was the command to turn the Garden into a “Garden City.” In the words of John Mark Comer, "creation was a project, not a product." And of course, we see this reaffirmed powerfully when Jesus spent the majority of his adulthood not preaching, but working as a carpenter to “fill the earth” with tables and chairs. What does all of this mean for you and me today? It means that if our work is good work—if it helps cultivate a world where creation and creatures flourish as God intended—then we are free from needing to justify our jobs. We work and create and rule and fill and subdue simply because it’s what God made us to do. It’s who we are as his image-bearers. And that is enough. So go and do the God-ordained “filling” of this earth with freedom and joy today! P.S. Want the kids in your life to understand the truths we’ve explored in this series? Pick up a copy of The Creator in You (https://www.amazon.com/Creator-You-Jordan-Raynor/dp/059319313X/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 3 of 5 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)As we’ve seen over the past two weeks, we worship a God who works! And next week, we’ll see that God has created us to work in partnership with him. But before we look too closely at God’s call for us to create, we need to remember this: Before God calls us to do a single thing, he calls us to be his child. 1 John 3:1 says, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Before we were given a task, we were given an identity—children created “in the image of God” (see Genesis 1:27). And there was clearly a relationship between God and human beings before he put them to work in the Garden of Eden. There was love and acceptance before they did a single thing. This unconditional relationship that God has with us is illustrated beautifully at Jesus’s baptism. Matthew records the scene saying, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water….And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-17). Now here’s what’s remarkable about this scene: God spoke those words over Jesus before his “public ministry.” Before Jesus preached a word, the Father said he was “well pleased” with him simply because he was God’s son. Believer, through faith in Christ, the same can be said of you. The God of the universe is “well pleased” with you, simply because you are a part of the family! God may have called you to work for him as an entrepreneur, artist, or parent. But before that, he called you to be his child. That is your primary identity. In the words of Os Guinness, “First and foremost we are called to Someone…not to something…or to somewhere.” And in my experience, it’s the security of that primary identity—your status as an adopted child of God regardless of your performance—that leads people to be the best entrepreneurs, artists, and parents. Why? Because working to earn someone’s favor is exhausting. But working in response to unconditional favor is intoxicating. Your Father is well pleased with you before you do a single thing. Rest in that truth today. And then come back next week to see God putting you to work for his glory! P.S. Want the kids in your life to understand the truths we’ve explored in this series? Pick up a copy of The Creator in You (https://www.amazon.com/Creator-You-Jordan-Raynor/dp/059319313X/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: The Creator In You Devotional: 2 of 5 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:8-9) Last week, we worshiped God for the fact that he works. But now we must make one thing clear: God works in ways that are totally unlike the way you and I work today. We worship the God who simply “calls into being things that were not” (Romans 4:17). As I say in my children’s book, The Creator in You, “With just a few words, He made creatures appear, like polar bears, penguins, alpacas, and deer.” My kids love pretending to create animals and magical snow with their words, but so far, their play hasn’t turned into reality. You know why? Because only God can create out of nothing (see Genesis 1:24-25)! As Jen Wilkin says, “We are all hacks, arrangers of Someone else’s palette of colors, wavelengths, and building blocks. The most creative human you know is a rip-off artist, shamelessly (gleefully?) rearranging and recombining existing materials into new forms. No one has ever truly created anything. No one, that is, except God.” OK, so God works totally unlike us, using his words to create out of thin air. But he also works like us, using his hands to unfold creation. That's what we see in today's passage where God “planted a garden in the east.” Gone is the “God said…and it was so” language of Genesis 1. In Genesis 2, we see a picture of God with his hands in the dirt. In the words of pastor Timothy Keller, “God’s own work in Genesis 1 and 2 is ‘manual’ labor.” Interestingly, when Scripture describes “the work of creating” God did in the beginning (see Genesis 2:3), it uses the Hebrew word mlkh—the exact same word used to describe human work throughout the Old Testament. What’s the point? I think the writers of Scripture wanted us to see our work in God’s work because our work is an opportunity to show others a glimpse of God. God works like and unlike us. May that truth lead us to reflect him well and worship him for his inimitable glory today! P.S. Want the kids in your life to understand the truths we’ve explored in this series? Pick up a copy of The Creator in You (https://www.amazon.com/Creator-You-Jordan-Raynor/dp/059319313X/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com-- Series: The Creator in You Devotional: 1 of 5 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17) I begin my new children’s book by saying, “In the very beginning, a long time ago, God created the world so that we would all know that He Himself is a working God, though you might think that sounds just a little bit odd.” Why is it odd to think of God “working”? After all, Jesus worked and made it clear that the “Father is always at his work to this very day” (see John 5:17). I think it sounds odd because we rarely if ever preach or sing about God’s working character. We talk so much about God’s love, holiness, and mercy, that we forget that the first thing he wanted us to know about him is that he is a God who creates—a God who makes things (see Genesis 1:1)! This is unique in the history of world religions. Every other origin story says the gods created human beings to work and serve the gods. Only the Bible says that God himself worked to serve us. What does that radical truth mean for us today? At least three things. First, it means that work is inherently good. Because God works, our work is not a “necessary evil.” It’s not a means to an end to do the “real work of ministry.” By choosing to work himself, God blessed the idea of labor with incomprehensible goodness and dignity. Second, God’s work shows us that creativity is of infinite worth. In our industrial society, creativity and beauty are almost always treated as “second class” to order and function, including within the Church. But as world-renowned painter Makoto Fujimura points out, "God the artist communicates to us first, before God the lecturer." Because God is creative, we must fight against relegating creativity to the fringes. Finally, because God works, Christianity is far more relevant to our daily lives. We don’t worship an elitist god who sits idly by observing others working. We worship a God who created “in the beginning,” and who took on a common trade when he came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. And so, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15). The God of the Bible knows what it means to work. Praise him for that truth and for his creative character today! P.S. Want the kids in your life to understand the truths we’ve explored in this series? Pick up a copy of The Creator in You (https://www.amazon.com/Creator-You-Jordan-Raynor/dp/059319313X/)

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked “In the Beginning” Devotional: 7 of 7 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15) What God created “in the beginning” is remarkable. But what’s equally remarkable is what he did not create. He created animals but he didn’t give them names. He created the ocean but he didn’t build a boat. He created stars but he didn’t make a telescope for others to marvel at his glory. Of course, God could have created those things. But instead, he chose to invite us to do that work with him. Today’s passage helps us see this beautiful truth. Before God put humankind in the Garden to “work it and take care of it,” it says that “no shrub had yet appeared on the earth…for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground” (Genesis 2:5). God had no intention of working alone. He always intended for you and I to “work the ground”—to take the blank canvas he laid out “in the beginning” and fill it up. We see this explicitly in Genesis 1:27-28 which says that “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’” Pastor Timothy Keller says this is a call to “civilization, not just procreation.” It’s a call to cultural creation. You see, “the sixth day” wasn’t the end of creation. It was only just the beginning! It’s when God passed the baton to you and me and called us to create plants, art, telescopes, businesses, s’mores, cities, and families that reflect his glory. When we understand that the call to create was God’s First Commission to humankind, we will view our work with God-ordained purpose, enthusiasm, and joy. On April 19, I’m releasing a children’s book to help the kids in your life grasp that truth—to see that “when you work or you make something new, you are doing what God has made you to do. You are showing the world what your Father is like—a God who creates to bring people delight. And when you show others the Creator in you, you bring joy to the world—and to your Father too.” Want your kids to embrace the call to create? Pick-up a copy of The Creator in You here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked “In the Beginning” Devotional: 6 of 7 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9) Spain’s largest church, La Sagrada Familia, has been under construction for more than 135 years. Why? Because more than a century ago, the church’s architect, Antoni Gaudi, laid out intricate plans to create a house of worship that would be senselessly, gratuitously, over-the-top beautiful. Today, annual construction on the church costs roughly $60 million dollars—a price tag that has drawn sharp criticism from many who don’t see the purpose of such lavish art. If Gaudi were alive today, I bet he’d point his critics to today’s passage to remind us that the God his church worships values beauty in and of itself. Think about it: The trees of Eden didn’t need to be beautiful. They were “good for food.” Shouldn’t that have been enough? Evidently not, because “in the beginning” God created with both function and extravagant beauty. This is a theme we see throughout the rest of Scripture, from the impractically beautiful Tabernacle (see Exodus 25-31) to the eternal City of God (see Revelation 21). John tells us that the New Jerusalem’s gates are made of pearls, streets are paved with gold, and walls are “decorated with every kind of precious stone.” And we know that the width of the cubed city is roughly 1,400 miles (see Revelation 21:16). Multiply that by four and we’re talking about 5,600 miles of beautiful gems lining the foundation of the New Jerusalem. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the distance between Florida and Greece. What purpose do 5,600 miles of precious stones serve? My guess is none. But as theologian Gustavo Gutierrez reminds us, "Utility is not the primary reason for God's action." What does this all mean for you and me? It means that not everything we do has to be justified by some functional purpose. It’s OK to redesign a website even if it doesn’t lead to more conversions, or to paint a painting and not sell it, or to decorate your office for Christmas even if you can’t “prove the ROI” of the investment. To create for beauty’s sake is to create in the image of God. Hours before his death, Gaudi was leaving work at La Sagrada Familia when he turned to a member of his crew and said, “Come early tomorrow, Vincente, so we can make beautiful things.” Hear those words spoken to you, believer. Go and make beautiful things like your Heavenly Father today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked “In the Beginning” Devotional: 5 of 7 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. (Genesis 2:1-2) It feels like there’s been a resurgence of Christians committing to rest in general and Sabbath specifically in recent years. As I wrote about last week, I’m all for this! But my fear is that we’ll swing the proverbial pendulum too far in the other direction, with some Christians taking the Biblical command to rest as a license for laziness. Thankfully, God hasn’t left us in the dark regarding the ideal balance between work and rest. He shows us in today’s passage where it says he worked six days and rested one. Talk about imbalance! God worked wholeheartedly, and then he commanded us to mimic his rhythm: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:9-10). This theme of hard work continues through the New Testament with Jesus himself working long hours (see Mark 3:20-21 and John 11:9) and Paul imitating his Savior by working “hard with [his] own hands” (1 Corinthians 4:12). Because, as Paul makes clear in Ephesians 2:8-10, while we have been saved not by works, we have been saved for “good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In other words, part of our response to the gospel is to work. Hard. Now there's an important nuance here that’s worth mentioning. Just because the gospel compels us to work hard doesn’t necessarily mean we should all spend six days at the office each week. Why? Because God doesn’t define work the way we often do, as “the thing we are paid to do.” His definition appears to be much broader, so much so that Exodus 20:10 says even animals work. The “work” that we’ll do in six days includes what we do for pay as well as doing laundry, mowing grass, preparing dinner, and doing homework. But even with that caveat, it’s clear that God created us not primarily for leisure and for rest, but for purpose and life-giving work. Why? Because as Jesus said, when others “see your good works” they will “glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). We should be a people marked by uncommon rest. But we should also be a people marked by uncommon work ethic. Reflect God’s character this week by working hard for his glory and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" Devotional: 4 of 7 God set [the lights and stars] in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” (Genesis 1:17-20) God could have created everything in a single day. But instead, he paced himself, spreading the initial work of creation over six “days.” Take today’s passage as an example. On the fourth day, God created the sun, moon, and stars. Could he have also created “living creatures” that same day? Of course! But he chose not to. After finishing the work of creating the heavenly lights, God called it a day. He rested. And then of course, on the seventh day, he did no work at all, establishing for the first time the idea of Sabbath (see Genesis 2:1-3). God didn’t need to rest on the Sabbath. And he certainly had no need to pace himself as he worked those first six days. But he did. Why? I don’t think it’s farfetched to conclude that because God created work to be good, life-giving, and worshipful (see Genesis 2:15) he knew we would be tempted to work nonstop. And even though he doesn’t need rest, he knew that we would. So like any good father, he did something he didn’t need to do in order to teach his children a lesson. I think of this nearly every time I cross the road with my young kids. When I’m by myself, I can check for traffic in a split second by barely turning my head. But when my kids are watching, I dramatize the entire ritual. I slowly turn my head all the way to the left and say, “No cars this way,” and then do the same to my right. Of course, I don’t need to be this careful when crossing a street, but my kids do. So I model that behavior for their good. I have a feeling that’s one of the reasons why God paces himself as he works. Our heavenly Father didn’t create us to work like machines that never shut down. So he models a rhythm of work and rest that we are called to mimic. How can you imitate your Father’s pace this week? Maybe it’s scheduling a 15-minute walk in the middle of your workday. Or shutting down your laptop, leaving your unfinished work for tomorrow. Or accepting and enjoying the gift of Sabbath. Whatever it is, remember that you are created in the image of the God who paces himself. So pace yourself today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" Devotional: 3 of 7 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:11-12) Today’s passage is just one example of a theme we see throughout Genesis 1: God calling the material world “good.” Why is this important? Because it helps us debunk the lie that “spiritual work” is more important to God than work that is more concrete and earthbound. Let me trace the logic here. Many Christians have grown up believing a misinterpretation of 2 Peter 3:10 which says the earth will be “destroyed by fire” in the end. If we take that literally, then we must assume that our ultimate existence will be disembodied souls floating on heavenly clouds for all eternity. And if that’s the case, the only thing that matters in the present are our evangelistic efforts to “save souls.” But the context of 2 Peter 3 is critical. Peter is comparing “the Day of the Lord” to Noah and the flood that once “destroyed” the earth. Of course, the flood didn’t eliminate the earth. It purified it and washed away what humans had distorted in God’s good creation. So it will be at the end of time. God deemed the material world “good” in Genesis 1 and, in the words of theologian Randy Alcorn, has “never once has he renounced his claim on what he made.” Yes, sin has distorted this world, but creation is still inherently “good.” And one day, God will make it like new again (see Revelation 21-22). This means that the work pastors, missionaries, and biblical scholars do in “the spiritual realm” is no higher a calling than the work you do making lattes, digging ditches, or building a business. In the words of one commentary, because “everything God created is good” (see 1 Timothy 4:4), “a Christian can dig wells, design computer chips, scrub toilets, walk on the moon, fix cell phones, plant crops, or harvest trees to the glory of God.” Amen. Because God has and always will deem the material world good, you can be confident that your work is far from “unspiritual.” It is ordained by God! So do it with joy, excellence, and in accordance with his commands today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" Devotional: 2 of 7 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:3-4) I finished writing my last book on a Friday and started writing the next one the following Monday. I took almost no time to stop, see, and appreciate the goodness of what I had finished before moving on to the next thing. What a contrast to the way we see God working in today’s passage. In the first chapter of Genesis, we are told seven times that God “saw that [his work] was good.” The language here suggests more than just a passing glance. You can envision God taking a step back, breathing deeply, and exhaling in delight as he gazed and marveled at the good work of his hands. He didn’t rush on to the next thing. He took the time to see and delight in what he had already made. Again, what a contrast to the way we work today. You and I are always looking towards the next thing—the next deal, the next promotion, the next project, the next phase of parenting. In the words of President Bartlet, we are always asking, “What’s next?” Some of this is good and unavoidable. God made us in his creative image, and thus, we will always have some level of vision for what’s around the corner for our work and lives. But if we want to work as God works, we will ask “What’s good?” before we ask “What’s next?” We will pause long enough to celebrate what God has already done through our work before we move on to the next thing. So before you ask “What’s next?” on your to-do list or calendar today, take a moment to ask “What’s good?” Reflect on what God has been doing in and through your work as of late and praise him for his good gifts of grace!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: 7 Ways God Worked "In the Beginning" Devotional: 1 of 7 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:1-3) The bookends of today’s passage are familiar to us. Countless children’s books and sermons have repeated the words, “In the beginning God created” and “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” But it’s been a while since I’ve heard someone preach on the fact that “the earth was formless and empty.” What’s going on here? Well, according to Moses (the author of Genesis), “in the beginning” the world was amorphous and chaotic, wild and unwieldy. And the rest of Genesis 1 shows God bringing form to the formless void. Establishing order where there was once chaos. But pay attention to how God brought order to the world: Through his words. As soon as Yahweh said, “Let there be light,” creation began to take shape. Of course, when sin entered the world, chaos returned, creating the need for order to be restored once again. And how would the world be put back into order the second time around? Yet again, through the word of God, or more specifically through Jesus Christ, “the Word [who] became flesh.” In a way, the entirety of Jesus’s ministry was about the Word restoring order to creation. He brought hope to the poor, calmed an untameable storm, and raised the dead to life. But of course, the work of restoring creation is not yet finished, because Jesus said he would continue to restore creation through you and me (see John 14:5-12). The Apostle Paul said that “the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19). Creation is groaning, longing for God’s people to bring order to the world. As Tim Keller says, “Just like God, as image-bearers of God, humans are commissioned to bring order out of chaos.” How will we do this? The same way that order has been brought about since the beginning: through God’s Word—by each of us being not just hearers of the Word, but doers of it, allowing God’s Word to order our lives, our work, and our world once again.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: A Gospel Perspective in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 4 of 4 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the secretary, Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to the temple of the Lord. He said: “Go up to Hilkiah the high priest and have him get ready the money that has been brought into the temple of the Lord, which the doorkeepers have collected from the people. Have them entrust it to the men appointed to supervise the work on the temple. And have these men pay the workers who repair the temple of the Lord—the carpenters, the builders and the masons. Also have them purchase timber and dressed stone to repair the temple. But they need not account for the money entrusted to them, because they are honest in their dealings.” (2 Kings 22:3-7) The pandemic has ratcheted up the pressure to do our work honorably and with excellence even when our bosses aren’t watching. Because now more than ever, they’re not. With more of us working from home or in hybrid environments, there are fewer people looking over our shoulders than ever before. And while this may lead some of our co-workers to slack off, it should lead us as Christians to strive to earn an unprecedented level of trust from our employers, modeled beautifully by the temple workers in today’s passage from 2 Kings. King Josiah trusted these workers so much that he said, “they need not account for the money entrusted to them.” That would be the equivalent of your boss giving you the company credit card and not asking for receipts. Can your bosses, business partners, investors, or customers trust you that much? They should, for at least three reasons. First, Scripture commands it. The Apostle Paul said, “obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart” (Ephesians 6:5-6). Second, we’re promised that “the Lord will reward each one” who obeys that command (see Ephesians 6:8)! Sure, you could steal some short-term rewards for yourself by fudging your timesheets or scheduling emails after hours to give the false impression you’re working late. But those rewards won by sin will fade away, while the eternal rewards tied to your obedience will last forever. Finally, when we “show that [we] can be fully trusted” at work, Scripture says we “will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10). As we transition into this new era of work post-pandemic, we will be more tempted than ever to work dishonorably. May we be those who are set apart—the ones our superiors and partners can trust 100% of the time—for God’s glory, our eternal rewards, and the advancement of the gospel!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: A Gospel Perspective on Work in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 3 of 4 Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses. (Proverbs 28:27) It didn’t take long after our lockdown two years ago to realize that the pandemic was going to be a massive boon for some businesses—especially tech-centric businesses like Zoom, Uber Eats, and streaming entertaining services mostly staffed by high-wage workers. Conversely, other sectors of the economy such as restaurants and hotels, which are mostly staffed by lower-wage workers, took a massive hit and continue to suffer to this day. Once again, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. How are you and I called to respond to that sobering reality? The way the Church has always been called to respond! As today’s proverb makes clear, we are commanded to give generously to the poor. What could that look like practically in this cultural moment? First, if you’re one whom this economy has blessed financially, it could look like being generous with your money. That could mean overtipping at restaurants, or choosing to donate not just to organizations meeting spiritual needs in your community, but also organizations meeting the material needs of the poor. Second, it could look like being generous with your time. Do you know a single mom who doesn’t enjoy a flexible work schedule like you do? Offer to pick up her kids after school! Are you a talented entrepreneur? Spend some time launching a new business with the explicit intent of creating jobs for those hit hardest by this pandemic. Finally, if you’re a leader of an organization, consider how you can be generous to the poor via your organization’s policies. That could mean choosing to pay your workers every other day instead of every other week to make it easier for them to make ends meet, or raising the question of whether your work from home policies are working for everyone from the top to the bottom of your org. chart. Those are just a few ideas to get you thinking about how you can obey Scripture’s frequent command to be generous to the poor. As you explore your own personal response, remember these words from Proverbs 19:17: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.” May that promise and the pain of the poor around you compel you to loving action today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com -- Series: A Gospel Perspective on Work in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 2 of 4 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9) Since Disney’s Encanto was released just a few weeks ago, the movie has been played an embarrassing number of times in the Raynor household. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the gist. Encanto is the story of the Madrigal family who live in an enchanted house that magically blesses each member of the family with a unique and extraordinary talent. But as the family’s matriarch frequently points out, the purpose of those gifts aren’t just to serve the individual or even the family—they are meant to serve the broader community outside the family’s magical home. You see it, right? It’s essentially a story about spiritual gifts. And every time I watch the beautiful film, I’m reminded of today’s passage from 1 Peter 2:9. Here’s the connection. Prior to Christ, there were rooms in the Temple devoted to storing gifts that the Israelites brought in (see Nehemiah 10:37-39). The people would come into the Temple and the priest would distribute physical and spiritual blessings to them. But today, “you yourselves are God’s temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16), and all of us are members of the “royal priesthood” called to carry the gifts the Spirit has given us out into the world to be a blessing to others. The gifts God has given us are not meant to be stored away. They are meant to be shared with the world. That truth should radically transform our perspective on “The Great Resignation” and the unprecedented rate at which people are quitting their jobs in the wake of this pandemic. To be sure, many people are handing in their resignations in order to focus on a better opportunity. Others, especially lower-wage workers, are leaving the workforce temporarily for reasonable concerns for their health on the job. But millions of people are not resigning for these reasons. Many are opting not to work at all or to take early retirement. Believer, I pray that’s not you. Our world is more broken than ever before. Businesses are struggling to survive. The poor are getting poorer. And every day, thousands of people are dying separated from Christ. Now’s not the time to call it quits and sit on the vocational gifts God has given you. Now’s the time to roll up your sleeves and use your gifts to make the world look more like the kingdom of God.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: A Gospel Perspective on Work in a Post-Pandemic World Devotional: 1 of 4 You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12) It’s clear that one of the most lasting changes to our work post-pandemic will be where we work physically. Now more than ever, more of us are working from home or in some sort of hybrid environment. And by and large, we are loving it. According to the job search giant Glassdoor, searches for remote work are up an astonishing 460% in the past two years. As someone who has worked from home for the past three years, I get the appeal. Remote work has some wonderful benefits. But it also carries a significant cost. Because as the Apostle Paul makes clear in today’s passage, our workplaces are one of, if not the, primary place where we can “win the respect of outsiders” and share the gospel. So how should we as Christ-followers be thinking differently about these shifts in where we work? Let me suggest three responses. First, if you have a choice in where you work, the gospel may compel you to sacrifice your freedom to work from home so that you can be more intentional about building relationships with unbelievers in person (see 1 Corinthians 10:23-33). Second, if you decide remote work is what’s best for you or your team, spend some time thinking about how to build relationships in a virtual environment. That could look like scheduling casual virtual lunches with your co-workers, or baking time into your Monday morning meetings to ask about everyone’s weekends, or encouraging small talk before your Zoom meetings by allowing participants to enter before the host arrives. Finally, consider whether it’s time to expand your view of your personal mission field to include not just your co-workers, but your physical neighbors. Maybe God’s calling you to be outside with your kids in the afternoons so you can “win the respect” of other parents, or invite a neighbor who also works from home out to lunch, or host a block party for your neighbors on Friday night. Where we’re working is changing. But our call to make disciples is not. Spend some time today thinking deeply about how your personal evangelism needs to shift in relation to the shifting position of your workspace.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:8-10)There are two signs that you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline. Last week, we looked at the first: a failure to extend grace to those who are less disciplined than you. Here’s the second sign: a failure to extend grace to yourself.I can be hard on myself if I fail to complete my to-do list, get my kids to bed on time, or accurately estimate how long it will take to complete a project. But just as the gospel helps me extend grace to others, it is also the key to extending grace to myself. Let me explain.We talk a lot here on The Word Before Work about how the gospel compels us to be ambitious for and disciplined in our work. But there’s a flipside to that coin. The gospel is also our source of rest. How? Because the gospel assures you that God adores you even on your most undisciplined day!Every night as I put my young kids to bed, I say, “Hey girls, do you know daddy loves you no matter how many bad things you do?” They nod their heads. Then I ask, “You know I also love you no matter how many good things you do?” They nod again. Then I say, “Who else loves you like that?” and they reply, “Jesus.” You and I need to hear those same words spoken over our work today. If you believe that Christ died for you while you were his enemy (see Romans 5), surely you can believe that he’ll love you if you don’t finish today’s to-do list.I want to close this series with the same Scripture I started with. In 1 Corinthians 9:25, Paul said, “Everyone who goes in for athletics exercises self-discipline in everything. They do it to gain a crown that perishes; we do it for an imperishable one.” Our crown is imperishable, believer. True, it may have more or less jewels in it based on how we steward this life. But our entrance into God’s kingdom—our position as princes and princesses—is secure forever. May that security lead us, like Paul, to embrace “self-discipline in everything,” while avoiding the dark side of discipline. As we start this New Year, may we be a people who are purposeful, present, and wildly productive on behalf of our King.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--‘Your brother has come [home],’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ (Luke 15:27-30)Self-discipline—whether with time, food, or money—is a good, God-honoring thing (see 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). The problem is when discipline becomes an ultimate thing and thus turns into a life-sucking idol. How can you know when you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline? One sign is that you are unwilling to extend grace to others who are less disciplined than you.This is perhaps best illustrated in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Most preaching on this parable focuses on the younger son who “squandered his [father’s] wealth in wild living” (Luke 15:13). But as today’s passage reminds us, Jesus’s parable was about two lost sons, not one.In his book, The Prodigal God, Tim Keller says that while “younger brothers” build their self-image around freedom and rebellion, “elder brothers base their self-images on being hardworking, or moral, or members of an elite clan, or extremely smart and savvy.” Sounds like me and probably you if you consider yourself to be a disciplined person. But here’s the problem: As Keller points out, elder-brotherness “inevitably leads to feeling superior to those who don’t have those same qualities.”That last line stings me to the core. If someone shows up late to a meeting or drops a ball on a project, I won’t telekinetically strangle them like Darth Vader, but I may find myself seething with self-righteous anger that attempts to mask the fact that I have made the exact same mistake before.If this is part of what the dark side of discipline looks like for you, let me remind you (and myself) that the root cause of our failure to extend grace to others is a forgetfulness of the gospel. Everything we have—including our ability to be disciplined—has been graciously given to us. James 1:17 says that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father.” Our ability to be disciplined is a gift of grace, just like salvation, “so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:9).I can’t take credit for being disciplined, and neither can you. God has graciously brought us books, software, mentors, and other resources to help us cultivate self-discipline. And because all of these things were gifts we did not earn, we can be gracious with those who have yet to be given the same gifts.Of course, failing to extend grace to others is not the only sign you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline. Next week, we’ll examine a second symptom.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Don’t you know that when people run on the race-track everybody runs, but only one person gets the prize? Run in such a way that you’ll win it. Everyone who goes in for athletics exercises self-discipline in everything. They do it to gain a crown that perishes; we do it for an imperishable one. Well then: I don’t run in an aimless fashion! I don’t box like someone punching the air! No: I give my body rough treatment, and make it my slave, in case, after announcing the message to others, I myself should end up being disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:24-27)If you’ve read my book, Redeeming Your Time, you know that I’m a disciplined guy. I get eight hours of sleep almost every night, I only check email once a day, and I delete and reinstall Instagram every 24-hours so I don’t drown myself in that infinity pool of content.Some of you may be thinking, Man, Jordan, it sounds like you might be a little too disciplined. Maybe. But I make no apologies for my disciplined lifestyle. Why? Two reasons.First, because Jesus himself was crazy disciplined during his time on earth. Mark chapter one provides a good case study to that end. After a late night spent healing the sick, Jesus disciplined himself to wake up “very early” the next morning to commune with his Father (see Mark 1:35). Then, after his disciples asked him for an encore of healing, Jesus said no, disciplining himself to focus on his essential mission of preaching the gospel (see Mark 1:38).Here’s the second reason why I embrace discipline as a gift: As Paul points out in today’s passage, a disciplined life is part of our reasonable response to the gospel. We haven’t been saved to sit around and wait for eternity. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, we have been “created in Christ Jesus to do good works!” That’s why Paul says he doesn’t “run in an aimless fashion” or “box like someone punching the air.” No! Paul exclaims. He ​​exercised “self-discipline in everything” and has called us to do the same.Jesus and Paul show us that discipline is a virtue—one we should embrace in this New Year. But here’s the problem: As with any good thing, we can easily turn discipline into an ultimate thing and thus make it an idol. How do you know when you’ve crossed over to the dark side of discipline? That’s the question we’ll answer over the next two weeks.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas VocationsDevotional: 4 of 4And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord….So [the shepherds] hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child (Luke 2:8-11,16-17)You just discovered a piece of earth-shattering news. You pull open Twitter or Instagram to share it, but you know you’re going to need some help to spread the message. Who will you tag in your post? @CNN? @POTUS? @TaylorSwift13? If the news is religious in nature, maybe you’ll tag @Pontifex or @YouVersion? Those would all be logical choices. But you probably wouldn’t tag a farmer with a dozen followers who hasn’t logged into his Twitter account in years. But that’s basically who the angels share the “good news” of Christmas with first—shepherds—one of the lowliest vocations of that time.Then some 30-odd years later, we see Jesus doing the same thing. When he kicked off his public ministry, Jesus didn’t enlist the help of Pharisees or other religious professionals to help him spread the gospel of his kingdom. Instead, he called fishermen and tax collectors.What’s my point? While God certainly spreads the gospel through pastors and “full-time missionaries” today, he also—dare I say primarily—spreads it through you and me, regular believers working as entrepreneurs, accountants, zookeepers, artists, politicians, and mechanics.Ever since the angels appeared in the shepherds’ field, God has made it crystal clear that the work of proclaiming the gospel is not reserved for religious professionals. It is the call of everyone who believes.So as we look to the New Year, don’t wait for a missions trip to see yourself as a missionary. Like the shepherds, embrace your work today—whatever that work is—as a vehicle for sharing the good news that a “Savior has been born!”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:26-28)It’s likely that Mary worked exclusively inside the home as a wife and mother. What can her vocation tell us about our own? At least three things. First, God sees you and your work, even when the world doesn’t. Mary was a peasant teenage girl living in a backwater town. We don’t know what work she was doing before Gabriel showed up, but we can be certain it was obscure. Mary was the anti-influencer. Nobody knew her name. Nobody, that is, except God.God saw Mary’s faithfulness when nobody else did, and for that, she was “highly favored” in his eyes. This reminds us that even when we work in obscurity—as parents, middle-managers, or struggling artists—the God of the universe “will not forget your work” (Hebrews 6:10). He sees it and will one day “reward each person according to what they have done” (Matthew 16:27).Second, Mary reminds us that God gives great dignity to the work of parenting. In Western culture today, work inside the home is often seen as less difficult, important, and appealing than work outside the home. And yet, in God’s Word, we see an entirely different perspective. In both Matthew and Luke’s accounts of the Christmas story, the work of parenting takes center stage. Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, and Zechariah show us that the work that mothers and fathers do outside and inside the home is of the utmost importance to God.Finally, Mary shows us that parenting is one of our most unique callings. I hate when people say, “God first, family second, work third!” Why? Because Scripture never ranks callings in order of importance. It’s God first, and everything else second. That said, if you have children, parenting is one of your most unique callings. Mary was the only person Gabriel called to mother Jesus. Similarly, God has chosen me alone to father my kids, but he can choose anyone to do the work I do at my laptop. That doesn’t mean my calling as a parent is more important than the call to write these devotionals. But it is far more unique. Thus, I need to be just as, if not more, intentional about the work I do inside the home as the work I do outside of it.If you’re a parent like me, I pray that Mary’s example would encourage you that even the unseen work of parenting is seen by God and dignified, and thus, deserves great intentionality and devotion.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com …an angel of the Lord appeared to [Zechariah], standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John….he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” (Luke 1:11-13,17-20)Before we break down today’s passage, we first need some context. This was the biggest day of Zechariah’s career as a priest. Luke 1:9 tells us that “[Zechariah] was chosen by lot…to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.” As Daniel Darling explains in The Characters of Christmas, this was a “once-in-a-lifetime event, the highest honor in a temple priest’s life. Zechariah…had waited his whole life for this.”As he’s in the temple on his momentous day, something even more momentous happens. An angel appears and tells Zechariah that he will improbably father a son he is to name John (that’s John the Baptist to you and me) who will “make ready a people prepared” for Israel’s Messiah. But Zechariah “did not believe” the angel’s words.Don’t let the irony of this scene pass you by. Zechariah was at the top of his vocational field, doing the job of instilling faith in the people. And yet he is punished for showing a lack of faith himself.Here’s what I think was going on. Zechariah was clearly doing his work for God. And yet his lack of faith revealed that, at least in this one moment, he was not doing his work with God—communing with him and relying on his promises.So the angel punished Zechariah with silence, which of course would have precluded him from doing much of his work. But Zechariah comes out on the other side months later with renewed faith and trust in the Lord (see Luke 1:67-79). Zechariah’s story is a wonderful reminder that God loves us too much to see his children work for him and not with him. We work for God when we view our office as our mission field, create art that shares themes of redemption, and use our businesses to right what’s wrong in creation. We work with God when we slow ourselves down enough to experience his presence, meditate on his promises, and rest long enough to simply enjoy being his child. In his terrific book With, Skye Jethani cautions us not to put “God’s mission ahead of God himself.” I think Zechariah would reply with a hearty “Amen!” encouraging us all to work for and with God today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But after [Joseph] had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21)As we embark on our study of the vocations of some of the principal players in the Christmas narrative, we stop first at Jesus’s earthly father, Joseph.In Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55, we learn that Joseph worked as a “carpenter.” My concordance says the Greek word tektōn that we translate to “carpenter” can also be understood to mean “a craftsman” or “an artisan.” In other words, Joseph worked to create new things for others. And of course, per the custom of the time, Joseph’s children (including Jesus) would have worked alongside him.Here’s what is most remarkable to me about Joseph’s vocation: God could have chosen for Jesus to grow up in anybody’s home. He could have placed Jesus in a priestly household like John the Baptist where he could have devoted his days to prayer. He could have chosen for Jesus to grow up in the home of a Pharisee like the Apostle Paul where he could have spent hours upon end studying the Scriptures. But instead, God placed Jesus in the household of a carpenter, where he would spend his days making things with his hands.On the surface, that truth may appear shocking! But I would argue it’s the least surprising thing in the entire Christmas story. Why? Because the work of Jesus’s earthly father wasn’t all that different from the work of his heavenly one. “In the beginning, God created” (Genesis 1:1). In the beginning, God was productive. In the beginning, God worked.Work isn’t beneath the God of the Bible. It is an essential part of who he is and who we are as his image-bearers (see Genesis 1:27-28). Believer: The work you do today isn’t secular or secondary. It is good and God-like. So do it in line with his character—with excellence, love, sacrifice, justice, and beauty—as a response of worship today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)Today marks the conclusion of this series exploring five simple things all of us can do to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. Here’s a reminder of the first four:Be so good they can’t ignore youBe a friendIdentify yourself as a ChristianPray that God would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the SpiritualAnd here’s the fifth: Be prepared to give an answer for your hope.If you’ve done numbers 1-4 on our list, eventually somebody is going to ask you,Why do you never respond to emails on Sundays?You don’t seem nearly as anxious as the rest of our team. Why?Why did you and your husband adopt instead of having another child biologically?If God is good, why did I get fired?My mom is dying. What do you believe about heaven?The Apostle Peter said that before those questions are ever asked, we are to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” That’s the question underneath all the questions above, isn’t it? What is the source of your hope? We’ve got to be ready to answer that question in the many different forms it takes! How? By knowing God’s Word and being ready to share the gospel.But Peter didn’t just tell us what to do. He also told us how we are to give an answer for our hope: “with gentleness and respect.” This is crucial. And I would argue that we aren’t just called to show respect to the person we’re sharing the gospel with. We must also ensure we are respecting our employers.Remember: Your company is paying you to do a job, and I’m willing to bet that “preaching the gospel” is not in the job description they’ve handed to you. That means we need to prayerfully consider when and where we share the gospel with those we work with, as we are called to obey the Great Commission and Scripture’s frequent command that we serve our employers with excellence (see Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6).I’m praying this series has taken some of the mystery out of how we can effectively witness to the lost people we work with. Because as we saw in the first devotional of this series, Jesus has called all of us to be “full-time missionaries” making disciples “as we go” about our life and work. Go and make disciples today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. (Colossians 4:3-4)In this series, we’re looking at five simple ways to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. We’ve already explored three:Be so good they can’t ignore youBe a friendIdentify yourself as a ChristianOnce you’ve done those things, let me encourage you to pray that God would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual. I think a lot of us feel like it is up to us to pry open doors to share the gospel with others. But that wasn’t the Apostle Paul’s approach. Hear his words in Colossians 4:3: “Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ.”God alone can make people receptive to the gospel. We pray to that end, and then we must look for opportunities to move conversations with unbelievers from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual (all credit for this helpful framework goes to Matt Chandler).I’ll share an example of one of the few times I have done this well. I was chatting with a co-worker we’ll call Jill, and our conversation went something like this.First, I started on the Surface, asking Jill how her kids’ soccer game went on Saturday. “Great,” Jill said, “but I was just so exhausted from the week.”Sensing an opportunity to move from the Surface to the Serious, I replied, “Yeah, I’ve noticed you’ve been on Slack super late the past few weeks. You’re working way harder than the rest of your team. Why?” Jill said something to this effect: “Well, I love the work! But it’s also because I grew up pretty poor. And so I guess I’ve always seen my work as a way of proving I’m not like my parents.”Now we were moving from the Serious to the Spiritual. I said, “I’ve been there! For a long time, I used my work to prove something to my parents and my friends. But a few years ago, I realized that no amount of professional success would ever be enough. I know it might sound weird, but it was my Christian faith that got me off that exhausting hamster wheel.”Of course, the dialogue wasn’t that polished. But that was the gist of the conversation. And by God’s grace, it opened up an opportunity to share the gospel with Jill. Before you head off to work today, pray that God would do for you what he did for me and Jill. Pray that he would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual in your conversations with those you work with. And then, be on the lookout for how God moves to that end!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God. (John 12:42-43)We’re in a series walking through 5 simple things all of us can do to put ourselves in a better position to share the gospel with those we work with. We’ve already explored the first two: Be so good they can’t ignore you and be a friend. But those things clearly aren’t enough. At some point, you have to identify yourself as a Christian!A few years ago, I stepped down as the CEO of a tech startup to focus full-time on creating content like these devotionals. Given the nature of my new work, I naturally started talking about my faith much more publicly on social media. In response to those posts, more than a couple of customers and co-workers from my past tech startup life messaged me and said, “Oh wow, I had no idea you were a Christian!” How tragic. Here’s the deal: We shouldn’t expect to have opportunities to share the gospel with our co-workers if we have yet to raise our hands and say “I’m a follower of Jesus!” What does this look like practically? How can you identify yourself as Christians in a natural, non-threatening way that doesn’t cause your co-workers to avoid making eye contact with you? Here are 3 simple ideas:Ask everyone you come in contact with today, “How was your weekend?” And when they inevitably ask how your weekend was, talk about the incredible time of worship you participated in at your church.Ask your co-workers what they’re reading. And again, when they reciprocate the question, talk about a book you’ve recently read about the Christian faith.Add something to your LinkedIn or Instagram bio that makes it explicitly clear that you’re a follower of Jesus.None of these things, in and of themselves, are likely to lead someone to faith in Christ. But they are certainly steps in that direction! If you’re a good friend and exceptionally good at what you do, the people you work with will care about what you believe about Jesus. But first, you have to tell them that you believe!May we not be like the Pharisees who believed in Jesus but refused to “openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out” of their social circles. Find small ways to acknowledge your faith in Christ today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)We’re in a series exploring 5 simple things all of us can do to put ourselves in a better position to share the gospel with those we work with. Last week, we looked at the first: Be so good they can’t ignore you. This week, we turn to the second: Be a friend.Jesus commanded that we are to love one another as he loved us. And “by this”—by loving others well, by being a good friend—they “will know” we are his disciples.So simple. Yet so profound. We ought to be known as the people in our offices who genuinely love our co-workers, not just the product of their work. We ought to be the ones asking our co-workers about their kids, making time to go to lunch, and delivering meals when a co-worker welcomes a new child into their home.I’ll be honest: I’m not great at this. Today’s devotional is as much for me as it is for you. I can be a very heads-down, get-things-done kind of guy who is so focused on “the work” that I neglect the work of loving people.But in a few instances in which I have done this well, I have seen the Lord use my faithfulness to unlock rich opportunities to share the gospel. One guy (we’ll call him Tim) comes to mind in particular. Tim was one of my direct reports in a tech startup I used to run. And for whatever reason, Tim and I developed a friendship right off the bat. We talked about our kids, played a few games of foosball in the office, and grabbed a beer after work from time to time. Small stuff.Years later, after we both left the company we were working at, Tim called me to say that he had begun wrestling with some of the “big questions” of life and was looking for answers—even if those answers came from the Bible. All because I was a decent (not even a good!) friend, Tim invited me to share the gospel with him. Being a friend. Who knew? Jesus, apparently. Hear his words one more time: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”How can you be a friend to those you work with today? That’s not a rhetorical question. I’m praying you’ll answer it, do it, and pray the Lord uses those friendships to bring lost sheep back to their Shepherd.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)As I’ve written about before, sharing the gospel with those we work with is far from the only way our work matters to God. But it is a way. Your job can be a powerful vehicle for following Jesus’s command to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Now, Jesus is not saying in this verse that you have to change your vocation or location to participate in his “Great Commission.” The Greek word poreuthentes that we translate “go” in “go and make disciples” is what’s called an aorist tense passive participle. What in the world does that mean for you? It means that a far more accurate translation of Jesus’s words is, “Having gone…make disciples.” The going was assumed. Jesus was saying that his disciples had already “gone” as fishermen, tax collectors, mothers, and fathers. It wasn’t about how far they went. It was about what they did while they were going. The same is true for you and me.OK, so the Great Commission is for all of us, not just religious professionals. Every Christian is called to be a “full-time missionary.” But how can we effectively make disciples as we go about our work—especially in this “post-Christian” cultural moment? I think we all are wise enough to know that street preaching in front of our offices or adding John 3:16 to our Zoom backgrounds isn’t going to cut it. So what will?In this series, I want to offer 5 simple things we can do to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. Here’s the first: Be so good they can’t ignore you.In 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, the Apostle Paul writes, “You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”Paul worked—and commanded his readers to work—in ways that would “win the respect of outsiders.” I’d argue that’s incredibly hard to do if you’re mediocre at your job. Mastery, not mediocrity, wins the respect of outsiders. Excellence is what is winsome to a watching world.Be so exceptional at what you do that you win the respect of those around you. That’s the first thing you can do to prepare to share the gospel with your co-workers. Next week, we’ll unpack the second.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve….[The next day, upon] reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. (Mark 11:11,15)The life of Jesus and his disciples was busy (see Mark 3:20-21 and John 11:5-9). But as my friend John Mark Comer has pointed out, “[Jesus] never came off hurried.” Pastor Kevin DeYoung put it this way: “[Jesus] was busy, but never in a way that made him frantic, anxious, irritable, proud, envious, or distracted by lesser things.” So, what’s the difference between busyness and hurry? Busyness is having a lot of meetings on your calendar. Hurry is scheduling those meetings back-to-back forcing you to sprint from one to the next without enough time to think. Busyness is having a lot of errands to run. Hurry is getting mad about choosing the “wrong line” at the grocery store because you have no margin for the thirty seconds you lost by choosing lane 3 instead of 4. Busyness is attending three Bible studies a week. Hurry is not having enough time and stillness to listen to God’s voice in between those studies.How can we be busy without being hurried? We must get good at “counting the cost” of our time.Jesus provides an excellent case study of this in today’s passage. Mark 11:15 tells us that Jesus’s plan all along was to overturn some tables and drive out the vendors who were turning the temple into a “den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). So why not do this the night before? Why wait?Of course, we can’t answer those questions definitively, but given Jesus’s track record as a busy but unhurried guy, here’s my guess: I think Jesus had counted the cost of his time. Look at Mark 11:11: Jesus “went into the temple courts…looked around at everything, but since it was already late” decided not to cram any more activity into what had already been a busy day. You can almost hear him muttering to himself “It can wait.” Could Jesus have squeezed in a little table-flipping before he retired for the night? Sure, but he chose not to. He had counted the cost and knew that adding anything else to his already busy day would have tipped the scales from busy to hurry.Jesus’s example brings us to the seventh and final principle we need to redeem our time: Principle #7ELIMINATE ALL HURRYTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must embrace productive busyness while ruthlessly eliminating hurry from our lives.How can we eliminate hurry today? In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share three practical answers to that question, including six questions to ask to help you say “no” more frequently. Want a glimpse at those six questions? Watch this video.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27-28)In the mid-1800s, Americans fled to the West in droves in search of gold and a better life. But according to The Emigrant’s Guide to California published in 1849, it was the gold-rushers who rested most—specifically by observing the Sabbath—that reached their destination the quickest. As the guide shares, “Those who [laid] by on the Sabbath, resting themselves and their teams,” reached gold country “20 days sooner than those who traveled seven days a week.”The gold rushers’ example illustrates a fascinating paradox: Oftentimes rest is the most productive thing we can do. And not just Sabbath rest! As the scientific community now understands, bi-hourly breaks throughout the workday and an eight-hour “sleep opportunity” every night are essential to doing our most exceptional work.Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus embodying these three rhythms of productive rest. He offered restorative breaks to his disciples as they worked (Mark 6:30-32), he fought for sleep (Mark 4:38), and he reaffirmed the goodness of Sabbath (Mark 2:27).Of course, because he is our creator, Jesus knew what centuries of scientific exploration have now empirically proven: That these rhythms of rest are productive as we strive towards our goals. But Jesus also undoubtedly knew something science may never be able to prove: That rest is also productive for our souls.Taking breaks throughout your workday reminds you that God doesn’t need you to finish your to-do list. Getting a full night’s sleep reminds you that God is the only being who neither slumbers nor sleeps and thus doesn’t need you or me to keep the world spinning. Sabbath reminds you that, in the words of N.T. Wright, “all time belongs to God and stands under the renewing lordship of Jesus Christ.” These truths bring us to the sixth principle we need for redeeming our time:Principle #6EMBRACE PRODUCTIVE RESTTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must embrace the God-designed rhythms of rest which are counterintuitively productive for our goals and our souls.How practically do we incorporate these bi-hourly, nightly, and weekly rhythms of rest into our modern lives? I answer that question at length in my book, Redeeming Your Time. If you want a preview, watch this short video which documents what Sabbath looks like for me and my young family.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)Now more than ever, our world offers the illusion that we can be fully present in more than one place at a time. But it’s just that—an illusion. You know how I know? Because we’re not God and even when God himself came to earth in human form, he traded in his godly omnipresence for the human unipresence you and I experience today.Like us today, Jesus had to deal with frequent distractions that competed for his attention. A man threw himself at Jesus’s feet as he was walking (see Mark 10:17). A woman touched his cloak, distracting Jesus with the knowledge that he had healed her (see Mark 5:27-30). One time, a man literally dropped through the roof over Jesus’s head as he was preaching (see Luke 5:17-20).There were times when Jesus welcomed these distractions. But there were also times when Jesus ignored them in order to focus on the task at hand.My favorite example of this comes from today’s passage. Given that the main point of this passage is Jesus’s words about who is and who is not his family, it can be easy to miss the fascinating “B story.” Jesus is “talking to the crowd,” doing the work the Father sent him to do—namely preaching the gospel. All of a sudden, his family shows up. And Jesus ignores them. When Jesus was told his family was waiting outside, he didn’t say, “That’s all folks. My family’s here. You know the rule: God first, family second, work third!” He continued teaching. At that moment, he was called to work, and he remained fully focused on the task at hand. Conversely, when he was with his family and friends, he was fully focused on them (see Mark 9:30-31). In these and many other encounters in the gospels, Jesus is reminding us that God is omnipresent and we humans are not. When omnipresent God “became flesh,” Jesus embraced the human limitations of being unipresent. If Jesus couldn’t be in two places at the same time, neither can we. That brings us to the fifth principle in this series:Principle #5ACCEPT YOUR UNIPRESENCETo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must accept our unipresence and focus on one important thing at a time.In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share four practices that will help you live out this principle in the 21st Century. In this video, I share a snippet of one of those practices that will only take you 2 minutes to implement, but will be a total game-changer for your ability to stay focused at work. Seriously, it’s one of the simplest and most effective secrets I’ve ever shared. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come. (Mark 1:38)When you study the gospel biographies trying to understand how Jesus stewarded his time, one glaring truth jumps off the pages: Jesus was crazy purposeful. In the words of the great Dorothy Sayers, “Under all his gentleness there is a purpose harder than steel.” Nobody in Jerusalem had more things competing for their attention, and yet Jesus always seemed to be able to discern the essential from the noise.No passage of Scripture illustrates this better than Mark 1:29-38. After driving out some evil spirits at the synagogue, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law and a bunch of her neighbors. Understandably, the town’s residents wanted more of Jesus the next day. But Jesus said no. Why? Because he had already committed his time to a bigger yes. In response to the people’s request for more of his time, Jesus said, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come” (Mark 1:38, emphasis mine).Jesus understood his purpose and that allowed him to take the long list of things he could do and prioritize it down to the things he knew he should do to “finish the work the Father gave him to do” (John 17:4). And with his work prioritized, Jesus focused relentlessly.Pastor Kevin DeYoung says that, “Jesus knew the difference between urgent and important. He understood that all the good things he could do were not necessarily the things he ought to do….If Jesus had to live with human limitations, we’d be foolish to think we don’t. The people on this planet who end up doing nothing are those who never realized they couldn’t do everything.”Man, that’s good. Yet again, Jesus’s example leads us to a timeless principle for redeeming our time today. Here it is:Principle #4PRIORITIZE YOUR YESESTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must decide what matters most and allow those choices to prioritize our commitments.But let’s face it: This is easier said than done. We all have so many things on our to-do lists. How do we decide what matters most?In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share six practices to help you answer that question and model Jesus’s purposefulness. In this video, I share a glimpse at one of those practices, breaking down how bigger goals can help prioritize our yeses and the 5 reasons why Christians ought to set the most epic goals in the world. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5:15-16)Now more than ever, we are living in what C.S. Lewis’s devil Screwtape called “the Kingdom of Noise.” And I’m not just referring to the obvious increase in external noise created by nonstop news, entertainment, and the buzzing of the devices in our pockets and purses. I’m primarily referring to what all that external noise creates—namely internal noise that blocks our ability to be silent and reflective.Our lack of solitude stands in stark contrast to the way of Jesus. The number of times the gospels mention Jesus withdrawing to “a solitary place” is staggering. In the third gospel alone, Luke mentions Jesus’s love of “lonely places” three times in just one and a half chapters (see Luke 4:42, 5:15, and 6:12). My favorite mention of Jesus’s pursuit of solitude is when he “withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place” to get away from the crowds (Matthew 14:13). So important was silence to Jesus that he would literally just jump into a boat to get away from all the noise to pray, think, and listen to his Father’s voice. And oh by the way, the busier Jesus got, the more it appears he sought out silence. Luke 5:15-16 says that as “the news about him spread all the more…Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”Jesus’s example leads us to the third principle we need to be purposeful, present, and wildly productive:Principle #3DISSENT FROM THE KINGDOM OF NOISETo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must fight to block out noise and create room for silence, stillness, and reflection.If we want to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others, we, like Jesus, must fight for the quiet solitude we need to think, be creative, and listen to God’s voice. How can we do that today? How practically can we dissent from the Kingdom of Noise? In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share nine practical answers to that question. In this video, I share one of the most life-changing of those practices—”Let Your Friends Curate the News For You.” Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:37)Why is it that the worst songs are some of the hardest to get out of our heads? Is it because they’re uniquely catchy? That might be part of it. But there’s actually a scientific answer to this question. Dr. Roy Baumeister explains that if you “listen to a randomly chosen song and shut it off halfway through…the song is likely to run through your mind at odd intervals. If you get to the end of the song, the mind checks it off, so to speak. If you stop it in the middle, however, the mind treats the song as unfinished business….And that’s why this kind of ear worm is so often an awful tune rather than a pleasant one. We’re more likely to turn off the bad one in midsong, so it’s the one that returns to haunt us.”Neurologists will tell you that it’s not just unfinished songs that our minds keep reminding us of. It is also unfinished tasks and unfulfilled commitments which our brains are bursting with. That’s a problem, because God didn’t design our brains to store that much information. And because we know we can’t “keep track of it all,” our mental to-do lists often cause Christ-followers a tremendous amount of anxiety. Why? Because we know that Jesus has commanded that our “‘yes’ be ‘yes’” which brings us to the second principle of this series:Principle #2LET YOUR YES BE YESTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must ensure that our “yes” is “yes” from the smallest to the biggest commitments we make.Our solutions for practicing this principle in our modern context are inadequate to say the least. From trying to keep track of to-dos in our head to storing tasks in starred emails, I think most of us would admit that our “yes” is not always “yes” like Jesus commanded, and thus, we’re more stressed than ever.So what’s the solution? In my book, Redeeming Your Time, I share five practices that answer that question. In this video, I share a glimpse at one of those practices, showing you how to get all of your commitments out of your head and into a trusted, external system. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)“I’m swamped.” I’ve said it, you’ve said it, we’ve all said it at one overwhelmed point or another.The Bible tells us that Jesus’s disciples were once “swamped” in a different way. As they sailed across the Sea of Galilee “a squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger” (Luke 8:23). You know the rest of the story: Jesus “got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm” (Luke 8:24).This passage perfectly illustrates the core premise of this devotional series—namely that the solution to the disciples being swamped by the wind and waves is the exact same solution to our being swamped by our to-do lists and hurried schedules. The solution is found in Jesus Christ. How? In two ways.First, Jesus offers you peace before you do anything. Nearly every time management guru says that the path to peace and productivity is found in implementing their system. This is what we might call “works-based productivity.” As Christ-followers, we start with the opposite premise in what we might call “grace-based productivity,” which says that through Jesus Christ, we already have peace, and we do time management exercises X, Y, or Z as a response of worship.Here’s the second way that Jesus is the solution to our time management problems: Jesus shows us how God would manage his time. We unpacked this at length last week, so I won’t do so here. But suffice to say that when we read the gospels for the biographies they are, we can see at least 7 timeless time management principles modeled by Jesus Christ—the most purposeful, present, and productive Person who ever lived. Here’s the first:Principle #1START WITH THE WORDTo redeem our time in the model of our Redeemer, we must first know the Author of time, his purposes for the world, and what he has called us to do with the time he has given us.We see Jesus practicing this principle in Mark 1:35 when “Very early in the morning…[he] went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Throughout the gospels, we see Jesus prioritizing time with the Father above everything else, including sleep (see Luke 6:12). We must do the same.But let’s be honest. Making “quiet times” a meaningful habit can be hard. I’ve experimented a lot with this practice over the years, and I’ve recorded a quick video that breaks down what works for me. Watch here.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)I ended last week’s devotional with a question: If the gospel compels us to “redeem our time” (see Ephesians 5:16), where can we look for practical wisdom as to how to manage our time well? That question brings us to the fifth and final truth of this series: By studying the life of Christ, we can know how God would manage his time.I know, this is a wild idea, so give me a minute to unpack it.John 1:14 tells us that God, the author of time, “became flesh” in the person of Jesus Christ. During his time on earth, Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, meaning that he experienced the same day-to-day challenges as other mortals. He had a business to run, a mother and father to care for, hunger to manage, and the need for sleep. Oh yeah, and he faced the same twenty-four-hour time constraint as every other human being.OK Jordan, Jesus had a finite amount of time on earth. But surely the demands on his time can’t compare to what we experience today, can they? Absolutely they can! Pastor Kevin DeYoung says that “If Jesus were alive today, he’d get more e-mails than any of us. He’d have people calling his cell all the time….Jesus did not float above the fray, untouched by the pressures of normal human existence.” DeYoung’s words bring to mind Hebrews 4:15 which says that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses.” In the person of Jesus, the Word became flesh, ensuring he could empathize with all of our weaknesses, including our efforts to steward 24 hours each day.OK Jordan, but do the gospels really have anything to say about how Jesus spent his time on earth? Now we’re getting somewhere! Yes, they do—quite a bit in fact. But in order to see it, we must adjust the lens through which we read the gospels.Pastor John Mark Comer has written extensively about how modern Christians read the gospels almost exclusively for their theology and ethics. “We read [the gospels] as cute sermon illustrations or allegorical pick-me-ups or theological gold mines,” Comer says. “…not bad, but we often miss the proverbial forest for the trees. [The gospels] are biographies.”And what do biographies show us? The lifestyle and habits of their subjects. The gospel biographies are our opportunity to see not just what Jesus said or what he did but how he walked, so that we can walk through life and manage our time the way he did. OK Jordan, then how did Jesus walk? How did he manage his time? That is the question we will explore in the next series here on The Word Before Work which kicks off next Monday. Trust me, you won’t want to miss it!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-10)Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored three biblical truths about time and productivity:Truth #1: Our longing for timelessness is good and God-givenTruth #2: Sin has ensured we will all die with unfinished symphoniesTruth #3: God will finish the work we leave unfinishedBut here’s the thing: Even though God doesn’t need us to be productive (see Truth #3), we often need ourselves to be productive in order to feel a sense of self-worth. So before we go any further, I want you to stop and let this truth sink in: The gospel frees us from the need to be productive. The good news of the gospel is that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And because we did nothing to earn his grace, there is nothing we can do to lose it. No matter how productive you are in this life, your status as an adopted child of God will never ever change. In the words of the great preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “A Christian is something before [they do] anything.”Ironically, it’s that truth that leads us to be wildly productive. Why? Because working to earn someone’s favor is exhausting. But working in response to unconditional favor is intoxicating. Once you realize that God accepts you no matter how productive you are in this life, you want to be productive for his agenda as a loving act of worship.This is what the apostle Paul was getting at in Ephesians 5. After expounding upon the gospel of grace in Ephesians chapters 1-4, Paul reminds us of our status as “dearly loved children” of God in Ephesians 5:1. What is our response to our adoption as sons and daughters of God? Paul answers that question in Ephesians 5:15-16: “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”Paul is saying that part of our response to the gospel is to “redeem the time”—to manage our time as carefully and wisely as possible. In other words, the gospel is our ultimate source of both rest and ambition.The question now is straightforward: Where can we look for practical wisdom as to how to redeem our time? The answer is to God’s Word generally, but more specifically to the life of Christ—the eternal God who became a time-bound human being. More on that truth next week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more….And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:1, 5)Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen that 1) our longing for timelessness is good and God-given, but that 2) sin has ensured we will all die with “unfinished symphonies.”Where’s the hope? Our hope is found in Jesus Christ walking out of the tomb that first Easter morning with a redeemed body that could not be destroyed again. The resurrection was Jesus’s way of declaring that our longing for immortality has been right all along and that through him, we too can experience eternal life. But Easter wasn’t just the beginning of eternal life. Easter marked the inauguration of God’s eternal kingdom which God alone will finish when he brings heaven to earth to make “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). So, if Jesus is coming back to finish his kingdom, why does it matter what you and I do in the present? Why do we care about managing our time well today? Because God has invited you and me to co-labor with him to build for his eternal kingdom (see 1 Corinthians 15:58)! That is what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 3:9 when he calls us “God’s fellow workers.” Our work matters today because it is a means of glorifying God and serving others. But our work also matters for eternity because God can use it to build his kingdom. But because God alone will finish that work and consummate the marriage between heaven and earth, we can embrace this freeing truth today: God doesn’t need you or me to finish our to-do lists. If the things on our to-do lists are on God’s to-do list, he will complete them with or without us. God is directing a master narrative for the world and you and I are just one of billions of actors in that story. In his great grace and wisdom, he has given us exactly as much time as we need to participate in that grand drama and work towards his kingdom. Not a moment more. Not a moment less. In the words of Job, “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (Job 14:5). Thank God for those limits that ensure that he alone will get the glory for finishing the work we leave unfinished.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)We’re in a series exploring 5 biblical truths about time and productivity. Last week, we saw Truth #1: That our longing for timelessness is good and God-given. Today’s passage reveals Truth #2: That while we still long for timelessness, sin has ensured we will all die with unfinished work.When sin entered the world, death was ushered in alongside it. Human beings, who were created to be immortal, became mortal. Work, which was created to be good, became difficult. Time, which was created to be infinite, became finite. In short, sin has ensured that nobody will ever finish the work they envision completing in their lifetime. Karl Rahner, a prominent twentieth-century theologian, said it this way: “In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we learn that ultimately in this world there is no finished symphony.”Haunting, depressing, and so so true. We will all die with unfinished symphonies. Our to-do lists will never be completed. There will always be a gap between what we can imagine accomplishing in this life and what we can actually get done. Quite an encouraging devotional, huh? But don’t quit this series just yet! I promise great hope is right around the corner, but we have to start here because our grieving over the finiteness of time is the clue that gets us to that hope. How so? C.S. Lewis answered that question when he famously said, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”So, if we long to accomplish more than what sin will allow us to in one lifetime, it’s logical to assume that we were made for a different, timeless story. And that is precisely what the Christian narrative is all about—that while it may appear that we will all die with unfinished symphonies, ultimately this is just an illusion as “God is able to bring eternal results from our time-bound efforts” (to yet again quote Jen Wilkin). That is the hope we will turn to next week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)Deep in our bones, we know that we were created to live forever. It’s why we are drawn to stories like Narnia and Frozen in which death is ultimately a lie.But we don’t just long to live forever, we also long to be productive forever. Now, we don’t feel like this every day. Sin has made work and our efforts to be productive difficult. But something in our souls (and God’s Word) shows us that work was meant to be very good (see Genesis 1 and 2).I think we have all caught glimpses of what work must have been like prior to the Fall. You deliver a killer sales pitch and feel completely in your element. Or finish writing a great chapter and can’t wait to share it with your spouse. Or hammer the last nail into a table and step back and admire your creation with healthy pride. If you’ve experienced even just one of these moments, you know what it feels like to want work like that to last forever. You don’t want it to end because we all know that we were put on this earth to do something—to “make a mark” towards some end. Arthur Miller said it best in Death of a Salesman when he wrote that our desire “to leave a thumbprint somewhere on the world” is a “need greater than hunger or sex or thirst…A need for immortality, and by admitting it, the knowing that one has carefully inscribed one’s name on a cake of ice on a hot July day.”All of this brings us to the first of five truths we’ll see in this series: Our longing for timelessness is good and God-given. Ecclesiastes 3:11 makes this crystal clear, saying that God has “set eternity in the human heart.” In the words of Jen Wilkin, “God…has given time-bound humans a longing for timelessness.”This is one of the main themes of the musical Hamilton. Summarizing what he wants out of life, Alexander says, “I wanna build something that’s gonna outlive me.” But Alexander’s wife, Eliza, can’t understand her husband’s need for immortality. She urges her husband to “Just stay alive, that would be enough.”But we all know that’s not enough. We know that we weren’t created just to stay alive and get through life. Something in our God-designed DNA tells us that we were made for something more. To be human is to work with time that our minds tell us is finite, but that our souls assure us shouldn’t be finite. So why is time finite? That’s the question we’ll answer next week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, trusting is the difficult yet simple act of recognizing that we are not responsible for producing results through our work—God is. Once we understand that, it is certainly right to “hustle,” to, as the Apostle Paul said, “strenuously contend with all the energy” we have for the glory of God and the good of others (see Colossians 1:29).The tension between trusting and hustling isn’t meant to be resolved. It is meant to be embraced. How do you know if you are embracing that tension well? I’d argue that the best indicator is whether or not you can rest.Are you unwilling to close your laptop or stop checking email late into the night? Are you unable to sleep because your mind is trying to solve problems that await you at work in the morning? Are you resistant to the idea of taking a day or a few hours to Sabbath and simply enjoy the Lord and his good gifts?If you answered “yes” to any of those questions (and let’s face it, who hasn’t?), then that may be an indication that you have fallen for the lie that you are producing results in your work.If that’s you, take a moment to remember Jesus’s words in Matthew 11:30: Through him, our “burden is light.” That doesn’t mean our work isn’t hard! So long as we live in a fallen world, “thorns and thistles” will ensure our work will be arduous. But the burden on our souls will be light if our hustle and hard work is accompanied by an even greater disposition of trust in the Lord’s provision.But let’s face it: On the trust/hustle spectrum, most of us overcompensate towards hustling. If that’s you, how practically can you hustle less and trust more? Let me suggest three things.First, regularly immerse yourself in the Scriptures we’ve explored throughout this series.Second, take a minute right now to pray to the Lord and recognize that you are powerless to produce results in your own strength.And finally, rest. Shut your laptop down. Put your phone to bed before you hit the sack. Practice Sabbath for an hour or a day this week. Experience the lightening of the burden Jesus promised you.At the end of the day, rest is the best way I know how to remind myself of the truth we’ve explored throughout this series: Our job is faithfulness. God’s job is fruitfulness.Be faithful in your work today. Do it well. Do it “with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). And then rest knowing that the results aren’t in your hands. They are in the hands of Almighty God who knows which results are best for you and his glory.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. (Exodus 14:14)This verse is one of the most frequently quoted by proponents of the “Let go and let God” philosophy of life. But the context of this verse completely undermines this thinking.The Israelites are standing at the edge of the Red Sea about to be obliterated by the Egyptians who are rushing in to take God’s people back into slavery. That’s when Moses utters the words of Exodus 14:14: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”Watch what happens next: “Then the Lord said to Moses…Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground” (Exodus 14:15-16).So, immediately after Moses essentially says, “Let go and let God, trust him and be still,” God says, “Move on,” get going, the Egyptians are about to destroy you!And you can only imagine how fast God’s people moved! The Egyptians were on their tails while enormous towers of the untameable sea rose on their right and their left. I’m guessing the Israelites gave new meaning to the word “hustle” that day.And we all know the rest of the story: God in his great grace delivered his people across the great sea so they could serve him.Last week, we saw that God alone produces results in our work, leading us to an uncommon level of trust in him. But today, we see more clearly how God’s Word instructs us to marry that trust with a healthy dose of hustle and hard work.With the full context of Exodus 14 in view, we can understand Moses’s call for the people to “be still” to be a stillness of their hearts and souls, not their hands and feet. It would have been the height of absurdity for the Israelites to verbalize their trust in God and not trust in their God-given legs to hustle across the floor of the Red Sea.Trusting doesn’t mean “letting go and letting God.” Trust is meant to be accompanied by hard work because we believe that God often produces results through our hustle. This is likely why Scripture continually commands us to work hard (see Colossians 3:23, Jeremiah 48:10, Colossians 1:29, 1 Corinthians 15:10, and 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, just to name a few).We are called to trust God to produce fruit through our work, while simultaneously recognizing that more often than not, it is through our faithfulness and hustle that he chooses to deliver that fruit. Trusting God and working hard are not mutually exclusive. They are ideas meant to be held in a healthy tension. How do we know if we are managing that tension well? That’s the question we will explore next week.