The Word Before Work

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.’” (Exodus 31:12-13)We began this series by reading Exodus 31:1-5 in which we are told that Bezalel—an artist and culture-creator—was the first person to be “filled with the Spirit of God.”The context of that passage is a large chunk of Scripture in which the Lord gave Moses detailed instructions on Mount Sinai, starting with The Ten Commandments in Exodus 19-20. Exodus 31 is the last chapter in this run, but it doesn’t end with the aforementioned scene of Bezalel being filled with God’s creative spirit. Before the Lord adjourns His meeting with Moses at Mount Sinai, he has one last thing to say: He reminds His people to observe His Sabbaths (see today’s reading above).Now, keep in mind, the Lord has already issued the third command to “remember the Sabbath” in Exodus 20:8, and He doesn’t remind Moses of any of the other commandments before He concludes this monumental meeting. So why, after filling Bezalel with His creative spirit, does God remind Moses, Bezalel, and the Israelites to rest? Let me propose three reasons.First, this was the rhythm God himself took on for His creative work. After commissioning Bezalel and team to create like Him, God is reminding them to rest like Him because they are made in His image. The Lord told His people to “observe my Sabbaths.” The implication is clear: I rested from my creating and I designed you to do the same.The second reason I think God repeats this command to rest after commissioning Bezalel to create is that He knew that culture makers are especially prone to workaholism. Creating new things is life-giving, God-like, intoxicating work. As we’ve seen throughout this series, creative work is “very good”—central to who God is and who we are as His image-bearers. Thus, it can be easy to forget to rest, hence God calling special attention to this command here.But if creative work is good, why is rest necessary? That brings me to the third reason I think God reiterates the command to rest: Because we need to remind ourselves that it is His power, His grace, and His Spirit that enables us to create. Bezalel needed to be filled with the Spirit of God in order to do the work God created him to do. The same is true for you and me.Believer, the Creator God lives in you, guiding you as you create good things that point to His glory. Let that humble and empower you to engage in your work with great energy and ambition today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the Lord has commanded. Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.” (Exodus 36:1-5)We’re in a series exploring the few passages of Scripture that focus on the life of Bezalel—the first person the Bible says was filled with the Spirit of God—extracting applications for our own work as culture makers today.This morning’s passage from Exodus 36 focuses our attention on this truth: Culture making is never a solo endeavor. All of us need community to create.In Exodus 31:6, we are told that God “appointed Oholiab…to help [Bezalel]” in the creation of the Tabernacle. So God, in His graciousness, gave Bezalel a partner. And in today’s passage, we see that the general-contractor duo of Bezalel & Oholiab received help from the broader community, with the people of Israel bringing “freewill offerings” that were “more than enough” to “carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary.”Bezalel needed to rely on others to bring his creations to life. The same is true for you and me. In order to do the work God created us to do, we must learn to create in community.Take these devotionals, for example. My name may be the one you see in your inbox, but make no mistake, there is an army of others behind each email. My friends help me work through the ideas before they’re written. My assistant proofreads each draft. And an email marketing company enables me to distribute these devotionals all around the world.Not only do we not create alone, but in a way, even God created in community. When we tell the story of Genesis, we tend to only picture God the Father speaking the world into existence. Sometimes we forget that the Spirit was there “hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2) and that Jesus was present and engaged in creation (John 1:2-3).Nobody creates in isolation. All creation happens in community.Why does this matter? Because the embrace of community is in line with God’s design, it breeds humility, and it can protect us from the Enemy’s inevitable attempts to sabotage our creative endeavors.In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is isolated from his community while at the same time being hunted by his enemy, Voldemort. Harry receives some wise counsel from his friend, Luna Lovegood, who says, “If I were You-Know-Who [Voldemort], I’d want you to feel cut off from everyone else; because if it’s just you alone, you’re not as much of a threat.”You and I need each other to do the work God created us to do. Embrace the community around you as you work to do your most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 31:1-5)We’re in a four week series studying the life of an obscure biblical character named Bezalel, extracting applications for our own work today. Last week, we saw the significance of Bezalel—a creative—being the first person said to be “filled with the Spirit of God.” This week, we’re looking at this same passage from Exodus 31 from a different angle.Exodus 31:1-5 is one of many sections of Scripture that debunk the myth of “the creative genius.” In our culture today, we are enthralled with entrepreneurs, YouTube celebrities, and other culture makers who build empires seemingly through grit and creativity alone. But as today’s passage reminds us, while grit and talent may be part of the equation, in the end, all creative success is graced by God.Bezalel didn’t create the Tabernacle out of nothing. He started with God’s creative Spirit, “with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.” Furthermore, Bezalel was given the raw materials of gold, silver, bronze, stones, and wood. All of this—all of these good gifts—were graced by God. As James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”Bezalel’s creative endeavors didn’t start with grit. They started with grace. The same is true for you and me.Now, does that mean grit plays no role? Absolutely not! Colossians 3:23 commands us to “work heartily as unto the Lord.” It wasn’t enough for Bezalel to be graced with these gifts of skill and resources. He had to roll up his sleeves and do the work to put those gifts of grace to use!I’ve said before that Christ-followers must wrestle with a unique tension between “trust and hustle”—on the one hand trusting in God to provide, while on the other hustling to put our God-given energy and skills to work. Another way of saying this is that we, like Bezalel, must embrace both grace and grit—accepting gracious gifts from our Father (such as talent, materials, and opportunities), while also demonstrating grit to steward those gifts well.But let’s never forget that even our ability to “be gritty” is a gift of grace. In the words of Moses, “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).Let this dichotomy of grace and grit humble and motivate each of us as we engage in our work today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 31:1-5)Here’s a mind-boggling truth to start your week: The very first person the Bible says was “filled with the Spirit of God” was not Adam or Eve. It wasn’t Abraham. And it wasn’t Moses. It was a creative named Bezalel.On the surface, this seems startling. But I would argue that in singling out Bezalel in this remarkable way, God is simply reminding us of something He’s been saying all throughout time: creativity is central to who He is and who we are as His image-bearers.After all, the very first thing God reveals about himself in Genesis is His creative spirit. Before He showed us that He was loving, holy, or just, God showed us that He is a God who works. A God who’s productive. A God who creates.And of course, Jesus revealed this same creative spirit when “the Word became flesh,” spending 85% of his adult life as a carpenter, leveraging a skill set very similar to Bezalel’s.What is God showing us through all this repetition? He’s showing us that work and creativity are not meaningless “fringe” things. They are central to who God is and who we are as His representatives in the world.This means that while some (like Bezalel) may be “filled” with more of God’s creative likeness, all of us are creative because we are all made in the image of God. As Jen Wilkin says, “Even those of us who would not call ourselves [creative] recognize our ability to combine several average things into something above average. We take piles of data and turn them into pie charts. We take eggs, butter, cheese, and onion and turn them into an omelet. We are not creation-optional beings.”All of us create, and in doing so, show the world what God is like. The object of Bezalel’s creative endeavors illustrates this well.Bezalel was filled with the creative spirit of God in order to build the Tabernacle—a physical representation of “the universe the way it ought to be” with God at the center of it. The Tabernacle was essentially its own world, with everything pointing toward God. So when God called Bezalel to create the Tabernacle, He was inviting him to mimic God’s creation of the earth in Genesis, thus bringing glory to God by emulating His creative Spirit to others.You and I won’t build a literal Tabernacle today. But as we go to work, let us remember that as we create, we are revealing the character of our great God. Let us allow that truth to motivate us to create with excellence as a means of most accurately reflecting our Creator.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)The most visited attraction in Barcelona is not a theme park or a soccer stadium. It’s an unfinished church that has been under construction for more than 135 years.If you visit la Sagrada Família, you’ll instantly see why the church is so popular. For starters, it is truly awe-inspiring. But there’s a second reason why the church is such a draw. In an age that prioritizes speed over everything else, the pace at which la Sagrada Família is being built commands our attention.We are used to seeing restaurants built in weeks, houses in months, and skyscrapers in just a few years. The idea of spending more than thirteen decades building a church is simply incomprehensible to most. It is that commitment to slow, masterful work that draws millions of people each year into a church that was intentionally designed to make the world stop and stare at great craftsmanship as a means of pointing us to the glory of God.Before designing la Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí had already earned worldwide acclaim as a master architect. But in 1883, Gaudí began to catch a vision for la Sagrada Família, and the project started to monopolize his attention. A devout Christian, Gaudí envisioned a church that would visually tell a narrative of the life of Christ and quite literally “proclaim the excellencies” of God through its incredible scale and craftsmanship.Gaudí became so convinced that architecting this church was his God-given calling, that for the last twelve years of his career he declined offers to take on any other projects so that he could focus intensely on mastering this one.The result? Gaudí gave future generations the blueprints for what has become the most spectacular church in the world. As one well-traveled yet skeptical journalist said, “I passed through the door of the [church]—and almost at once, any doubts were expelled. It is the most astonishing space with immediate emotional punch.”Whether you’re an architect, an entrepreneur, a pastor, or a marketer, achieving mastery of your craft is hard. Really hard. But is it worth it? Absolutely! Why? Because masterful work loves our neighbors as ourselves, opens up doors to share the gospel, and leads to the most sustainable satisfaction of vocation. But most importantly, as la Sagrada Família makes so vividly clear, masterful work captures the world’s attention and reveals the glory and character of the exceptional God we are called to reflect.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God….And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him….Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:3,17, 23-24)In the past few weeks, I’ve made the case for why Christians should focus on pursuing mastery of one thing at a time vocationally and what we should be looking for in our “one thing.” Today, we’ll take a glimpse at how you can achieve mastery of your craft for the glory of God and the good of others.In my team’s extensive research for my new book, Master of One, three keys to mastering any vocation came up time and time again.Key #1: ApprenticeshipsIn James 4:6, we are told that “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” The Lord’s faithfulness to this promise shone through vividly in our research. More than any other quality, humility marked the stories of every Christ-following master I interviewed.Once we have found the work we are going to sink our teeth into, it is of the utmost importance that we humble ourselves and seek out the mentorship of others who are already masters in our chosen field.Key #2: Purposeful PracticeIt is well known that master performers in any field spend thousands of hours practicing their crafts. But here’s what’s less known—it is only what researchers refer to as “purposeful practice” over long periods of time that leads to mastery.Purposeful practice is characterized by four things: specific goals, intense focus, frequent discomfort, and perhaps most importantly, rapid feedback.As Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” For the Christian, the purpose of mastery isn’t our own fame and fortune. We pursue mastery primarily for the glory of God and the good of others. And it is simply impossible to know if we are loving and serving others well through our work if we aren’t regularly seeking their advice and feedback.Key #3: Discipline Over TimeTo become truly masterful at any vocation, you must have the discipline to spend thousands of hours purposefully practicing that craft. This is why it is so important to take the proper time to explore many different career opportunities before choosing to commit to any one. Because it’s not enough to make a choice. In order to do our most masterful work for the glory of God and the good of others, we must find one vocational thing worth staying committed to over a significant period of time. As Scripture reminds us time and time again, nothing but “diligent hands will rule” (Proverbs 12:24).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times. (Mark 4:3-8)Between my research for Called to Create and Master of One, I have interviewed nearly 100 Christians who are world-class masters of their crafts. When I’ve asked these people to describe how they discerned their “calling” or their “one thing,” their responses are remarkably similar. Nearly all of these masters tended to ask three questions throughout this process:1. What am I passionate about?2. What gifts has God given me?3. Where do I have the best opportunity to glorify God and serve others?I know what you’re thinking: “That’s nice, but what does it look like for those three things to come together?”I think it looks like the divine multiplication described by Jesus in The Parable of the Sower.In his excellent book, Culture Making, Andy Crouch points out that this is essentially “a parable about parables—an explanation of the whole parable-telling strategy.” What Crouch means is that parables are a lot like seeds, in that the sower must be liberal in scattering them to large and diverse crowds in hopes that their truths will take root in the hearts of a few listeners. Viewed in that light, Jesus’s words not only offer us insight into how his Word is received, but they also provide a beautiful picture of how we should think about finding and focusing on our calling.When you first start to try to answer the three questions above, you have little idea what your vocational “one thing” might be. So, you scatter seeds widely by trying a lot of different things professionally. Some of those “seeds” will fall on rocky places and some will fall among the thorns; but with enough experimentation, some seeds will fall on good soil that starts to show signs of divine multiplication where the Lord is clearly multiplying our work “so that it bears thirty, sixty and a hundredfold beyond what we could expect from our feeble inputs.”That’s how masters describe discovering the intersection of passions, gifts, and opportunities. That’s what we’re looking for in our “one thing.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)Last week, I argued that in order to best glorify God and love others through our work, we should pursue becoming a “master of one” rather than drifting into becoming a “master of none.” To do this, we must get clarity on the work God has created us to do and the courage to say “no” to virtually everything else.I don’t think anybody understood this better than Jesus who displayed a remarkable awareness of the natural limits time and attention place on our ability to fulfill our life’s calling, or what Jesus referred to as the work the Father gave him to do (see John 17:4).In Luke 9:51, we are told, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (emphasis mine). The picture here isn’t of Jesus scattering himself across a myriad of nonessential activities. Jesus was laser focused on his “one thing”: preaching the good news of redemption in word and ultimate deed.In today’s passage, we are told that as Jesus was “on the way” to fulfilling that mission, he stopped by the home of Mary and Martha and taught a lesson on focus that they (and we) so desperately need. In the scene, we find Martha distracted by many things, while Mary was focused on just one. Jesus’s response? “Few things are needed—or indeed only one.”Commenting on this passage, Tim Keller hit the nail on the head: “[Mary] decided what was important, and she did not let the day-to-day get her away from that. As a result, she was drawn into a greatness we don’t even dream of. Because we are more like Martha than Mary, we’re sinking in a sea of mediocrity” (emphasis mine).The world is constantly pressuring us to be more like Martha than Mary, convincing us that the path to happiness and impact is the path of more—more jobs, more commitments, more money, etc. But here, Jesus offers us a better, simpler, saner way. He offers us the path of less but better.In a world full of Marthas, let us allow Jesus’s words to permeate every aspect of our lives, especially our work. Instead of scattering our gifts and energy in a million directions, let us seek the one vocational thing we believe the Father has given us to do and then master that work for his glory and the good of others.How do we begin to find our “one thing”? That’s the question we will turn to next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)There’s an old saying that goes, “He’s a Jack of all trades, and a master of none,” used to describe someone who is good at many different things but not excellent at any one of them.I don’t have a problem being a Jack of all trades, but I do think we Christians ought to have a big problem with being described as “masters of none.”Why? Because the essence of the Christian life is to glorify God (or, in the words of John Piper, “reflect his greatness”) and love our neighbors as ourselves. How do we fulfill that call through our work? By doing our work masterfully well and being “imitators” of God’s character of excellence (see Ephesians 5:1).The opposite of mastery is mediocrity, and mediocrity is nothing short of a failure of love and a misrepresentation of our Father.Dr. Anders Ericsson, “the world’s leading expert on experts,” is famous for discovering that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of “purposeful practice” to achieve mastery of any craft. Given this, it’s no wonder we are a society full of masters of none.I’d venture to say that most of us feel like we are making a millimeter of progress in a million directions with our lives and our careers. We are good at many different things, but we aren’t excellent, masterful, or exceptional at any one of them. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed, spending way too much time focused on minutiae rather than mastering the work God created us to do.So, how do we find the work we can do most exceptionally well in service of God and others? What is the solution to being a master of none? The solution is becoming a master of one.It’s believed that the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none,” is a misquote of Benjamin Franklin, who actually encouraged his readers to be a “Jack of all trades, and a master of one.” Whether or not Franklin uttered this phrase is irrelevant. The fact is that in order to best glorify God and love others through our vocations, we must do our work with excellence. And we can’t do our most excellent work until we discern the work God has created us to do most exceptionally well, and then, once we’ve found it, focus on becoming a master of that craft.As we enter this new decade, let us all passionately pursue mastery of the work the Father has given us to do, 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 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you….Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip….Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations—their kings led in triumphal procession. (Isaiah 60:1, 4, 6-11)Over the past three weeks, we have seen Jesus appear to us first as creator, then as a carpenter, and last week, as a gardener.Today, we look ahead to the final advent, where Jesus assumes his eternal throne as Christ the King.The passage above is one of my favorite in all of Scripture. In this text, Isaiah is painting a prophetic vision of the “new Jerusalem” of Revelation 21 where “[God] will dwell among the people,” and Jesus will reign as king forever.But pay attention to what else is happening in this scene. People from all nations are coming into the new Jerusalem, and they’re not coming empty-handed. The people of Tarshish are bringing their ships. The people of Midian and Ephah are bringing their livestock. The people of Sheba are bringing gold and frankincense. Jesus is inviting these people to bring their very best works of culture—“the wealth of the nations”—into his eternal Kingdom.New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says in his book Surprised by Hope, “What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing…building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems…loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly…They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”In other words, the work we do in between the first and final advent matters.The Kingdom of Heaven is not devoid of culture. Based on this passage and other clues throughout Scripture, I’m willing to bet it is filled with it.My prayer is that that hope will inspire us all to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. And who knows? Maybe one day, Christus Rex—Jesus the King—will graciously take those creations and work them into our forever home.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’s body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). (John 20:11-16)Two weeks ago, we looked at Jesus’s first appearance to humankind at the very beginning of time. Last week, we looked at his second on that first Christmas morning. Today, we examine the third.You’ve probably read the above passage dozens, maybe hundreds of times. And if you’re like me, you’ve likely always thought of the fact that Mary mistook Jesus as “the gardener” as some odd but insignificant detail of Scripture.But no word of Scripture is placed there by accident, and as renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright recently revealed to me, this detail is no exception. It appears that John is pointing to something quite remarkable indeed.To see it, we must first go back to Genesis where God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden to work and “fill the earth.” Sin did not yet exist, but work did, making their work of gardening worship in its purest sense.But of course, just a few verses later, sin does enter the world. Work is still worship, but it is now also arduous. Sin has also ushered in the necessity for Jesus to come that first Christmas Day and sacrifice his life three decades later.But everything begins to change on Easter. The resurrection resets the world as Jesus inaugurates the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. And in his first appearance to humanity, Jesus reveals himself to Mary looking like a gardener. Why? Here’s what Wright says in his book Surprised by Hope: “In the new creation, the ancient human mandate to look after the garden is dramatically reaffirmed as John hints in his resurrection story, where Mary supposes Jesus is the gardener. The resurrection of Jesus is the reaffirmation of the goodness of creation,” and I would argue, work itself.By appearing as a gardener, Jesus is deliberately pointing us back to Adam and Eve, the world’s first gardeners and workers. He’s showing us that our work as citizens of his coming Kingdom is not just about “saving souls” or helping more people gain entrance to the Kingdom (as important as that work is). Jesus is showing us that it is time to garden again, working to till the earth—to “fill the earth” with signposts to the Kingdom that began to spring to life that first Easter morning.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they 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, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (Luke 2:15-20)In just a couple of weeks, we will celebrate Jesus’s second appearance to all of humankind that first Christmas morning.As you fix your eyes on the baby in the manger, I would encourage you to expand the aperture to view the rest of the scene. Take a moment to focus not just on the newborn king, but also on the home he was born into and what that meant for Jesus’s future work.From the very beginning of time, God knew that He would have to send Jesus to earth to ransom us. Knowing this—and knowing the ultimate purpose of Jesus’s life on earth—the fact that God chose for Jesus to grow up in the home of Mary and a carpenter named Joseph should stop us in our tracks.God could have placed Jesus in a priestly household like the prophet Samuel or John the Baptist. He could have grown up in the household of a Pharisee like the Apostle Paul. But instead, God placed Jesus in the household of a craftsman, doing work that likely looked very similar to the work you and I do today.Biblical scholar Dr. Ken Campbell has pointed out that the Greek word tektōn that most of our Bibles translate as “carpenter” in Mark 6:3, would more accurately be translated as “builder,” someone who “worked with stone, wood, and sometimes metal” to create new things. According to Dr. Campbell, Jesus and Joseph essentially operated a family-owned small business, “negotiating bids, securing supplies, completing projects, and contributing to family living expenses.”Sound familiar? It should. In first-century Jewish culture, it was likely artisans and craftspeople like Jesus and Joseph whose work looked most similar to ours.That truth gives great dignity and meaning to the work you and I do to rearrange creation each day. If you ever doubt that your work matters or that your calling is just as significant as that of a pastor or “full-time missionary,” remember Christmas. Remember that that little baby would grow up to roll up his sleeves and remind us of the goodness of work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16)Let us begin by meditating on Jesus’s first appearance to humankind at the very beginning of time.Today’s passage makes clear that Jesus—along with God the Father and the Holy Spirit—was present at the creation of the world. Furthermore, “all things” were created through Christ. In other words, Jesus is the Creator God we read about in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created.”Before God tells us he is love, before he tells us he is holy, before he tells us he is Savior, God wants you and I to know that he is a creative, productive, working God.As I’ve written about before, this idea of a God who works is unique in the long list of stories of the origin of the world. Every other religion claims that the gods created human beings to work and serve the gods. None would dare to say that God himself works—much less introduce that fact in the first breath of the story.This truth carries the utmost significance for the work we do today. Work is not a fringe thing or a meaningless means to an end. Work is central to who God is, and thus, central to who we are as his image bearers. That’s one of the great meanings of the first revelation of Jesus Christ.And it’s not just any work that God does. It’s creative work—the work of taking risks to create new things for the good of others. It’s the work of entrepreneurs and artists, storytellers and sales executives, marketers and mothers. And as we will see next week, it’s the type of work Jesus did at his second appearing as he was born into the home of a carpenter.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. (Colossians 3:18 – 4:1)Over the years, I have written frequently on Colossians 3:23 (Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters). In a way, this verse guides nearly everything I write on, calling all of us to lean into the work God has given us to do with all our hearts so that we would all do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. But today, I want to view this verse in its larger context to see what additional application we might glean.As you can see from today’s passage, Colossians 3:23 is set in the middle of Paul’s instructions to Christian households. When read in its entirety, one thing stands out to me in this passage more than anything else: the spirit of mutual submission that we are called to in every aspect of our lives.Wives are called to submit to their husbands. Husbands are called to love their wives and (as Paul adds in Ephesians 5) to “give himself up for her.”Children are commanded to obey their parents. And fathers are called to serve their children through their words.And, of course, “slaves” (what most theologians translate to “employees” or “workers” today), are commanded to submit to their employers, while employers are called to serve their employees by “providing…what is right and fair.”Each time the seemingly powerless party is called to submit, the traditionally powerful is commanded to do largely the same.It’s interesting that, for both employees and employers, Paul’s instruction is the same: Reimagine your work as if you are working for the Lord. If you are an employee, you are not primarily working for your employer: “It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (3:24). If you are an employer, you are not primarily working for shareholders, customers, or even for yourself. You are working for your “Master in heaven” (4:1).Hierarchies at work are often necessary for efficiency and order. But whatever your position, view your work in light of this passage as a servant primarily to God, leading you to be a servant to those who work for you and those you work for. And let that picture of work make us more ambitious to do our most exceptional work, because it is for God’s glory and the good of others.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.comSince, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)The third chapter of Colossians starts with a stark reminder that as Christians, we have “died” and our “life is now hidden with Christ.”What does this truth mean for our work? Does it mean that we are no longer to care about our work and the things that captured our attention pre-salvation? Is that what we are to assume Paul meant by his command that we “set our minds on things above, not on earthly things”?Not at all. If that is what Paul meant, he wouldn’t have called us to “work with all your heart” just a few verses later (Colossians 3:23). Paul is not calling us to forget about work or “earthly things.” But he is calling us to completely replace our motivations for work, aligning our hearts with the heart and agenda of our Caller and working to reveal the characteristics of His Kingdom here and now.Immediately following the passage above, Paul calls us to “put to death” the things that may have characterized our work pre-Christ, including sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying (see Colossians 3:5,8-9).Paul says, “You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived” (verse 7), but again, we Christians are called to “put to death” our sin and “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (verse 10).Our new selves look starkly different than our old ones, clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love, unity, peace, and thankfulness (see Colossians 3:12-15).Turning our minds away from “earthly things” doesn’t mean that we turn our minds away from the work God put us on this earth to do. It means that we continually work to replace the character of our old selves with the characteristics of Christ.As you begin your work week, I’d encourage you to spend a few minutes meditating on the characteristics listed by Paul above, allowing the Holy Spirit to show you which aspects of your old self you still need to put to death in order to become more like Christ at work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 1:28 – 2:3)In this four-week series, we are walking through each of the four chapters of Colossians, honing in on a few passages that are particularly relevant to ambitious professionals like you and me.Today, I’d like us to focus on Paul’s description of his work ethic, in which he says, “I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me” (Colossians 1:29).In the past few years, there seems to have been a dramatic rise in the number of books and other pieces of content encouraging us (especially Christians) to slow down and rest. Given our modern addiction to work and increased susceptibility to workaholism, I think most of this trend is good (in fact, I myself recently published a devotional series on the topic of rest).But in the midst of all of this talk about rest, I beg that we be careful not to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. All throughout Scripture (and in Colossians in particular) we are called to work hard or as Paul so eloquently says here, to “strenuously contend with all the energy” we have for the work we were created to do.Why? To what end are we called to expend this much energy in our jobs?Paul answers this question in verse 28: We are called to work hard as a means of proclaiming Christ in everything we do so that others may see and know him.Doing just enough work to get by and earn a paycheck is the norm in our world today. What is rare is to “strenuously contend” for exceptional work because we are compelled by a mission bigger than ourselves or even the companies we lead or work for.What is that larger mission? To “proclaim” Christ (1:28) so “that [others] may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ” (Colossians 2:2).Our work provides perhaps the most significant arena through which we can make Christ known through the way we live, the way we talk, and the way we energetically work to produce exceptional things in service of others.So yes, let us be sure to rest and combat workaholism wherever that temptation may lurk. But let us also be known as those who work hard as a means of making the Creator God known to those around us.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16)Here, in the first chapter of Colossians, we find a profound theological truth: “all things were created” and “all things have been created through [Jesus Christ].”So, Jesus was present at the beginning of time, creating all “things in heaven and on earth.” But, as we know, on the sixth day, God passed the baton of creation to us, calling us to “fill and subdue” the earth with our own acts of cultural creation.This begs the question: When we create today, is it God who creates, or us?John 1:3 tells us that “Through [Christ] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” And in Hebrews 3:4, Paul says that “For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.”I love this verse in Hebrews as it may be the most succinct and concrete description of what I believe the Bible has to say about our work as co-creators with the Creator God. Yes, “every house,” every company, every bridge, and every piece of art is “built by someone.” And yet “God is the builder of everything.”How can both be true?As the first chapter of Colossians reminds us, we worship a God who works, a God who creates, a God who is productive in making new things in service of others. And through our faith in the work of Christ on the cross, we have that same Creator God working in and through us (Colossians 1:27).As Christians, we do not create on our own. Christ creates in and through us. This truth brings to mind one of my favorite modern hymns:To this I hold, my hope is only JesusFor my life is wholly bound to HisOh how strange and divine, I can sing: all is mine!Yet not I, but through Christ in meThe “products of our own creations” aren’t that at all. They are products of “Christ in me.” This truth should lead us to great humility as well as a deep desire to work and create as a means of revealing the character of Christ in us.Let that ambition be what fuels our work this week!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com So 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)Believing that Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was his way of “repairing creation,” Fred Rogers was intensely serious about his work. As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, that sense of calling heavily influenced Rogers’s motives for his work as well as what he produced on-air. But his faith also influenced how he went about his work in three prominent ways.First, before Rogers left for work each morning, he committed himself to the reading of Scripture. Without daily reminding himself of the gospel, Rogers would have been unable to effectively demonstrate the love of Christ on television. As one of Rogers’s former staffers once said, “I think [Fred] had very Christlike qualities, and that is part of what drew children. Children know a fraud more than anyone….He was one of the most authentic and Christlike people that I have ever known.”Second, once Rogers arrived at the studio each day, he would pray over his work and that of his team’s. As Rogers once said, “I’m so convinced that the space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground. And what we put on the television can, by the Holy Spirit, be translated into what this person needs to hear and see, and without that translation it’s all dross as far as I’m concerned. When I walk in that studio door each day, I say, ‘Dear God, let some word that is heard be Yours.’” So, while Rogers worked hard at communicating the gospel through his work, he ultimately relied on the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of his audience.Finally, Rogers’s faith compelled him to work with an “iron insistence upon meeting the highest standards without qualification.” But Fred Rogers’s definition of excellence was quite different from other children’s television producers at the time who focused on elaborate sets, flashy special effects, and the highest “production value.” None of these things were “essential” in Rogers’s eyes. As a quote on his desk constantly reminded him, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Fred Rogers’s exacting standards applied to how he and his staff loved people on and off-air and how well the show communicated difficult concepts to children. Rogers was known for scripting out every single word of Neighborhood and rewriting scripts in the middle of production to ensure they were speaking in the clearest and most loving terms to the show’s television neighbors. Fred Rogers believed that because we are called to do our work for the glory of God and the good of others, only our most excellent work will do.Whether you’re called to create a TV show, a book, a business, or a new process at work, the fact is that all of us have been called to be “repairers of creation”—influencing culture for the sake of the gospel. I pray we can all learn from Fred Rogers’s example and allow our God-given calling to change the way we think about why we work, what we create, and how we live out our vocations.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)Fred Rogers had a vision for a children’s television show that would “make goodness attractive.” But not just any “goodness.” Rogers was convinced that he could make the goodness of Christ and the gospel winsome to the world.Due to the public funding of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Rogers couldn’t be explicit with the gospel message on-air. But he was convinced that wasn’t necessary. Instead of preaching the gospel explicitly from his television pulpit, Rogers created a show that consistently modeled Christ-like character and, most prominently, loved every neighbor as himself. As his friend, Reverend George Wirth, said, “Fred’s theology was love your neighbor as you love yourself.” And this was the ultimate theme that came through in the thirty-plus year run of Neighborhood.The name of the show itself and Rogers’s daily “Hello neighbor” greeting to his television audience served to set the stage for what he hoped to communicate in his entire television ministry. Throughout the show, there were countless examples of Rogers displaying what at the time seemed like radical displays of Christ-like love to the overlooked and the marginalized. In one episode in 1969, during the heat of racial tensions across America, Rogers and a black man washed their feet together on screen. In another episode, Rogers took a significant amount of time to patiently sing a song with a disabled boy in a wheelchair. And of course, in each of the show’s 912 episodes, Rogers showed children their inherent God-given dignity, treating them as important and valued as adults. To Fred Rogers, the idea that everyone has inherent dignity was obvious; if you said otherwise, for him, “you might as well go against the fundamentals of Christianity.”By loving every neighbor in the Neighborhood as himself and treating everyone with the utmost dignity, Fred Rogers modeled the gospel to millions of children every day, and in so doing, created one of the most beloved cultural goods of the twentieth century. In Rogers, we find an example to follow in our own efforts to influence culture for the sake of the gospel. While it may not be possible or effective to preach the gospel explicitly through our work, all of us are called to demonstrate Christ-like character and make the goodness of Jesus attractive to those around us. This truth significantly influenced what Rogers created on-air; and as we will see next week, Rogers’s faith also impacted how he went about his work.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So 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. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31)Just before graduating from college, Fred Rogers turned on a television for the first time, and what he saw totally appalled him. “I saw people dressed in some kind of costumes, literally throwing pies in each other’s faces,” Rogers later recalled. “I was astounded at that.”Rogers’s first impression of TV was that it was gimmicky and even demeaning—especially to children. But while Rogers “hated” what he saw in that first show, he was also intrigued by a vision he had for how the medium of television could be redeemed and used for good, particularly in demonstrating Christ-like character to children. Not only that, but in television, Rogers saw an opportunity to channel all of his varied gifts in a single direction. “And so I said to my parents, ‘You know, I don’t think I’ll go to seminary right away; I think maybe I’ll go into television,’” Rogers said.Eventually, Rogers did both, attending seminary classes on his lunch breaks while producing his show. But upon graduation from Western Theological Seminary, Rogers knew he had to choose between TV and pastoral ministry. For Rogers, the decision to commit to a career in television was a relatively easy one, as he felt that’s where he could be of the utmost service to his “neighbors.” In the mind of Fred Rogers, there was no divide between the sacred and the secular. He understood that man’s first calling in the Garden was to emulate the Creator Father by creating new things (Genesis 1:28) and that the path to having the greatest cultural impact for the gospel is often found in embracing the call to create.While Rogers didn’t want to pastor a church, he did desire to be ordained by the Presbyterian Church with an explicit call to ministry through television. But the Presbytery had its reservations. At a meeting in which the local Presbytery was debating the issue, Reverend Bill Barker addressed the elders on Rogers’s behalf, saying, “Here’s an individual who has his pulpit proudly in front of a TV camera. His congregation are little people from the ages of about two or three on up to about seven or eight …This is a man who has been authentically called by the Lord as much as any of you guys sitting out there.”The Presbytery eventually did ordain Rogers, but this action only served to formalize what Rogers already knew to be true: that he was called to create as a means of influencing culture with the Christian values he held so dear. Later in his career, Rogers said, “No matter what our particular job, especially in our world today, we all are called to be ‘tikkun olam’—repairers of creation.” As we will see over the next two weeks, that deep sense of calling to “repair creation” with the gospel message impacted what Rogers produced on Neighborhood and how he produced the show, giving us a model to follow as we seek to influence culture for Christ.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)Long before he zipped up a cardigan sweater and became Mister Rogers, Fred Rogers was a young man who loved Jesus and was eager to discern his calling. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, Rogers had many interests and talents, including music, puppetry, and children’s education. The question in Rogers’s mind was how he could combine these different gifts in a single opportunity to best serve others.Dr. Junlei Li, the former co-director of The Fred Rogers Center, explains that “Fred was guided by a deep sense of service, of wanting to be useful to the world. He was driven by service even if in his mind it was vague for years as to how to best leverage his considerable talents in service of others.” Fred Rogers embodied Romans 12:1, deeply understanding that as Christians, the gospel of Jesus’s selfless sacrifice should compel us to view our whole lives as service to others. When it comes to our work, the proper response to the gospel is not to seek out the work that will earn us the most fame and fortune. The goal should be to find the work we can do most exceptionally well in service of God and others. In the words of Rogers himself, “You don’t set out to be rich and famous; you set out to be helpful.” As Rogers’s biographer points out, this “relentless sense of service to God drove every moment of Fred Rogers’s life,” especially in how he thought about his work.But how would he serve? Where was Rogers being called to put his gifts to work for the glory of God and the good of others? These were the questions Rogers grappled with for many years.Rogers had a term he loved to use when referring to discerning one’s calling. He called it “guided drift.” The idea was that, while it is good and wise to make plans, “one needed to live a life that was open to change,” led by the Holy Spirit. As Rogers was wrapping up college in the spring of 1951, he was planning a career in pastoral ministry, as this was how he thought he could be of utmost service to others. But just before starting seminary, Rogers saw television for the first time. As we’ll see next week, this seminal moment produced a major jolt to Rogers’s guided drift, setting him down a path to creating one of the most influential pieces of culture of the 20th Century—a TV show that would make Christian values attractive to millions of children.

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)For the past few weeks, we have been studying when and why Jesus said “no,” while drawing out applications for our own lives today. In this final entry in this series, we’re looking at the most common thing Jesus said “no” to during his time on earth: the relentless human demands for more.All throughout the New Testament, we see people clamoring for more of Jesus: more of his healing, more of his miracles, more of his teaching, and most of all, more of his time. But over and over again, Jesus said “no,” choosing instead to withdraw to “lonely places” to pray and to rest. Today’s passage is just one of dozens of nearly identical moments in the gospels in which Jesus turned his back on the demands for more. When you view these verses in their entirety, you see that Jesus had a staggering amount of margin in his work and very little sense of urgency. This insight becomes even more compelling when you consider the fact that Jesus knew in his early thirties that his death was imminent.So, given his limited time on earth, why wasn’t Jesus in more of a hurry? Why was he so consistent in saying “no” to demands on his time and energy? I think there are three reasons. First, Jesus needed communion with the Father. Many times, when the gospel writers tell us Jesus went away to a solitary place, it also tells us that he went away to pray. Secondly, being both fully God and fully man, Jesus needed rest (see Mark 6:31-32). But I think there’s a third reason why Jesus said “no” so frequently. I think Jesus wanted to model what healthy work looks like for us, whose lives look so very different from the One we say we follow.Unlike Jesus, our lives have such little margin today. We are addicted to the idea of more. We have fallen for one of the enemy’s greatest lies: that more activity, more roles, more commitments, and more responsibility equals more impact. Here, Jesus offers a better way. In order to do our most exceptional work and live our most engaged lives, we need to get in the habit of creating boundaries around our time, saying “no” to the relentless demands that we do more faster. We need to more closely align our lives with the example of Jesus, whose model encourages us to say “no” far more often for our own good, for the glory of God, and for the good of others.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6:23-27)In this series, we are exploring a few of the many instances in which Jesus said “no” in order to unpack what our Savior’s example means for us and our work.In today’s passage, we find the crowd who had witnessed Jesus’s miraculous feeding of the five thousand, chasing him down the next day in search for more bread and fish. Before they can even utter their request, Jesus steps in and says “no,” refusing their request for more food. Jesus isn’t being lazy or maliciously withholding. He says “no” in order to offer the people something better. While the people came to ask Jesus for bread for the day, Jesus said “no” in order to offer the Bread “that endures to eternal life.”There are two applications I see from Jesus’s gracious “no” in this passage. First, as so many of us have likely experienced, sometimes God says “no” to our own requests in order to sanctify us or prepare us for something better. We are all so fond of quoting Romans 8:28 which promises that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” but we forget that sometimes, what is best for us is for the Lord to say “no” to our prayers. Is there something you’re asking God to do that just isn’t happening? The Lord may be using that “no” to refine your character or draw you closer to him.The second application I see in this passage is that Jesus’s example should inspire us to say “no” in order to offer something better to those we serve. My kids ask for donuts almost every day. I say “no” most days in order to offer them something better (a longer life without diabetes). This principle plays out in the workplace all the time. When your boss asks you to attend a meeting that you know will be a waste of your time, the most gracious thing for you to do might be respectfully saying “no” to the invitation so you can focus on excelling at the project the boss wants completed by the end of this week. Or, when a customer demands that you build a certain feature into your product which you know won’t solve their problem, it is actually kind of you to say “no,” bringing your knowledge and experience to bear to say “yes” to a more effective solution.Just as in Jesus’s encounter above, sometimes a polite but firm “no” can be one of the kindest and most generous things we can do in order to serve others better.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah. At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:38-44)As we saw last week, Jesus was crystal clear on what his mission was, or in Jesus’s words, the work the Father gave him to do (John 17:4). Jesus came to earth to “proclaim the good news” of salvation in word and ultimate deed on the cross. And all throughout the gospels, we see Jesus saying “no” to demands on his time that didn’t fit in line with the “yes” he had already given to this mission from the Father.Here in Luke 4, we see one of the clearest examples of Jesus’s disciplined adherence to his mission. After leaving the synagogue, Jesus had healed Peter’s mother-in-law. As word got out about Jesus’s miracle, the town flocked to him, bringing their sick so that Jesus could make them well. This, of course, is one way in which Jesus was fulfilling his mission, by demonstrating that he was God incarnate. But after his healing spree, we see Jesus retreat “to a solitary place.” Jesus knew that, after the first round of healings, there would be demands for more. But when the people predictably showed up for a healing encore the next day, Jesus said “no” to the peoples’ request. Why? Jesus explained, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” [emphasis mine].Yes, healing was a part of fulfilling Jesus’s mission. But it was only that—a part. Jesus knew that there was more important work for him to do, namely “proclaiming the good news” by “preaching in the synagogues” in preparation for the Passion on the cross.When you’re building a company, writing a book, or managing a big project at work, there are many different things you have to complete in order to accomplish your mission. But that doesn’t mean that all of those tasks are equally important or should garner as much of your personal time and attention. It’s easy for everything to look important at work. But in reality, few things really are. Take a moment to discern the truly essential thing you need to accomplish this week in pursuit of your God-given mission, and say “no” to as much as you can that falls outside of that most critical task.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)In this passage, we see Jesus clearly saying “no”—not to something that is being asked of Him, but to Martha’s busyness. Martha, it appears, was much like us today, busy spreading herself across many things while failing to take the time to discern the most essential thing. In this scene, we see her multitasking, trying to prepare a meal and also trying to spend time with Jesus, while her sister Mary sat with singular focus at the Teacher’s feet.Martha, understandably perturbed, asks Jesus to step in and encourage Mary to help with the preparations. But Jesus says “no.” Why? He says that while Martha is worried about “many things…few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better.” In other words, Jesus said “no” because Martha wasn’t focused on what mattered most. In that moment, the most essential thing was not cooking another dish or cleaning up the house—it was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Commenting on this passage, Dr. Timothy Keller said, “[Mary] decided what was important, and she did not let the day-to-day get her away from that. As a result, she was drawn into a greatness we don’t even dream of. Because we are more like Martha than Mary, we’re sinking in a sea of mediocrity.”The world is constantly pressuring us to be more like Martha than Mary, convincing us that the path to happiness and impact is in saying “yes” to more commitments, more jobs, and more responsibility. But here, Jesus offers us a better, simpler, saner way. He offers us the gift of saying “no” to the relatively unimportant in order to focus on the essential. He is offering us the path of less but better. “Few things are needed … indeed only one.”It’s important to note that Jesus wasn’t asking Martha (or us for that matter) to do anything he hadn’t. Jesus was crystal clear on what his one essential thing was (preaching the gospel in preparation for the Passion he would perform on the cross) and he pursued that mission with relentless focus. Just before this exchange with Mary and Martha, we are told in Luke 9:51 that Jesus had “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Once Jesus was clear on his mission—what he was saying “yes” to—he got in the habit of saying “no” to the many nonessential things along the way. As you and I gain clarity on what is essential in our business and lives, we must do the same.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 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 2:23-28)Last week, we saw how Jesus reframed the idea of Sabbath-rest as a gift to be enjoyed, rather than a law to be obeyed. So, if Sabbath was, in the words of Jesus, “made for man,” (Mark 2:27), the question becomes, what does man need? As we saw in the first week of this series, we need an antidote to restlessness, namely regularly exchanging life-sucking things for life-giving things, practicing thankfulness, and reminding ourselves of how Jesus’s work on the cross frees us from the pressure to work ourselves into the ground.How and when we go about doing these things is going to look different from person to person. With Jesus as the new covenant, we are no longer locked in to a particular day of the week to rest from our restlessness. You can “Sabbath” or rest every night after you lay your kids down for bed, or on an annual summer vacation, or, as tradition would have it, on a set day each week.My family and I embrace the gift of a Sabbath-like rest every Sunday, when we attempt to only do things that are “life-giving” and try as best as we can to cease all striving and productivity. For us, that looks like staying off of our phones, eating our favorite foods, spending more time in God’s Word, and enjoying time with our closest family and friends. But the most restful thing for me is that for one day, we intentionally suspend any productive conversation. That means no talking out ideas for my next book, no planning our next vacation, and no discussing calendars for the upcoming week. For one day, as best as we can, we simply rest and appreciate the good things, work, and people God has given us—not striving for anything more.As my wife and I began to practice Sabbath a few years ago, it quickly became clear why Jesus said the Sabbath is for man and not the other way around. The Sabbath is an opportunity to rest from the relentless pressure of the world to constantly be accomplishing, solving, entertaining, spending, posting, and doing. It is a day to look at our life, our work, and the cross and say with great contentment, “This is enough!”This type of rest doesn’t come easy for me. Not even close. But the more I practice these regular breaks, the less restless and anxious I become. If you’re restless like me, I’d encourage you to hear Jesus telling you that Sabbath-like rest is for you. It is no longer a legalistic command. It is a gift that is more relevant today than ever before. I pray you will embrace it.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-8)Last week, we established that the solution to our restlessness can be found in Sabbath-like rest from the sources of our restlessness. Next week, we will look at how practically we as Christians do that in the 21st Century. But first, we must look at what Sabbath is not for today’s Christian. And the best place to start is the origins of Sabbath itself.When God handed down the Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai, he commanded that the Israelites rest on the seventh day of each week. This was meant to be a sign of God’s covenant with His people. And, of course, Sabbath was modeled after God’s own day of rest from the work of creation on the first seventh day.In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was observed with strict rules and regulations. For example, the Israelites were prohibited from lighting fires (Exodus 35:3), gathering food (Exodus 16:23-29), and selling goods in the marketplace (Nehemiah 10:31). And the punishment for intentionally violating the Sabbath was nothing short of death (Exodus 31:14-15).Over time, the Israelites took the Sabbath to its most legalistic extremes, to the point in which, by the time Jesus came to earth, they even viewed healing on the Sabbath as a sin. When the Pharisees saw Jesus healing and picking grains in a field on the Sabbath in Matthew 12, they confronted him, calling out his seeming unlawfulness. Jesus responded by proclaiming “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Matthew 12:8) signaling that a new covenant was here in the person of Christ. In Mark’s account of the same events, Jesus is recorded as saying that “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). In other words, Jesus is saying that through Him, the Sabbath is no longer a command of the Law. Instead, it is a gracious gift for the restless.What did Jesus mean that Sabbath is now for man? How, practically, can we take advantage of that gift? And how can we rest regularly today, without making our rest legalistic and life-sucking? Those are the questions we will seek to answer next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)Your phone is blowing up. Your calendar is out of control. Your to-do list feels never-ending. Your mind won’t stop racing. And when you wake up in the morning, you’re immediately confronted with the subtle hum of anxiety that follows you throughout the day.Sound familiar? Today, more than ever before, we are restless. I would argue there are three major factors contributing to the restlessness of today’s Christian. First, we (like the rest of the world) are spending so much time consuming entertainment, social media, apps, and games, that these good things that were meant to be life-giving have actually become life-sucking. Second, we aren’t taking the time to “enter [the Lord’s] gates with thanksgiving,” leading to discontent and a restless drive to achieve and accumulate more. And finally—and this is a particularly challenging struggle for ambitious professionals—we are failing to take the time to regularly remind ourselves of the gospel and how our identity in Christ frees us from the need to constantly do more.It may sound overly simplistic, but if our problem is restlessness, then the solution must be resting from the sources of that restlessness. In order to find true rest and peace, we must regularly break from the relentless demands of this world and our work. We must make time to simply give thanks for what God has given us, rather than always striving for more. And we must temporarily exchange the things that drain us (email, smartphones, etc.) for the things that bring us life (friends, family, God’s Word, etc.).Fortunately, the Bible has a model for this kind of rest: Sabbath. Now, up until a few years ago, Sabbath was a noun to me, not a verb. It was an ancient word for a day of the week, not something modern Christians actually practiced. For a long time, Sabbath sounded more like a legalistic chore to me than a gracious gift that would solve my restlessness. But through careful study of Jesus’s words, I have completely changed how I think about Sabbath-like rest. Now, I can’t imagine my life without it.Next week, we will look at what Sabbath is not for today’s Christian, debunking many of the myths I (and maybe you) have long held about the ancient practice. And then, in our third and final devotional in this series, we will look at what the Bible says Sabbath rest can be and what it can look like practically for us today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate. (2 Thessalonians 3:6-9)In Acts 18:1-3, we are given a front-row seat to the third and final reason why Paul appears to have chosen to work as a tentmaker: so that he could effectively disciple other Christians. In these verses, we are told that, upon arriving in Corinth, Paul met Priscilla and Aquila, “and because [Paul] was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them” (Acts 18:3). Many theologians believe that Priscilla and Aquila had already converted to Christianity by the time they met Paul. But by working shoulder-to-shoulder as tentmakers, Paul was able to disciple the couple and bring them further along in their faith.In his book, The Missional Entrepreneur, Dr. Mark Russell, says, “It is very possible that Paul taught [Priscilla and Aquila] how to blend workplace excellence and effective evangelism. They became tentmaking missionaries themselves, traveling on to Ephesus no doubt still practicing their trade and teaching the Way to people like Apollos. Paul modeled teaching in the context of daily life, which made spiritual instruction seem natural and flowing rather than forced and uncomfortable as it is commonly perceived. Due to this style…[Paul’s] converts became teachers and their converts became teachers and the positive feedback cycle continued.”As we saw in the first week of this series, Paul didn’t work because he needed to, and he didn’t just do the bare minimum amount of work necessary in order to fund his “real ministry” of preaching within the four walls of local churches. Paul chose to work as a part of a deliberate strategy to “become all things to all people,” to preach the gospel to unbelievers in the workplace, and to disciple fellow Christians.But in 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul alludes to another reason why he worked, saying, “we worked night and day…in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow.” Through God’s Word, we can hear Paul saying those same words to us today. Whether you’re a tentmaker, an entrepreneur, an artist, a salesperson, a stay-at-home dad, a janitor, or a teacher, your work, like Paul’s, is not something separate or disconnected from the work of making disciples. The Lord has called each of us to use our chosen vocations in intentional ways to win the respect of outsiders, to preach the gospel, and to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Let that truth and Paul’s example challenge and inspire you as you go about your work today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. (Romans 15:20)As we have been exploring throughout this devotional series, Paul chose to work as a tentmaker in conjunction with his preaching ministry for some very deliberate reasons. Last week, we saw that Paul worked in the marketplace as a means of “becoming all things to all people” and “winning the respect of outsiders.” But why was Paul so eager to win the respect of the lost? In Romans 15:20, Paul alludes to the answer, saying, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known.” Paul worked as a tentmaker to become all things to all people so that he might increase his opportunities to preach the gospel to those who had yet to hear it.Paul’s work as a tentmaker would have allowed him to preach the gospel in two powerful ways: through his actions and his words. While the New Testament gives us a tremendous glimpse at Paul’s eloquence and ability to preach the gospel through written and spoken word, one has to imagine that Paul preached an equally powerful sermon by simply living a Christ-transformed life as he worked alongside his fellow tentmakers and tradesmen. As we know from experience, modeling Christ-like character at work is one of the most effective ways to make the gospel winsome to the lost. Paul undoubtedly understood this and leveraged the attention his character would have received to point “outsiders” to the gospel explicitly through words. As the theologian T. G. Soares once pointed out, the New Testament accounts of Paul’s ministry “suggest the constant personal evangelism that Paul must have carried on during his hours of labor with the various fellow-workers with whom he was thrown into companionship.”So, Paul clearly worked as a means of becoming “all things to all people,” and to preach the gospel in word and deed. But as we will see next week, there is one final reason why Paul chose to work as a tentmaker. As the biblical account of Priscilla and Aquila make clear, Paul also leveraged his vocation to disciple other believers, thus multiplying the spread of the gospel across the world.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: 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)After spending the first twenty-one verses of 1 Corinthians 9 defending his right to raise financial support to preach the gospel, Paul gives us the clearest explanation as to why he chose to continue to work as a tentmaker. In verses 22 and 23 he writes, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel.”Paul understood that, in order for the gospel to be heard, followers of Christ must first be able to relate to those we are ministering to. And there is perhaps no more effective place to do this than in the workplace where we spend the majority of our waking hours and have a natural environment for building genuine relationships with believers and non-believers alike.For Paul, tentmaking would have been the perfect opportunity to build relationships with those outside of his immediate social circles. As Dr. Mark Russell points out in his extensive study on Paul’s work, “Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen of high education so he could easily identify with those from similar backgrounds. His work as a tentmaker was a deliberate strategy that enabled him to identify with another, primarily different, group of people. By participating in [tentmaking] trade associations and guilds he would have become enmeshed in [previously inaccessible] social networks.”Before the gospel can be heard, the messenger must win the respect of the intended audience. Paul knew that being an excellent tentmaker outside the four walls of the church was one of the most effective ways to win the respect of non-Christians, which is why he encouraged the Church at Thessaloniki and us to follow his example, saying, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to 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).Once we’ve won respect of outsiders, we, like Paul, will be put in positions to preach the gospel in word and deed. And that brings us to the second reason Paul chose to work which we will explore next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:20-23)The apostle Paul is one of the great heroes of the Christian faith—the man the risen Christ chose to help spread the gospel and accelerate the growth of Christianity throughout the world. While Paul’s work as an effective preacher is well-known, what the Church almost never talks about is the fact that throughout his career planting and preaching to churches, Paul also worked as a tentmaker (Acts 18:2-3).The lack of discussion in the Church about Paul’s work as a tentmaker appears to be a symptom of a deeper problem—namely that many Christians tend to treat some callings (such as preaching) as more eternally significant than others (such as tentmaking). But Paul’s own writings make clear that he never fell for this unbiblical myth. As we’ll see throughout this devotional series, Paul didn’t view his work as a tentmaker simply as a means of financing his preaching ministry. He viewed his work as a tentmaker as a core component of his strategy to make disciples of Jesus Christ. But before we more deeply explore why Paul worked, it’s critical that we understand what wasn’t motivating Paul to work as a tentmaker.First, it’s important to point out that Paul did not need to work as a tentmaker. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul makes it abundantly clear that he had the right and the ability to live as a “donor supported missionary,” focusing 100% of his time and energy preaching the gospel in the churches and synagogues. But he chose not to exercise that right. In 1 Corinthians 9:15, he says, “I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me.”Not only did Paul not work out of necessity, he also appeared to work tirelessly—far more than was needed to fund his preaching ministry. In 1 Thessalonians 2:9 and 2 Thessalonians 3:8, Paul says he worked “night and day,” and in Acts 20:34 it says that Paul earned enough money to provide for others, suggesting that there were at least seasons of Paul’s career as a tentmaker in which he was earning far more than he needed to support himself.So, if Paul could have raised support to finance his preaching, why didn’t he? Furthermore, why would the great preacher spend more time than was necessary in his work as a tentmaker?As we will see over the next three weeks, Paul didn’t view his work as a tentmaker as a distraction from his work to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Rather, he chose to work as a part of a deliberate strategy to “become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22), to preach the gospel in word and in deed, and to disciple other believers. And this, as we will see, has tremendous applications to our own work today.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. (James 5:1-5)In the final chapter of James (and verses 1-5 in particular), the author has some strong words of warning for the rich and powerful. In verse 4, James condemns how the “rich” he’s addressing in this passage acquired their wealth, by unfairly withholding wages from their workers. While this isn’t the place to comment on what does and does not constitute “fair pay,” it is important for us Christians to be cognizant of both overt and subtle abuses of power that might put us into the category of those James is condemning. Modern day examples of these abuses in pay include misclassifying workers as contractors instead of employees and paying women and minorities less for doing the same job as others.In verse 4, James appears to be admonishing employers exclusively. But in verses 1, 2, 3 and 5, James has words of warning for anyone who is more privileged, powerful, and wealthy than somebody else, sharply criticizing the hoarding of wealth, as well as “self-indulgence” and living “in luxury.” The question of what constitutes luxury and over indulgence is a complex and personal one. But when reading these verses, it’s important to keep in mind that James’s chief concern in this passage (and much of the book) is the poor. So, a good question to ask to discern whether or not we are ones James is calling “self-indulgent” may be “Does the way I spend my personal wealth and the profits of my business endeavors enhance or diminish the lives of the poor?”Finally, as busy, ambitious professionals, we would be wise to take James’s words in verses 2 and 3 to heart, remembering that the wealth we accumulate in this life will fade away. But the acts of service we do unto others won’t. And that is really the heart of the entire book of James. When you and I love our neighbors and employers by doing our work exceptionally well and when we focus on the needs of the powerless and poor above our own careers, we are living more closely in line with the image of Christ, glorifying the Father, and storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:20).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13-16)Busy professionals love to plan. We meticulously plan out our days and weeks. Some of us even plan out our careers five years at a time. Planning is a good thing, as it is the process by which we steward the time, money, and other resources the Lord has entrusted us with. But as James 4:13-16 points out, our planning is “evil” and dishonoring to the Lord when we plan without humbly recognizing that it is the Lord—not us—who is in control of the outcomes of our planning.This is an especially hard truth for busy professionals to grasp and remember day-to-day, as so much of our time is spent planning for the future. We spend weeks putting together strategic plans. We sell investors and customers on visions of the future. We set-up meetings and appointments weeks and months in advance. With so much confident planning, it can be easy to fall for the lie that we are the ones controlling the future. But as James reminds us, this type of planning is better known as “boasting” and “evil.” Why? Because when we confidently predict the future without even a mention of God’s sovereignty, we are sending a message to ourselves and those around us that we are not truly trusting in the Lord’s grace and daily provisions. We are relying solely on ourselves and our plans for the future.Planning without recognizing the Lord’s sovereignty can also cause us to forget to be on the lookout for where the Lord might be moving to take our plans in different directions. The Christian professional who humbly submits their plans to the Lord and watches for the Holy Spirit to mold them over time will be more at peace, more aligned with God’s design for their lives, and even more effective.Finally, in verse 14 James reminds us of the brevity of life, comparing our time on earth to “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” This sobering reminder gives us all the more reason to plan, but to do so by humbly recognizing the Lord’s ultimate control and being willing to surrender our plans to the Lord’s will.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:14-17)In James 3, we find plenty of wisdom for busy Christian professionals. Which of us doesn’t need a reminder to tame our tongues so that we might be more accurate reflections of Christ amongst our colleagues? But today, I want us to dig into the second part of James 3, and look at what the Scriptures have to say about ambition.In verse 14, James warns us not to deny “selfish ambition,” but to recognize it for what it is: “earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” Those are some strong words. But James isn’t finished. He goes on to say that “where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”What exactly does selfish ambition look like? This is what James and we have already explored in James 2 with the admonition not to focus on what the rich and powerful can do for us and our careers, but instead being primarily concerned with how we can serve the powerless. Selfish ambition is when our work is primarily motivated by our own advancement, fame, and fortune, rather than service to others.But while James comes down hard on selfish ambition, we must be careful not to write-off ambition altogether. Ambition itself isn’t what James is condemning here. Selfish ambition is. The Bible makes clear that there is a different kind of ambition that is not only acceptable, but commanded by the Lord.Colossians 3:23 demands that “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” You and I aren’t called to simply punch a clock. We are called to lean fully into the work God has called us to do, and to do so ambitiously for his glory and the good of others. In the words of 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”How do we glorify God in our work? By obeying his commands, summarized by Jesus when he called us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). When God’s glory and the good of others is our primary motivation for our work, our ambition will be anything but selfish. Our ambition will be as James says in James 3:17, “pure…peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” Let that encourage us today as we ambitiously pursue the work the Father has given us to do.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. (James 2:1-9)This week, we’re taking a closer look at James 2:1-9, where James strongly commands that “believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.” Right off the bat, James gives us an example of favoritism from his own cultural context, comparing how first century Christians might treat two very different people who show-up to the same church gathering: a rich man “wearing a gold ring and fine clothes” and “a poor man in filthy old clothes.”It’s clear that James is referring to favoritism based on something deeper than the physical appearance of these men. James is pointing out something that hasn’t changed in the centuries since he authored this letter: There will always be two groups of people in our lives—those that have the power to serve us (the rich) and those we have the power to serve (the poor).In our modern context, the rich man might not be flashing a gold ring as he walks in the door, but he might have two million Instagram followers and be connected to someone on LinkedIn that we really want an introduction to, while the poor man could be someone who, on the surface, has nothing to offer that would advance our careers or social status. Or the poor woman might be the intern at our office that has little to offer our careers today, while the rich woman might be a boss we are trying to impress.In this passage, James is encouraging us to view the world through the lens of those who can serve us and those we can serve. And he’s saying crystal-clearly that showing favoritism to the rich and powerful is nothing less than sin. What exactly is the offense? The sin is not loving our neighbor as ourselves (verse 8). The sin is paying particular attention to those who can serve us, while neglecting to serve those we are in a position to help.Obeying this command to not show favoritism to the powerful is far from easy. After all, God often uses the rich and powerful to pull us along in our careers. This can lead us to justify showing favoritism to these people. But all throughout Scripture, Jesus and authors like James instruct us to focus first on serving those who can’t do a thing for us in return, while trusting that God will provide for our every need. Often times, it is that type of “servant leadership”—of spending noticeably more time and energy serving those less powerful than us—that is noticed and rewarded at work.Every day, we are faced with multiple opportunities to show favoritism to the rich and powerful. Be mindful of those opportunities today and look for opportunities to love and serve both the powerful and the powerless well.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. (James 1:5-8)This morning, we start in chapter 1 with a focus on James’s call for us to ask God for wisdom. In verse 5, James writes, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James leaves it open-ended as to what specifically we are to ask for wisdom about, leaving us to assume that he is inviting us to ask the Lord for wisdom about anything—including the seemingly big and little things related to our work.Often times, I’m afraid we expect far too little from God, welcoming his wisdom as we seek to make major life decisions (such as where to move or who to marry), but failing to ask for his wisdom in the more routine matters of life and work (such as when we can’t see how we will meet a deadline at work, or we’re trying to discern product market fit, or when we’re trying to navigate a relationship with a difficult co-worker). James is inviting us to ask God for wisdom in all of these things and more.Why does James place such a strong emphasis on asking God for wisdom? Well, most practically, as James 1 makes clear, God is the giver of all wisdom (verse 5) and “every good and perfect gift” (verse 17). God is the source of all true wisdom, so we would be fools not to ask him for wisdom as we work. But there’s a second reason we are called to explicitly ask God for wisdom: Asking for wisdom is one way in which we recognize that God is God and we are not, thus demonstrating our ultimate trust in him. As busy professionals, it can be easy to forget that it is God—not us—who produces results through our work. Regularly asking for his wisdom as we go about our work reminds us that it is God alone that gives us the wisdom to do our work well.The Christian life is a matter of trusting God to provide all things, including wisdom as we work. Take a moment to humbly ask God for wisdom for specific things regarding the work ahead of you today.

Here's what you can expect from the podcast!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters (Colossians 3:23)When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were, he replied, “Love the Lord your God…and…Love your neighbor as yourself.” As we saw last week, excellent work is one way in which we fulfill Jesus’s command to love God by revealing his character of excellence to those around us. As we’ll see today, excellence is also necessary for keeping the second commandment in our work.As Christians, we can’t say we are seeking to love our neighbor as ourselves and then do our work with mediocrity. Think of the extreme example of a Christian doctor. While that doctor may pray with her patients, share the gospel with her co-workers, and donate money to her church, her most basic form of ministry is in being an excellent doctor. If she were a mediocre medical professional, her patients’ lives might be at risk. The doctor’s first responsibility in her work ought to be the ministry of excellence—serving her patients as best she knows how, giving them the same level of care she would expect for herself and her family.Now, for most of us, the relative skill of our work isn’t going to mean the difference between life and death. But we all have an opportunity to obey Jesus’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves by choosing to do excellent work and going far beyond the minimum standards required in our jobs. I love what Matt Perman says on this topic: “Slack work is like vandalism because it makes life harder for people—just like vandalism. Christians are to be the opposite of vandals and slackers in their work. We are to do work that will truly benefit people by going the extra mile rather than just doing the minimum necessary. Excellence in our work is actually a form of generosity and love, and poor quality is a form of stinginess and selfishness. Shoddy work is not just shoddy work; it’s a failure of love.”As Christians, we shouldn’t seek to do the bare minimum in our jobs to collect a paycheck. If we believe our work is a calling from God, we will “work heartily, as working for the Lord (Colossians 3:23),” seeking to glorify God and love others well by being the most focused and excellent doctors, entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, carpenters, and executives we can possibly be. Excellence in our work isn’t just a means to some personal gain. Excellence is our most fundamental form of ministry in our work. Let this truth encourage you to focus on pursuing mastery of your craft, becoming the most exceptional version of yourself for God’s glory and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com 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)The purpose of our work is no different than the purpose of our lives, namely to glorify God in everything we do (1 Corinthians 10:31). “Glorify” is a word we throw around so much that it can become difficult to define. As John Piper says, to glorify God simply means to “reflect his greatness” or reveal his character to others.So, if the purpose of our work is to reveal the Lord’s character to the world, what exactly are his characteristics? The Bible describes God in many ways, but it is his character of creative excellence that is perhaps most visible to us. You can’t stare out at the Grand Canyon and not marvel at the masterful work of God. You can’t go to a zoo without appreciating the creative supremacy of the Creator. And you can’t take a baby by its hand and not stare in wonder at the excellence it takes to make millions of cells form together to create life. As we saw in last week’s devotional passage, God’s character of excellence also shone through in Jesus’s life on earth, with his contemporaries marveling that “he had done everything well.” We worship the preeminent God. A perfect God. “Excellent” is far too trite a word to describe the God of the universe. But it is the closest we as mere mortals can hope to understand and attain.As God’s children, we are called to be image bearers of our exceptional Father. In Ephesians 5:1, Paul instructs the Church “as beloved children” to “be imitators of God.” Commenting on this passage, theologian Andreas Köstenberger says, “How should we respond to God’s excellence? In short, we should seek to imitate and emulate it…As God’s redeemed children, we are to strive to be like God. This, it appears, includes striving for excellence.” John Piper puts it this way: “God created me—and you—to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion—namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.”In other words, we glorify God when we imitate his character of excellence and in doing so “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We live surrounded by darkness in a world that is desperate for something excellent and true. There is perhaps no more influential “sphere of life” for us to shine the light of Christ than in our chosen work. When we work with excellence, we have the great privilege of glorifying God and proclaiming his excellencies to the world around us. Go forth and do your work with excellence today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He [Jesus] has done everything well,” they said. (Mark 7:37)Today’s passage is one of my all-time favorite descriptions of Jesus: “People were overwhelmed with amazement. ‘He [Jesus] has done everything well’” [emphasis mine]. As followers of Christ, this passage should give us great pause. As those seeking to imitate Jesus in every way imaginable, can we say we are doing everything well? Can we say we are doing everything with excellence at work and at home?The fact is that all of us have areas of our lives where we are falling short of Jesus’s excellent standard. I think this is truer today than ever before. Why? Because now more than ever, we believe the lies that we have to do it all, be it all, and have it all. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed, making a millimeter of progress in a million directions because we fail to discern the essential from the nonessential in our work and in our homes. This is a recipe for mediocrity, not excellence, and I would argue the problem is epidemic in the Church today.Why should we care? Because anything less than excellence falls short of the standard we Christians have been called to. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul writes, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” The late great pastor Dr. James Kennedy used to paraphrase this passage, calling his congregation to “excellence in all things and all things to God’s glory.” That is the standard we are called to.There are many good reasons to pursue excellence in all things, especially in our chosen work. Excellence in our vocations advances our careers, makes us winsome to the world, grants us influence, and can lead to opportunities to share the gospel. But none of these good things should be the primary motivators for us as we pursue excellence in our work and the other roles God has called us to fulfill in our lives. We pursue excellence for a much more fundamental purpose—because excellence is how we best reflect the character of Christ and love and serve our neighbors as ourselves. In other words, excellence is our most everyday form of ministry. As we will see over the next two weeks, it is through the ministry of excellence that we glorify God and love others well through our work.

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)What’s the Biblical response to the mounting anxiety in our lives? As we saw in the first week of this devotional series, we must first confront our anxiety honestly, recognizing our stressors for what they are. Second, we take the Lord up on his offer to cast our anxieties and worries upon him, for He cares deeply for us. Finally, as we will see in this final devotional of this series, once we have confronted our anxieties and cast them upon the Lord, we must carry on in the work the Father has created us to do. We rise up from our confession full of faith. We believe that God has graciously taken our anxieties upon Himself and that He has become our burden-bearer. We trust that, because God cares so much for us, He does not desire for us to exist in a perpetual state of anxiety. He does not want us anxiously obsessing over the things in our lives that we can’t control. So, He takes them from us. That which brought us worry and a disquieted spirit no longer rests on our shoulders. Therefore, we need not be fixated on the anxieties of the past. We are able to carry on with great freedom.We see this truth in Jesus’s call in Matthew 11 when He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus knows that we get stressed. So he calls us to come to him in faith. To hand over our burdens. And, in turn, to receive rest. Not a passive rest, but an active relief. Relief that is activated by trust. Relief that then motivates us to live and work without worry, but with great freedom and boldness.Each of us has been given unique work to do for the glory of God and the good of others. When we launch a new business, ship a product, create a piece of art, finish a presentation, or sweep a floor, we aren’t just doing a job—we are being God’s hands and feet at work in the world, serving the human community. But it is impossible for us to do our best, most creative work out of a place of fear and anxiety. I pray the Scriptures expounded upon in this series give you the strength to confront your anxieties, cast them upon the Lord, and carry on in the work the Father created you to do with the utmost boldness!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. (Psalm 55:22)Last week, we opened up about the realities of stress and anxiety related to our work. We noted that there are a whole host of workplace issues and experiences that contribute to our ever-increasing levels of stress. Many of these things are out of our control. And that is precisely what causes us anxiety. On the surface, there appears to be nothing we can do to remedy this unfortunate reality, but as we began to explore yesterday, that is simply not true. The Bible speaks extensively about the issue of anxiety, offering us practical ways to relieve the stress in our lives.First, as we saw previously, we must recognize and confront our anxiety. Today, we will look at the second thing Scripture commands us to do with our anxiety: cast it upon the Lord. In 1 Peter 5:7, the Apostle Paul instructs us to, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.” Once we have confronted the realities of the stress and worry that comes as a result of our work, we are not left to carry our anxiety alone. In His graciousness, the Lord has invited us to cast those anxieties upon him. Why? Because he cares for us. If the God of the universe cared enough about our sin to sacrifice His Son on a cross, surely he is capable of caring for whatever is stressing us today. When we find ourselves unable to cast our anxieties upon the Lord, let us remember that He carried the far greater burden of our sins all the way to the cross. For as Jesus promises, “his yoke is easy and his burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). And, in some mysterious way, through this radical exchange, God takes our worry and stress away from us once we have cast it upon him.The act of casting our anxiety upon God is not merely cathartic. When we confess to the Lord our sins, struggles, and anxieties, He takes those burdens upon himself. They are no longer ours to bear. We are given peace, all because of God’s unfathomable care for us.So when the stress of job security or the anxiety of looming deadlines or shrinking profits comes upon us, we are ready for the fight. First, we recognize the stress and confront it. Then, while prostrate before the Lord, we cast our worries and trepidation, laying it all before our immensely compassionate God. For there, in Him, we shall begin to find true relief and peace.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up. (Proverbs 12:25)Let’s face it: We are overwhelmed with worry and anxiety, perhaps more so than we are willing to admit. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed personally and professionally. The problem has gotten so bad that the World Health Organization has labeled anxiety the “health epidemic of the 21st century.” Much of this can be explained by the fact that there appears to be more to worry about than ever before. Outside of our offices, we are confronted with global stressors such as terrorism, financial insecurity, moral decay, and a ridiculously divisive political climate. At work, anxiety hits even closer to home as new product launches, tighter deadlines, difficult bosses, inadequate compensation, and the demand to always “level-up” in our careers all punish us with worry. In short, Satan offers us no shortage of things to stress us and distract us from the work the Father has created us to do.So, what does God’s Word suggest we do about the mounting stress in our lives?The first thing we must do is confront rather than ignore anxiety. Scripture speaks quite a bit about anxiety, and therefore, recognizes its existence. We must do the same. Anxiety is a human condition resulting from the fall. Tragic as it may be, it is a reality of life. Pretending our anxiety doesn’t exist or attempting to sweep it under the proverbial rug are extremely unhealthy and dangerous ways to engage with stress. Instead, we need to be honest and self-aware, confronting the reality of anxiety in our lives.The Apostle Paul offers some insight into how we can do this. In Philippians 4:6 he says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” He says that life is going to be full of opportunities for worry. But rather than being overcome by anxiety, we are to confront our worries head-on. When stress and worries arise at home or in the workplace, our first reaction should be to recognize them in prayer to the Lord. He has graciously offered himself up as our outlet for stress relief and He has promised that He can handle all the things we cannot. As the Psalmist declares, “God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble” (Psalm 46:1).So, as we experience anxiety this week, let us be quick to confront it and take it to the Lord in prayer.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” Genesis 1:28-31 (NIV)The Bible gives us very little detail of Jesus’ life between the ages of twelve and thirty, when He began his public ministry. One of the only things Scripture notes about this significant chunk of time is that Jesus was known in His community for His work as a carpenter. This is remarkable! The only thing the Bible tells us about what Jesus was doing for half of His life was doing the work of a creator and entrepreneur, revealing to us this important characteristic of the Trinity.Given Jesus’ ultimate purpose for coming to earth, you might have expected God to choose for the Messiah to grow up in the home of a priest, like the prophets Samuel and John the Baptist, or maybe in a Pharisaical household, like the Apostle Paul. Instead, God placed Jesus in the home of a carpenter, where for eighty-five percent of His working life, He would reveal God’s character as a creator and an entrepreneur, creating new things for the good of others.In just three years of public ministry, Jesus revealed countless characteristics about His Father. To the five thousand, Jesus showed us that God is our provider. To Lazarus, Jesus showed us that God is the giver of life. And on the cross, Jesus showed us that “God so loved the world” that He would sacrifice His only Son in order to spend eternity with us. If Jesus was able to reveal so much of God’s character in such a relatively short period of time, the fact that Jesus spent twenty years revealing God’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit should stop us in our tracks.Think back to the first week of this devotional series. What God created in the first six days is astonishing, but what’s equally remarkable is what He did not create. After six days of work, God left the earth largely undeveloped and uncultivated. Then He called you and I to join Him as His co-creators, “filling and subduing” the world. When we create, we are emulating the entrepreneurial and creative character of the Godhead: Father, Spirit, and Son. Your work as a creator is not “secular” or “less than” the work of a “full-time missionary” or pastor. No, you are doing God-like work for His glory and the good of others. Glorify Him through your creating today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.'” Exodus 31:1-5 (NIV)In this somewhat obscure passage in the book of Exodus, we meet a man named Bezalel who God is calling to create the Tabernacle of the Lord. This was an incredible call and responsibility, for the Tabernacle was meant to be the physical place in which God met with His people as well as home to the Ark of the Covenant, the beautiful, gold-covered chest containing the stone tablets in which God had inscribed the Ten Commandments.God chooses Bezalel to do the hard, God-like work of creating the Tabernacle. But before Bezalel gets to work “to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts,” we are told that God had to first “[fill Bezalel] with the Spirit of God.” Fascinating! Why would Bezalel need God’s Spirit in order to create? Because God is the first entrepreneur, the source of all creativity, and the originator of our ability to make something of value out of the raw materials of this world. In order for Bezalel to fulfill his call to create, he needed more of God’s likeness.It’s interesting to note that the Tabernacle was meant to be a physical representation of the way the world ought to be, with God at the center of it. The design of the interior of the Tabernacle pointed worshippers to the Holy of Holies, an interior room in which the Israelites believed God physically existed. The Tabernacle was essentially its own world, with everything pointing towards God. So when God called Bezalel to create the Tabernacle, He was inviting him to mimic God’s creation of earth, thus bringing glory to God by emulating his creative Spirit.When you and I create—when we launch new businesses, write new books, compose new songs, build new things, create new art—we aren’t doing something “secular.” We are imitating (albeit in a quite imperfect way) the work of the First Entrepreneur. Creativity is not a fringe thing. It is central to who God is, and who we are as His image-bearers.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “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 (NIV)The first thing God reveals about Himself in Scripture is not that He is loving, holy, omnipotent, gracious, or just. No, the first thing God shows us is that He is creative. In Genesis, He brings something out of nothing. He brings order out of chaos. He creates for the good of others. In short, God is the first entrepreneur.“Entrepreneur” is a title thrown around so much today that it has become very difficult to define. I would submit that an entrepreneur is anyone who takes a risk to create something new for the good of others.Using this definition, the Creator of the universe certainly qualifies as the first entrepreneur. In Genesis, He is clearly creating something new. Before creation, “the earth was formless and empty” until the First Entrepreneur spoke. Then, in six days, His voice brought forth the heavens, the earth, light, evening, morning, sky, land, sea, vegetation, sun, moon, stars, animals, and man.Not only did God create something original, He also created for the good of others. God certainly didn’t need to create the world and humankind. So why did He? Before creation, the Father, Spirit, and Son had been enjoying perfect community, serving and loving each other for all eternity. If the Trinity reveals the others-orientation of the Godhead, it stands to reason that one of the reasons why God created was to share the perfect love the Trinity has been experiencing for all eternity with us.So, while God clearly created something new for the good of others, did omnipotent, omniscient God really take a risk when He created? Certainly He didn’t take a risk in the way you and I do when we launch a new business, compose a new song, or write a new book. But He did risk in a different, far more profound way. As Pastor Timothy Keller explains, “God made the world filled with human beings made in His image, human beings with freewill. So God made the world knowing what it was going to cost Him. Knowing what we were going to do. Knowing that [His] Son was going to have to come into the world and [die for us].”God doesn’t stop revealing His character as creator and entrepreneur in Genesis. As the devotionals over the next two weeks will show us, the Godhead continues to reveal these characteristics throughout Scripture through the Spirit and Son.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations— their kings led in triumphal procession. For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish; it will be utterly ruined. The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the juniper, the fir and the cypress together, to adorn my sanctuary; and I will glorify the place for my feet. The children of your oppressors will come bowing before you; all who despise you will bow down at your feet and will call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 60:1-14 (NIV)Over the past two weeks, we have been digging into the story of the Tower of Babel as a case study in unbiblical ambition, using our work as a means of making a name for ourselves. In response to the Babylonians attempted glory-robbing, God “scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city” (Genesis 11:8). To God, the motives behind our ambition obviously matter a great deal.But we have still yet to answer the question that I posed at the start of this devotional series: As Christians, is it possible to be ambitious in our work and still have our self-worth and identity firmly rooted in Jesus Christ? In other words, what does proper ambition look like as we create?Today’s passage from Isaiah 60:1-14 provides a beautiful answer to those questions. In this passage, the prophet Isaiah is pointing us to a picture of the reversal of the events that transpired at the Tower of Babel. Rather than the people being scattered out of the city to the ends of the earth, Isaiah shows us a picture of all the nations coming back together into “the City of the Lord.” This isn’t Babel. This is a glimpse of the New Jerusalem on the New Earth.But here’s what’s most fascinating about this glimpse of our eternal home: While the Babylonians were scattered throughout the earth because of their desire to create to make a name for themselves, Isaiah shows us people from around the world entering the New Jerusalem with cultural artifacts in hand. The people of Tarshish bring their ships, Midian and Ephah bring their livestock, Sheba brings gold and frankincense. “The wealth of the nations,” the best creations of the nations, are being brought into the eternal city to glorify the One who called the people to create. Unlike in Babel, the people are not using their creations to glorify themselves, they are laying their creations down as an offering of worship to God.Scripture commands us to “work…with all your heart” (Colossians 3:23). We are called to be ambitious, to work hard, and to be good stewards of the talents God has given us. But we are called to do these things not for our own glory, but to “do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). When our work is motivated by a desire to glorify God, serve others, and create something that may be considered “the wealth of the nations,” laid down as an offering to God, then we have proper ambition to create with everything we’ve got.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 (NIV)As we saw in Genesis 11 last week, the Babylonians were driven by improper ambition to create a tower that would reach the heavens and make a name for themselves, a temptation that still plagues humankind today. When we create out of a desire to make a name for ourselves, or, to put it in more modern terms, to accumulate fame and fortune, we are essentially trying to save ourselves.When the Babylonians invented the art of brick making, they weren’t content simply putting that innovation to work to build better roads and homes. They had to leverage their creation to make a name for themselves. Why? What is it about the human condition that causes us to use our work as a tool for proving something to the world? Deep down, all human beings know there is something wrong with us. We know we are flawed. We know we aren’t “right.” Deep down, we know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).Ever since Adam and Eve committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden, we have been trying to cover up these flaws, not with fig leafs, but with our accomplishments. We think that if we write a bestselling book, or sell a business for millions of dollars, or sign a record deal, or get 100,000 Instagram followers, or build the world’s tallest tower, then we’ll be able to mask our sinful human condition. Essentially, we use work as a means of saving ourselves.But as Christians, we know that the work of salvation is complete! Because Jesus said, “It is finished,” we no longer have to use our work as a means of saving ourselves. What incredible freedom we will experience when we let that truth really sink into our hearts! Because of the gospel, we are free to work and create not as a means of making a name for ourselves, but as an act of worship to the One who made us, saved us, and called us to create. As we will see in next week’s devotional, this truth replaces our improper ambitions with healthy ambition that flows out of a love for Christ and a desire to make His name famous throughout this earth and the next.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’ But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’ So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:1-9 (NIV)The world tells us that ambition is essential to accumulating wealth, fame, and glory for ourselves. The meta-narrative of work today is that it is the primary means by which we make a name for ourselves in this life and prove to the world that we are important, valuable, and worthy.Of course, this is nothing new. Since the Fall, human beings have been using work to make a name for themselves, rather than to glorify God and serve others. Take the Babylonians as an example. In Genesis 11 we read the account of these ancient entrepreneurs discovering the incredible technical innovation of brick making. With the invention of the brick making process, the Babylonians could build better homes, roads, and cities—all wonderful things; but driven by pride, the Babylonians’ ambition wasn’t to glorify God through their work. Their ambition was to make a name for themselves. They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). And if there was ever a question as to whether or not our motives matter to the Lord, the rest of the passage provides the answer. “The Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city” (Genesis 11:8).Creating a tower, a new business, a piece of art, or a piece of music is not inherently bad. Our cultural creations can and do reveal God’s character and love and serve others. But when we create something out of a motivation to make a name for ourselves, we are attempting to rob God of the glory that is rightfully His.While Scripture makes clear that creating to make a name for ourselves constitutes improper ambition, the Bible makes equally clear that ambition can indeed be God-honoring, so long as it flows out of a response to the work Christ did on our behalf on the cross. That is the subject we will turn to next week.