Most Christians spend the better part of their day working in some sort of profession. Whether an engineer, nurse, construction work, librarian or countless others, God calls each of us to a specific vocation. Most Christians are not called to full-time ministry, but each of us is still under the obligation to glorify God in whatever we do. So what do you do when you have personal success in your vocation? How can you glorify God with any professional accomplishment you might have?
Glorifying God Defined
I have written in the past on what “glorifying God” means and why glorifying God should be your biggest dream and desire. Jonathan Edwards in his excellent book “The End for Which God Created the World” does a word study of this idea of “God’s glory.” He explains that the Hebrew word for “glory” denotes weight or gravity. Therefore, when the Bible talks about God’s glory it is referring either to His inherent greatness, value, and significance or referring to God externalizing that inherent greatness.
So, when the Bible calls us to glorify God, it is commanding us to delight and display God’s greatness, value, and significance. This seems pretty straightforward and “easy” to do when you are at Church singing worship songs. In that case, you are quite literally praising God with music and lyrics for His infinite value for those around you to hear. But what happens when you go to your day job on a Monday? You and I are equally called to live for God’s glory at work as we are in the home or at Church. More specifically, what happens when you receive recognition from your boss and coworkers for some sort of professional accomplishment?
The Spiritual Dangers of Professional Accomplishment
What is at stake here? I find personally that whenever I have some success at my “secular” vocation it is very easy to allow the attention to stay on me. After all, if you get a promotion or award or other professional accomplishment, chances are at least some of your coworkers will praise and congratulate you. And that no doubt makes you feel pretty good about yourself. Now, there is a proportionate, good recognition for a job well done. However, if you are not careful, professional accomplishment can become a breeding ground for pride and self-exaltation. I know that is a temptation in my own heart.
What is the best way to fight your sinful tendency for self-glorification? By turning yourself back to glorifying God and recognizing you have nothing that you did not receive and you have nothing to boast in but Jesus, and Him crucified. Beyond this, your unsaved coworkers around you know nothing about living for God’s glory. They have nothing better to chase than professional accomplishment. So how can you use your professional accomplishment as a God-given opportunity to turn the attention off of you and to the Lord and Savior you worship?
Professional Accomplishment as a Platform
When God allows you to get recognition for a job well done, His sovereign purpose is likely much bigger than you getting a “pat on the back.”
What if God is giving you attention professionally so that you could then turn that attention back to God?
Easier said than done, I know. But next time you receive recognition for some sort of professional accomplishment, immediately realize that this is God giving you a platform to display His greatness to your coworkers. Don’t let your recognized success terminate on you: use any attention you receive personally to direct other people’s gaze from you to God.
How do you do this practically? There is no “one way” and you will need much wisdom to discern the best words to say. But essentially, you need communicate two realities explicitly to those around you:
The relative insignificance of your professional accomplishment in light of God’s significance
Your relative lack of greatness in light of the greatness of God
In other words, you need to communicate that however great people think you are or however important they consider your professional accomplishment to be, both are infinitely insignificant compared with who God is. You don’t have to be eloquent or long-winded, but you must be explicit that God’s glory, not professional recognition, is what you value the most. Here are some brief ideas:
“I’m grateful for this award but I want to make it clear I don’t work hard for recognition. I work hard because there is a God who saved me through Jesus Christ and has given me this job to do for His honor, not my own.”
“This promotion truly is an honor. I don’t deserve it and I recognize that I didn’t get it because I am great. Rather, I serve a great God who graciously has provided me this promotion only as a way to better serve Him.”
These are simply ideas of what to say. My goal with this post is not to give you a script, but rather to help you and I to recognize the opportunities the Lord gives us every day to glorify Him at our jobs. And I think some of the best, easiest, and clearest opportunities you will get to exclaim God’s worth to your coworkers come in the context of professional accomplishment.
When all eyes are on you, turn everyone’s gaze to Christ.
If glorifying God is truly your life’s goal, success at work will just be another avenue to worship.
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You have probably at one point or another heard phrases like “dream big”. “Don’t settle.” “Everyone has their own mountain to climb.” “Believe in yourself.” And so on. This type of advice can be summarized as “find out what you want or value most inside yourself. Then spend your whole life chasing that thing. Make it your biggest dream, the mountain you spend your life trying to climb.” This is the wisdom the world has to offer. But what about the Christian? What is the Christian’s biggest dream? What mountain should a Christian dedicate their life to climbing?
Glorifying God with your life is the mountain you must climb
Reformed Christians throughout the ages have argued convincingly from Scripture that glorifying God is the reason you and I exist. The famous first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Jonathan Edwards in his famous treatise “The End for Which God Created the World” argued from reason and from Scripture that God created all things to display His glory and so that His glory could be delighted in.
What is “God’s glory”? I wrote a longer post detailing what “God’s glory” means in Scripture. Simply put, God’s glory is his inherent value, greatness, and importance. You glorify God when you respond to His value, greatness, and importance in thought, feeling, or deed. The Bible is full of references to the fact that you and I exist to know God’s infinite greatness, value Him most highly, and live in a way that draws attention to His significance and majesty.
Therefore, the Christian’s biggest dream is nothing less than glorifying God with his or her life. That is the mountain you must daily climb: how can you live in a way that draws attention to the infinite value and beauty and greatness of God? Christians do not look to their own personal desires or dreams or goals to determine what they should life for. Rather, when the Holy Spirit regenerates a person, He supernaturally allows them to value the Triune God more than anything else. The lifelong goal of a Christian becomes understanding more deeply God’s value and inviting those around them value God in proportion to His holiness and greatness.
All other dreams are infinitely small
The Christian’s biggest dream must be to glorify God because all other dreams are infinitely small. If God is the creator of all things, He is himself greater than what He created. He has more value and is more important than anything He created. And since God is infinite and creation is not, then God is infinitely more important than anything or anyone else. God isn’t just a little bit better than other things, He is in a category of His own. There is nothing and no one that can compete with God’s inherent glory.
Therefore, for a Christian to prioritize any other dream than that God’s glory would be magnified is to dream small. Infinitely small. Unspeakably small. The biggest dream you have ever had apart from God is nothing more than a single grain of sand next to the ocean of God’s greatness. Wealth, fame, comfort, recognition, a big house, a perfect family, might seem like “big dreams” when you think about them in your mind. But when you truly, by the Holy Spirit, have even the faintest glimpse of God’s value and God’s greatness, those “big dreams” suddenly seem petty, small, and idolatrous.
Don’t waste your life pursuing a tiny, insignificant, finite, self-focused dream. The Christian’s biggest dream is to live for God’s glory because no other dream or desire compares. Of course, in our sin, you and I oftentimes prefer the lesser. We become stuck in our small dreams. But God calls you to a bigger dream and a better life than you could possibly imagine for yourself: to live to display God’s worth in everything you do.
You weren’t created to climb any other mountain
Because you are a human created by God, for God, and in the image of God, your life has inherent purpose. You don’t have to create yourself or define your own worth. God didn’t create you and sovereignly place you in the time and place you find yourself in for you to squander your life trying to find a mountain to climb or a dream to realize. God has revealed in His word exactly the mountain you should climb and exactly the dream that should motivate you day in and day out: to live for and delight in God’s infinite greatness, value, and perfection forever.
There are a ton of “big dreams” that the idolatrous modern culture tells you to pursue. All of them are focused on maximizing your comfort, finding your value, showing off your “greatness.” In the end, however, none of those dreams will satisfy or give you peace or comfort you when it comes time to die because God created you for Himself. To live for yourself when you were created for an infinity greater Being is cosmically foolish, sinful, and damning. Don’t “find your purpose” or manufacture life goals for yourself. There is an unspeakable peace that comes when the Christian’s biggest dream matches the purpose for which God created them.
Conclusion: God chooses your mountain, not you
You don’t need to come up with your own dream. God, who created you and loves you with an everlasting love in Christ, has already told you in His word what you should spend your life doing. A life lived for God’s glory is never misinvested. There is more joy and satisfaction to be found in living to know God’s greatness and value and to share God’s greatness and value with others than you could possible imagine.
Don’t follow your dreams. They are small and self-focused and misleading. Instead, follow God, your creator, who has already revealed to you what your greatest dream should be. Daily seek the Lord in the Word to remind yourself of who you should be living for. Pray “hallowed be your name” and “for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” A life lived for yourself or for a created thing will never satisfy because you are finite. But if you live for an infinite God, your cup will never run dry and daily you will find new opportunities to delight in and display that infinitely glorious God.
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Recently, I preached a sermon on Revelation 4:11. What initially intrigued me in this text was the fact that at the very end of the Bible, God is still being worshiped because He is the Creator. As I progressed in my study, however, I was stunned by the all-consuming worship and exaltation of the Lord pictured in Revelation 4. Because of this, I did a word study of some of the key words in the verse, including the word ”glory”. This idea of responding to God’s glory with praise and exaltation has occupied my mind the past few weeks, and I decided it was time I started working through my thoughts by writing them out.
In this post, I want to think through the sense in which the Bible describes God as glorious and the sense in which glorifying God is our proper response to that reality. I want to think through responding to God’s glory with glory: understanding who God is inherently and then how that drives your response to Him. Right off the bat, I am indebted to Jonathan Edward’s The End for Which God Created the World for engaging my mind on this topic and for influencing what I write in this post.
A brief word study
The word “glory” or “glorify” is used so frequently in good Christian conversation and preaching that I sometimes find it difficult to remember what exactly “glory” means. In the Old Testament, the word most often translated “glory” is the Hebrew word “kabod“. The word’s literal meaning is “weight” but clearly in Scripture this is a metaphor for the significance of something or someone. If something is “heavy” it is inherently more important and significant than something that is “light”. Other ways of understanding this idea of “weight” include splendor, reputation, and honor.
When you come to the New Testament, the word translated glory is “doxa“. You likely recognize this word from the English word “doxology.” This word was used outside Scripture to refer to someone’s reputation i.e. an opinion or estimate of someone. The greater a person or object is, the greater it’s “doxa” or it’s reputation. In Revelation 4:11, this word appears next to a word “time” which is translated “honor”. This word means “a value” or esteeming something. So, in both the Old and New Testaments, it seems that “glory” refers to the significance, the reputation, the value of something.
“Glory” is who God is
What does it mean when the Bible talks about “the glory of God?” Theologians answer this by distinguishing between God’s inherent glory and His ascribed glory. God’s inherent glory refers to the reality that God is, in and of Himself, the greatest, most valuable, and most significant of beings. Exodus 34 famously connects God’s glory to His attributes or who He is:
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
Exodus 33:18-19 ESV, emphasis added
The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands,[b] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
Exodus 34:5-8 ESV, emphasis added
You see from the above passage that God reveals His glory, His value, His reputation to Moses by declaring who He is and what He does. This is God’s inherent glory. God, by the very nature of who He is and what He does, is the most valuable and significant. Notice also that God connects His glory to His name as well as His goodness. This passage is worthy of a much more extensive exposition, but for our purposes today, it is enough to see that God is inherently infinitely valuable because of who He is.
“Glory” is our response to who God is
“Glory” is not only used to refer to who God is inherently. Glory is also used to refer to humanity’s response to God’s inherent glory. Theologians refer to this as God’s ascribed glory. This is what you refer to when you talk about “glorifying God”. If you notice, Moses illustrates what it means to respond to God’s glory in the passage above: immediately after God reveals His inherent glory of Moses, Moses makes haste to worship in response. This pattern of “revelation then worship” is repeated throughout Scripture when humans are confronted with a revelation of God’s inherent glory.
So what is ascribed glory then? I think in the most basic sense, it is agreeing with God’s evaluation of Himself. God declares through Scripture and creation that He and He alone is the most awesome, great, valuable, and significant being. He is ultimate, the “alpha and the omega”. Therefore, the most basic response a human can give when confronted with this reality is to simply say “amen”! It is so. What God has revealed about Himself is true. “Ascribing glory” means you agree with God’s revelation of Himself by faith and attribute to God all the attributes and worth that He declares are true of Him.
The idea here is when you truly grasp God’s worth, gravity, and reputation, you respond in some way. Worship. Exaltation. Singing. Rejoicing. Obedience. The list goes on and on. Each of these actions “ascribe” glory to God when they are motivated by an understanding of and a desire to display God’s glory. There is much that could be said here, but for the remainder of this post, let’s consider how responding to God’s glory with your mind, emotion, and will occurs in your daily life.
Responding rationally to God’s glory
How can you display the worth and gravity and reputation of God in your mind, heart, and will? How can you respond to God’s infinite value, supreme reputation, and greatest significance properly? Starting with your mind, responding to God’s glory means first and foremost holding this high view of God in your mind.
Your mind is constantly assaulted by a culture that elevates humanity and their autonomy while demeaning the reality of God and His glory.
If you want to display God’s worth, value, and importance, you are going to have to guard your mind from internal thoughts and external voices that would de-value God. Internally, pride, sin, and your own flesh will push you to either think less of God or think of God less. By thinking less of God, I mean you will be tempted to lose a mental grip on the sobering reality of God’s inherent glory. And thinking of God less means becoming so distracted or disinterested in the Lord that you never stop to contemplate God’s value.
External assaults to your mental focus on God’s worth come in a myriad of forms. But they all typically have the common factors of elevating mankind by substituting subtle or overt lies about God. The key for fighting both internal and external temptations to belittle God is given in Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
A mind renewed by God’s word and prayer is a mind ready to remember God’s value.
So positively, how can you value and honor God with your mind?
Daily go to His word to mentally understand who God is revealed to be. Memorize verses like Isaiah 40:21-23 which extol God’s greatness.
Meditate throughout the day on God’s inherent glory. A mind that does not think of God’s greatness is not actively glorifying God. In the clutter of your own thoughts and the voices around you, dedicate mental energy to contemplation of God’s glory.
“Take captive every thought” that comes from within or without that would elevate self and dethrone God or Christ in your mind.
If you would glorify God with your mind, you must be active and vigilant. If you wake up assuming you will naturally glorify God with your mind, you will no doubt fail. You must work to get your mind fixed on God and to keep it fixed on God.
A mind fixed on God and a mind that prefers contemplating God over worldly things displays the value, the greatness, and the importance of the Lord.
Responding affectionately to God’s glory
How do you love the Lord with all your heart? How can your emotions, feelings, and affections show that God is supremely valuable? Jonathan Edwards and John Piper have both expounded this point extensively, but I’ll add my own reflections to the mix. Emotions seem to me to be both responsive in nature as well as volatile. By responsive I mean that almost every emotion you have is attached to an object. That object can be an event, a person, a circumstance etc. Emotions are also volatile in the sense that they seem to shift at a very rapid pace depending on what object you come in contact with or sometimes they seemingly shift on their own without an object.
As Piper and Edwards have written, the proper emotional response to God is joy. Delight. Satisfaction. When you truly grasp the gravity, goodness, and greatness of God, your heart should overflow with delight. Why is this often not your experience practically? I think it is because you and I let other objects besides God grip our hearts and thereby shift our emotional response delighting in God to something lesser. The fight of glorifying God with your emotions is a fight to keep your heart continually delighting in who God is. This is easily said, but hard to do practically.
Responding to God’s glory with affectionate authentic joy requires anchoring your emotional faculties to who God reveals himself to be.
The goal is not to conjure up some sort of fake, excessive, emotional response. Emotions, because they are volatile, come and go rather rapidly. What you can control, however, if the consistency and fervor with which you pursue delight in the Lord. A good analogy would be feeling affection and delight for your spouse. Your emotional response to your spouse is not always proportional to their value. But as you spend time with them, think over their attributes in your mind, talk with them, prioritize them, oftentimes a proper affection follows. The hope is that over time, your emotions become less volatile with regards to your spouse and you enjoy more consistent times of extended delight. By consistently returning again and again to the desired object or your affections, you will likely experience more frequent moments of love and delight and joy in that object.
A heart overflowing with love and delight and joy in who God is shows God’s inherent greatness, worth, and importance.
Responding volitionally to God’s glory
How can you display God’s infinite value with your will? Actions? Lifestyle? This is a big question and a whole post could be written on answering this question in each area of life. But I think at a fundamental level, displaying God’s worth with your actions means obedience. In particular, obedience to the moral commands laid out in God’s word. The world would have you determine your own fate, decide what you want to do, ”do what is right in your own eyes.” When you remove an eternal sovereign God from the picture, you are left to determine and serve yourself.
Therefore, the simplest and most fundamental way to display the worth and weight of God is to deny yourself and live for Him. To let God determine who you are and what you are to do with your life. Was there ever a time that self-denial and prioritizing God were more counter-cultural? By choosing to obey God rather than choosing to obey your own desires, you are effectively saying to the sinful world around you ”I am not ultimate. You are not ultimate. There is a God who is ultimate. And He determines what life is, what life isn’t, and what we, as create creatures, should do.”
Radical, ordinary, everyday obedience is a testimony to God’s glory.
It is a testimony that God is so exceedingly glorious and valuable that He is superior to your own desires and pleasing Him is the greatest good you can do. Now, just because glorifying God with your will is simple at a fundamental level does not mean it is easy. Choosing God over self is a daily battle to ”deny yourself, take up your cross” and follow Christ. But in calling us to lose our life for the sake of the Gospel, Jesus is calling us to show to the world that there is someone greater than anything and is worth us losing our life for.
Obedience and self-sacrifice are both acts of the will by which you can display God’s glory to the world around you.
Conclusion: Responding to God’s glory is the privilege of the Christian
Responding to God’s glory with a life of worship is the great privilege of the Christian. Unbelievers live their lives in this world blind and trapped in the black hole of self-glorification. While the culture pretends this is an enlightened and viable way to live, the Christian knows better. Self-glorification is nothing more than trying to quench your thirst with a broken cup when a fountain of living water is in front of you (see Jeremiah 2:13).
In that sense, the Christian’s chief end to ”glorify God and enjoy Him forever” is not a burdensome duty, anymore than the invitation to drink from a fountain of life is a burdensome duty. It is the highest privilege and blessing you can be given. It is a calling to taste and see that the Lord is good, to come and buy food without price, and to experience the eternal life of knowing the Lord. You cannot be too committed to pursing a deeper knowledge of God’s infinite value. Nor can you be too committed to displaying with your mind, will, and life that knowledge you have of God’s infinite value. If you are a Christian, revel in the knowledge that you get to live a life of ”praising the one who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
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“What is my calling?” Is that a question you have ever asked yourself? I am almost certain you have met a Christian who has asked that question at some point or is currently asking it. “What is God calling me to do? Where is God calling me to go?” And probably most important of all: “What is God calling me to do with my life?”
I don’t think I have met a sincere, Christ-loving Christian who wants to waste their life. Christians want to live out God’s will for their life, to spend the time allotted to them in a God-honoring way. But this often is easier said then done, especially when you aren’t clear what God wants you to do.
Recently, I have been reading a book called “Grit” by Angela Duckworth . It is a pretty useful book which focuses on the positive effects of perseverance in life. If you are a Christian who reads your Bible consistently, you almost certainly understand and know all that Duckworth says in her book. But there was a “parable” she gave in one of her chapters which helped me think through what “calling” is and how it connects to the Biblical idea of “renewing your mind”.
Three bricklayers are asked: “What are you doing?”
The first says, “I am laying bricks.”
The second says, “I am building a church.”
And the third says, “I am building the house of God.”
The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling.
GRIT by Angela Duckworth
What the quote means
Perspective is everything
What I love about this little story is how memorable it is. You have three people doing the exact same job: laying bricks. On the surface, there is absolutely no difference between them. But when asked what they are doing, their answers could not be more different.
The first is focused merely on the task at hand: laying bricks. It simply is a task; there is no higher calling. This is why the first bricklayer merely has a “job”. You have certainly met people like this: they come to work to get a paycheck, that is all. There is no bigger picture or larger goal. There is simply the task at hand, the task they are paid to accomplish.
The second bricklayer has a bit better perspective. Rather than focusing on the task, the second bricklayer focuses on a larger goal: building a Church. This second person is connecting their work to something bigger than the individual task. They are conscious of what their work means and what goal their individual task contributes to. This bricklayer is said to have a “career.”
But it is the final bricklayer that is the most important for our discussion. This last bricklayer connects their work to something larger than their individual task, and larger than the final “product.” Despite the sketchy theology in this parable (see 2 Samuel 7 for what God thinks about David building a house for Him), I think it is a profound illustration of Biblical truth. This last bricklayer connects his or her work to God, to theology, to a their larger worldview.
And it is this bricklayer which is said to have a “calling.”
I would summarize the three bricklayers as follows:
The first bricklayer is focused on the daily tasks
The second bricklayer is focused on the end goal of the tasks
The third bricklayer is focused on why they are pursuing the goal
Why it is important
Don’t try to figure out God’s will for your whole life. Live faithful today.
“Calling” is a tough word to define. A lot of times, when I hear Christians ask what their calling is, what they mean is “I want to know the specifics of God’s will for my life. I want to know for certain what I am to do now and in the future.” But this certainty is not promised in Scripture.
J. I. Packer in his book “Knowing God” contrasts two views of “knowing God’s will.” What you and I often want is to see the whole picture, like if you were to look at a whole map of a subway system. You want to know exactly and with certainty all the different paths God wants you to take. But knowing God’s will is not like looking at a subway map. It is more like driving a car: you can only see and make decisions based on what is immediately ahead of you.
This parable of the three bricklayers builds on this idea. You don’t “find your calling” by figuring out God’s sovereign plan for your life. You live out a calling by connecting what you are doing in the present with your Theology. The last bricklayer has a calling by connecting his daily tasks and the goal of his job to God. God is not going to write out His sovereign will for your life in the sky for you to read. But He does promise to guide your steps as you trust in Him.
How can you live your calling? Remind yourself each day “this is God’s sovereign will for my life.” And then work for His glory, not your own. I think we need to re-define “calling” to “obeying God commands in all He ordained for you to do while staying conscious of how what you are doing connects to God’s larger plan.” In other words
You turn your tasks into a calling simply by connecting it back to God, the Scripture, and the Gospel
“What does God want me to do with my life?” is an impossible question because God doesn’t promise to answer it in specifics. But I guarantee there are daily tasks you have to accomplish each time you wake up. These tasks are the part of God’s plan for your life that He has revealed. God has prepared good works for you ahead of time so that you can walk in them (see Ephesians 2). Don’t focus on the part of God’s will that you don’t know. Focus on faithfulness today by doing all your daily tasks to God’s glory.
Takeaways
1. The most practical thing you can do each day is renew your mind with Scripture
An implication of all this is to renew your mind each day. The last bricklayer had a theological, God-focused mindset which enabled him to connect what he was doing to why he was doing it. He had a different perspective than the other two. It does not get more practical than this.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2, ESV emphasis added
You aren’t naturally going to wake up with the mindset “all I do today is for God’s glory.” The natural perspective of life when you wake up is that of the first bricklayer: just get done these tasks and be done with it. But as Christians, part of the privilege we have is doing all that we do for God’s glory and to make much of Christ.
Your theology should transform your most mundane daily tasks.
Don’t buy the lie that says Theology is some study of God divorced from anything you actually do during the day. There is absolutely nothing more practical than renewing your mind with the Word. It changes everything. The parable of the bricklayers argues that it is your mindset, your perspective, that matters each day. The Bible makes it more explicit: you must renew your mind or you will be conformed to this world.
2. Ask God to show you what faithfulness looks like today. Let Him work out your long term “calling.”
If God explained to you every single plan He had for your life, do you really think your life would be better? I think God is merciful to allow us to take one day at a time. Your calling is to die to self daily and subject each day’s tasks to the Lordship of Christ. That is hard enough to do without also knowing everything coming tomorrow.
“Sufficient is the day for its worries” Jesus said. You can only be certain of what God is calling you to do moment by moment. So pursue faithfulness and obedience moment by moment. As a Pastor I know once said “Do the next faithful thing.”
You might not know God’s long term plans for your life. But you know today you are called to “glorify God and enjoy Him.”
3. Consciously, through prayer and meditation on Scripture, offer each part of your day up for the glory of God
To get even more practical, doing all things for God’s glory probably means praying a lot. “Without ceasing” as Paul says. The mindset of the third bricklayer is not easy to maintain. There are dozens of distractions and sins each day that cause you to lose sight of why you are doing what you are doing, and for whom you are doing it.
Dedicate time throughout the day to read Scripture. Call out to the Lord before you start a new task. Ask yourself “how does what I am going through connect to any Bible passages I have heard lately?” It is only through focus on God that our tasks become a calling. Why? Because God has called His people to exalt Him in all things.
What tasks do you have to accomplish today at work? At home? For Church? Will you merely check the boxes? Or will you realize everything you do is done before the presence of God?
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Work. Vocation. Your 9 to 5. Most of us spend a good chunk of our week employed and exerting effort to benefit some company. Work is an ever present reality in most everyone’s lives, including Christians. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Scripture contains extensive teaching on what work is, how to work, why you should work, and dozens of principles to help you understand how your day job fits into God’s larger plan for the world.
Tackling the Bible’s full teaching on work will take some time. For this post, I want to go through 3 New Testament verses that I think address Christians and their vocations. In particular, these three texts will focus on how God’s plan for the world and the gospel connect to your work.
God is sovereign over where you work
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10, ESV
Like any theology, a New Testament theology of vocation starts with God. Not just “God” in general, but what God has done through the gospel. Before you were saved, work was a way to gain money. Power. Status. Everything you did, including your work, was self-serving and devoid of proper motivation.
But after Christ transforms your life, saves you from your sin, and brings you into newness of life, work does not stop. Paul says in the verse above that God has prepared good works for you to do. Now, certainly this verse is speaking more broadly than your day job when it uses the term “good works”. But I think “good works” certainly includes what you do for 40+ hours every week.
Your vocation is not a distraction from serving God. Where you work is an integral part of God’s sovereign plan for how you are to serve Him.
To have a proper understanding of work, you have to start with answering the question “how did I find myself in my current job?” You can give a number of reasons, but fundamentally you must grasp God had planned your vocation before time began. He prepared the good works ahead of time for you. Your job is to be faithful to where He has placed you.
Christians are not self-sufficient workers
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:17, ESV
“Whatever you do” includes a lot of things. It is a broad category that almost certainly includes your vocation. Your work, therefore, is to be done “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” What does this mean? It seems like a very abstract phrase. When the New Testament talks about the “name of Jesus,” it says a number of things:
There is no other name that saves (Acts 4:12)
Jesus has the most exalted name (Philippians 2:9-11)
Believers are to ask things in Jesus name (John 14:13)
Calling upon the name of Jesus saves a person (Romans 10:13)
Signs and wonders in the New Testament were done in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:30)
I believe the last verse give us insight into what Paul might mean in Colossians 3:17. When the apostles performed signs, they did it through the “name of Jesus.” That simply means Jesus was the source, the one who empowered the signs. It was not by their own strength and ability that the apostles acted. How does this apply to normal work?
Dependence on Christ, not self-sufficiency, should characterize your work day.
When you pray in Jesus name, we are acknowledging it is not through our own efforts that you can approach God. Salvation comes through Jesus name because He is the source of salvation. Doing all things in Jesus’ name means acting in constant dependence on Him and His grace.
God’s glory is the goal of your vocation
What is your goal for your job? Climbing the ladder? Making more money? These are all false paths to happiness which will disappoint in the end. Christians have a deeper, unshakeable goal for their work.
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV
If you want to understand how the glory of God relates to everything, I recommend working through “The End for Which God Created the World” by Jonathan Edwards. Essentially, Edwards argues God created the world so that His attributes could be seen by His creation and that His creation should delight in those attributes. As the Westminster confession states, it is mankind’s “chief end”: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
It is easy to slip into the mindset that “glorifying God” takes place outside of work hours. Sure you can glorify God at Church or with your family, but sitting in front of a computer screen in a cubicle? But if Paul can command Christians to display and enjoy God’s attributes in something as mundane as “eating and drinking,” your vocation must also be centered around glorifying the Lord.
Start each new work day asking “how can I show through my work that God is infinitely valuable and glorious?”
Summary of doctrine
These are only three of numerous verses on vocation in the New Testament and the Bible as a whole. But I think they frame any discussion of work. How can we summarize and synthesize the truths given in these passages?
God provides Christians with their vocations and the power to perform their vocations to display His worth.
Christians have a fundamental new perspective of their jobs: they are from God. They have a new goal of working: to exalt and display God not self. And finally, Christians have been given the power of the gospel and of Christ to meet this new goal.
A few brief takeways
1. You are equipped to do your job in all the ways that matter
There is an obsession in America with productivity books. How to become a better worker. Books on successful leadership. How to develop marketable skills. These are all useful in a small way, but the good news of Scripture is “good work” isn’t measured by worldly success. It is measured by obedience to Christ.
You might not get that promotion. Perhaps you will never be the most skilled worker in your office. But if your goal is to display how marvelous and priceless Christ and the gospel are, then you have been given exactly what you need. Christ has given you “everything needed for life and godliness.” So yes, build up skills in your individual job. But always remember that it is Christ who equips you to do your work for God’s glory. No book, other than Scripture, can help you become “successful” in that.
2. Don’t focus on getting your “perfect dream job.” Focus instead on what God would have you do in the job you have now.
There is always a “better job” out there somewhere. The grass is always greener on the other side. A lot of times, how much you enjoy your current job can become the determining factor in how hard you work. For Christians, this should not be the case. You don’t need your perfect dream job to be happy. You need to start focusing on glorifying God in the job you have.
A lot of times, how you talk about your job and how much you enjoy are job is connected solely to yourself. How you feel. What you think of the job. But if you understand that God has chosen to place you in your current job, your perspective changes. Instead of asking God “why do you have me working here?” you ask “how do you want me to serve you today in this job?”
God didn’t mess up in placing you in your current vocation. Pray that He would show you what good works He has for you in your current workplace.
There is a lot more to investigate in Scripture about vocation and God’s purposes in work. But for now, remember that God has a plan for where you are working and has given you power through Jesus to go to your job seeking to display God’s glory. Don’t get caught up in working for yourself only. Pray that God would give you eyes to see how your work is a means by which He blesses the world, displays His attributes, and calls people to faith in Christ.
Read this post if you want more of my thoughts on Christians and work. Check out the “Thoughts” page for more topical reflections on life. Be sure to follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get post updates and recommended resources.
I recently went to Charleston, South Carolina this past week to celebrate one year of marriage with my wife. It was a wonderful trip. My wife and I love the Southeast with its slow pace of life, beautiful moss covered trees, and sandy beaches along the coast. Coming back from the trip, I couldn’t help but think of the blessings of a good vacation. God truly uses all things to conform us to the image of His Son, and vacations are no different.
Good vacations remind you the world is full of God’s glory
My normal work day is incredibly predictable. I wake up in the same bed, get in my car, drive along the same road, park in a normal parking lot, walk the same sidewalk into the building, sit in my cubicle, and spend the day working on my computer monitors which stare lifelessly back at me.
It can be very difficult to remember the Bible says God’s glory fills the whole world when your world is so small. But Scripture repeatedly reminds the Christian that God’s glory is everywhere.
And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”
Isaiah 6:3, emphasis added
One of the blessings of a good vacation is it reminds you that this verse is actually true. When I am caught up in my “usual daily grind,” it is so easy to miss the glory that is all around me. It is so easy to want to get to my desk and computer instead of pondering how “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.”
Vacations give you a new place, a new context to see this reality. To “see and savor” God’s glory in the world you live in. Seeing new trees, going new places, tasting new foods in Charleston reminded me that God’s world is so much bigger and more glorious than the small corner where I live.
The best vacations give you a chance to enjoy God’s glory in a new place. Even vacations should become avenues to worship.
Good vacations increase your appreciation for the home you have
I don’t know why it is, but one of my favorite blessings of a good vacation is returning home. There is really no feeling like it. You have gone someplace new and enjoyed God’s glory in a new context. But something inside you longs to still go back to the familiar. And when you do, those day to day things you took for granted you start noticing again.
I personally have found myself thanking the Lord for “normal daily blessings” more after coming back from vacation. A job that I like. Coffee brewed myself instead of at a shop. Cooking a meal. Before vacation, these things can seem frustratingly normal and unexciting. But after wandering the wide world and returning to the comforts of your home, all of a sudden you appreciate those comforts all the more.
Before my wife and I left on vacation, we read a “Liturgy for Leaving on a Holiday” from “Every Moment Holy.” One of the ending passages sums up perfectly my feelings on vacations and returning home afterwards:
Bless our journey and our arrival.
Bless our days spent away.
And bless our eventual passage home, that we might return as those who have been revived…(with) strength renewed to shoulder once more the meaningful labor assigned to us in this season.
Every Moment Holy Volume 1, pp 72 Douglas Kaine McKelvey
Vacation revives you to see the meaningful work, meaningful life, meaningful location which the Lord has given you. Sometimes it takes leaving what we take for granted to grow our appreciation for what we have. Good vacations give you the opportunity to return home after your journey and take stock of “every good gift” the Lord has given you.
Good vacations give you the rest needed to keep running the race
Much more could be said about work and rest and how they are discussed in Scripture. One of the blessings of a vacation the rest you receive. Life can become very discouraging and overwhelming, even for a believer. Before I left for my vacation, I had probably the most stressful and discouraging day at work that I have ever had.
But a few days away has allowed me to return to my job with a proper attitude and energy to tackle the problems at hand. The best vacations, in my opinion, are not merely “trips” where you go someplace and fill every second of your schedule with things to see and do. Vacations in my definition should include an element of rest. Why? Because even the most zealous, ministry-minded believers sometimes need to pause.
And (Jesus) said to (His disciples), “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
Mark 6:31 ESV
Even Jesus planned rest for Himself and His disciples. The best vacations don’t leave you feeling empty when you return home. Vacations are a way for you to catch your breath, refocus on the Lord, and then return home with renewed conviction and purpose.
The Lord can use vacations as a powerful tool to keep you running the race of faith with endurance.
Conclusion
There are certainly more blessings brought about through vacations. The three I have given here are just my personal reflections the day after I got back from Charleston. I have found myself noticing the glory of the Lord around me in creation more frequently, I have become more grateful for good gifts God has given me, and I feel rested and ready for the tasks God has given me.
My hope is that you too will reflect as you take vacations this summer. What is the Lord teaching you? How do vacations aid you in your ultimate purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him forever? What is the spiritual benefit of this vacation?
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
May even our vacations become avenues to glorify our great God.
