To love someone is to work for their highest good.  Edwin Louis Cole

Last week we established a significant difference between a mere job and the potential to work in a way that honors God. Today, let’s take a moment to explore work a little deeper and understand more clearly how valuable work is for each of us.

Sam Smith, the ever-perceptive and witty founding Pastor of Faith Christian Center, in Seekonk,MA., the church my wife and I attend, used to say, “If something was worth doing, it was worth doing right.”  His fresh quips were invariably traceable to his most faithful source—the Bible.  He knew good works are an expression that springs from the principle of our love for God.  It’s a heart-felt condition of gratefulness in those who truly believe.

Our individual understanding of who God is must not dismiss the fact that He is a working God.  Beside working to create all things, He created us in His image and likeness which means not only do we look like Him, we can act or work like Him too.  According to author Dr. Myles Monroe in his book Releasing Your Potential, several things complement this subject: 1) Refusing to work is to deny the opportunity to fulfill our potential. 2) The absence of work is stealing. 3) We rob ourselves and others when we are lazy. 4) The cure for poverty is hard work.

How many of us love responsibility, but not the accountability that goes along with it?  The accountability piece eliminates the excuses, blaming others, and the quitter options.  Rather than being the wild card we’ve all used to bail out from what we are supposed to do, accountability is the all-in commitment that tethers us to the fullness of our working assignment.

Let’s do ourselves a favor this week and take a moment to make an honest assessment as to where we are in terms of our job/work package and our accompanying attitude.  Let’s examine our hearts to check our motive.  No matter what we are doing, are we merely jobbing or are we laboring in love for the highest good of those around us.  God knows and so should we!

Finally, family and friends, may we adopt the feisty outlook of former President Teddy Roosevelt. It was he who said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.”

1 Cor 10:31; John 14:15, 23; Gal 5:6.