MARIA CURREY | CONTRIBUTOR

My mouth was needle-numbed on one side, wide open, gauze in one corner, a blue plastic place holder clamped between my feeling teeth and gums, and the drilling began. A cavity filling from childhood outlived its lifespan and needed to be replaced. Silenced, numbed, and essentially gagged, I was at the mercy of my dentist’s expertise and experience. Soon I was back in business, ready to chew again!

Aren’t you grateful when someone has the education, gifting, and ability to do his or her job? Whether a stay-at-home mom, plumber, teacher, truck driver, doctor, or in ministry, the work each person does matters and has intrinsic value. Mothers cover countless roles and responsibilities around the clock, a plumber unclogs backed up waters and broken pipes, a teacher provides insights to all eventual jobs, truck drivers ensure supplies are transported and delivered, a doctor of any specialty facilitates healing and wellness, while one in ministry facilitates spiritual healing and wellness.  When we stop to consider what it means to work, in every job, calling, or duty, we all need each other and the work done around us. Our world rotates in daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles of work.

Working for the Lord

As workers for Christ, however, we are freed to a heavenly, God-given approach to work. Paul encourages the church in Colossae to work as if they are working for the Lord. Colossians 3:23-24 exhorts, “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.”

Rather than being ruled by human masters—those who have people working for them as servants or slaves—we work as unto God. We were created by God to be workers. You and I are God’s workmanship, fearfully and wonderfully created and prepared within our mother’s wombs to walk out His purposes within us for His glory. Your work was anointed and appointed from within the fibers of your beginning (Eph. 2:10).

In whatever profession, position, place, or walk and work of life to which you are called, you are not ultimately serving earthly masters but serving Christ alone. Does it mean you are not accountable to be honorable and respectable within the jobs you work and serve? No, and in fact, you are called to a higher standard of integrity. You are chosen and equipped in Christ to offer God and others the fullest measure of excellence in every facet of work you do.

A human master holds you in a limited capacity to a certain number of hours, certain stipulations by calendar and clock, ticking of days and weeks which are humanly calculable. Expectations are delineated by measurable evaluations, a performance to be reviewed. Much more, by Christ’s measurement, you are called to mirror the Master—to be Christlike, immeasurably more by His power manifested through you (Eph. 3:20-21).

Master of His Masterpieces: How are You Christlike?

God holds His masterpiece, you and I, created before time, knit together by His own hand, imagined by the Image Maker Himself to reflect His glory and give Him glory.

Psalm 90:17 encourages, “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!”

Look at your hands. As the Master of your very hands, the Lord shined His favor and fashioned your fingers to work for Him. He established the work of your hands before you took your first breath, before He created Adam and Eve to work the soil prior to the fall, instilled holy fear within Noah as architect of the ark, whispered wisdom to Elijah in a gentle wind, and ultimately placed Jesus within Mary’s womb by His Spirit. God as the Master-Protector and Master-Provider fulfills His Masterplan through you as His image bearer.

Master-Worthy: Who Estimates the Value of Your Work?

While performance evaluations may gauge estimable production, they do not measure your true worth; worthiness of Jesus and His completely sacrificial work on the cross as your Lamb holds the full measure, He who paid for you and took the entire brunt beyond evaluation to bear the cursed judgment you deserved. The balance of that evaluation is grace, God’s unmerited favor. You serve not because you are held as a slave to sin but as servant of the Holy Master, privileged to pour yourself out, imitator as image bearer on behalf of those who have yet to hear and learn about His salvation love, His hope of inestimable eternal value. Because Christ went to the cross, you bear your own cross, often through the work to which He calls you.

Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-sixth President of the United States, served from 1901-1909. He was a man with a strong faith and a solid work ethic. Roosevelt understood the value of hard work, saying, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” When God sets before you the work for your hands, whatever it may be, it is work worth doing because it comes from Him. He has given us work into which we are able to sink our spiritual teeth because it is made ready by His worthy Master-hands. As God’s masterpieces, our work springboards from the Master-Creator who gave us eternal life to accomplish His glorious kingdom purposes. Our reward is an eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus. So, whatever you do, work at it with ALL your heart, as working for the Lord!

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash