Just Got Paid Today

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.  — Colossians 3:23-24

No matter what we do for a living, or just for living, it is the Lord's work.  Most people we know, maybe even ourselves, need a change in perspective.  Whether a person is CEO or janitor, teacher, union boss, guard or governor, housewife or construction worker, he or she is able to do that job to please the Lord.  A person can be engaged in things that run generally counter to God's will and the rightness of that work has to be considered in a larger context — an assassin, for example.  Surely a hooker might want to look for a more legitimate and honest line of work, and the same for a professional politician — but I repeat myself.

Aside from the immoral, anything we do can be done as for God.  Paul addressed his words initially to slaves in the Roman Empire who might be assigned demeaning tasks by cruel masters.  It did not matter.  The Christian can turn an unjust demand into an opportunity to serve the Lord. 

Most of us these days are not faced with deep moral dilemmas on the job.  Our questions run more along the lines of whether or not our work is meaningful and significant.  Are doctors or EMTs or police officers more important than restaurant servers or factory workers?  Should we value teachers above farmers or truckdrivers?  In purely economic terms, supply and demand may should determine monetary compensation.  But how much we are paid has nothing to do with whether or not our work is significant.  A mother who stays home and raises her children is unquestionably worth more than the quarterback of a professional football team.  Only a handful of individuals can achieve on the football field, and because there are thousands willing to surrender large amounts of money to watch those activities, the players are well-paid.  With enough love and a little help from the Lord, anyone can become a reasonably good parent, despite the immense difficulty of it.  Good parents may be known only to their children, and their reward in monetary terms may be non-existent, but they are great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Right now close to a fifth of the working population have no job at all or they have taken work that is "beneath" them.  Some will say they will do whatever they have to do to take care of their families.  Whatever their belief system, such people are not far from the kingdom.  God is not asking us to always love what we do, necessarily; He asks us to love why we do it, to change the focus of our day-to-day work from making a living to living for Him.  It doesn't matter what the name is on the hat or who signs the paycheck; it doesn't matter if we drive a truck or fly a rocket to Mars; we work for the Master.