I was reading the book: “Going Public With Your Faith” by William Caar Peel and Walt Larimore and I came across the quote below:
“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly–but what use is all that if in the very centre of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? “ ….Dorothy Sayers
We can relate the quote above to the following verses of Colossians 3:
“And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father” Col 3:17 (NLT)
“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” Col 3:23 (NLT)
The key word for me is WHATEVER. The summary of the quotes is that as a Banker, an Engineer, Teacher, Soldier or a Stay-at-Home Parent, and indeed whatever we find ourselves doing, we should see every aspect of our lives as part of our worship to God, because we indeed spend a major part of our lives outside the church and worship ought not to be confined to the church building.
The average Christian sees a clear difference between the secular life and the sacred life, whereas there is no difference in the eyes of our Father. With this mindset, we make distinctions between our work as Christians at the workplace and the work of the Pastors in the churches. We easily forget that the death and resurrection of Jesus has made all of us a generation of priests. The pastor oversees a local assembly while colleagues make up the congregation for the Christians at the workplace.
We are required to fly the banner of Christ at work, while living above reproach and exceeding work targets and the expectations of our bosses. Our lives at work must never give people any reason to speak against our Faith and our Father. Instead, we should shine the light so brightly, lifting up the name of our Lord and thereby attracting more and more people to the Kingdom of our God. Our excellence and general conduct outside the walls of the church and especially at work should drive people to seek to know the God we worship.
The Bible and even history books are filled with examples of men who saw their work as worship and thereby became world changers. These are men that we look up to today as heroes of our faith:
Nehemiah was a government official, serving under the kings of Persia. Joseph metamorphosed from slave to servant to prisoner and eventually a top government official in Egypt. Abraham was more like an entrepreneur specialised in livestock farming. Daniel was an adviser to several kings in Babylon. William Wilberforce was a distinguished Member of Parliament in England. One thing that is common to these great men is that each one was outstanding at work, displaying extraordinary excellence. Nothing stops you from forming part of this list. The grace of God is sufficient for you.
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