Do you sometimes wonder if your work has any real meaning to God? In light of eternity, is my job really seen as significant in God's view? Is it merely to provide a conduit of evangelism? Is it just something for me to do in order to pay the bills that are due each month? Do you sometimes feel you live a double life - church on Sunday, but back to work life on Monday? Could it be possible that our spiritual life, our faith, can have something to do with the making of money?

The Bible is quite clear, and refreshingly so, that there is heavenly value in our earthy work! This applies to students, to full time moms raising children, to retired individuals, to bankers, and many so called secular jobs across the spectrum of vocations. The good work that God has for us according to the Scriptures is far broader than just Sunday morning Sunday school preparation. Let me point out to you the typical wrong views of our work that Christians typically hold:

1. Secular View - This is the view that the ultimate purpose of work is to fulfill yourself. The badges of this view of work are material wealth, public recognition, achieving personal worth, and political status. It can be formed by the attitude that I have to do whatever it takes to get the job done even if it means taking bribes, cutting corners. It is a view that suggests God and work have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Mark Whitacre, a former executive of Archer Daniels Midland, just finished a 12 year prison sentence for price fixing from his company. He wrote, "You get this sense of entitlement, it's not the shareholder's company, it's your company." It is a very self-serving perspective that views our work not as a stewardship from God, but as our own personal property. This view was echoed in the movie Wall Street where the villain, played so well by actor Michael Douglas, said that "greed is good." Even in well run companies this can be a major issue.

2. The second wrong view of work is that work is the enemy of faith.This view suggests that the only part of life that really counts to God is the part committed to religious activities such as Bible reading and church attendance. This view believes that our day to day work has no intrinsic value, no inherent worth. It's a view that I have heard people refer to work that "it's gonna all burn up anyway." This view sees work as just meeting our survival needs and is like a prison inmate serving a life sentence, whose job is to move a pile of rocks from one pile to another just to keep him busy and have something to do. It's the idea that work contributes nothing to the greater society.

3. The third wrong view and probably the most popularly held wrong view is summed up by the statement "I must go into full time ministry to really serve the Lord." This view holds that professional ministry - pastor, missionary and evangelist - are really the only ones serving the Lord through their work. William Wilberforce, the great English member of Parliament, fell into this view briefly after his conversion to Christ. He felt he needed to resign his seat in parliament and go to seminary in order to serve the Lord effectively. Wilberforce was visited by clergy and others who wanted to end the slave trade. They had heard he wanted to serve God. They rightly challenged him that he could serve the Lord through his work in the parliament to end the slave trade. This is exactly what became of Wilberforce's life work.

The Scriptures teach us that work in itself has intrinsic value that is inherent worth in and of itself. In Gen. 2:15, "Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it." (NAS) It is vitally important to note that work was given to man before the fall. The Hebrew word used here (AVODAH) means to work, worship, to serve. God has called man here to create, to cultivate, to add value. Even though Adam is in the perfect environment with God, with no temple, no liturgy, he is called to help this garden to flourish and grow and create value. We as humans are made in God's image to create and help things to flourish. This is the cultural mandate from Scripture to humankind. God has not called us to pour concrete over the garden, nor has He called us to be like a Park Ranger to just watch over it. God has called us to add value to it with the talents and gifts that He has given us. Eric Liddell, the Scottish Olympic sprinter, understood this biblical view of adding value. His sister, Jenny, chastised him for devoting so much time to prepare for the 1924 Olympics. Jenny felt that he should have been devoting more time to preparing for future missionary work. Eric responded to her, "Jenny, when I run, I feel God's pleasure." (Chariots of Fire)

Eric Liddell understood that his athletic talent was a gift from the Lord. Os Guiness writes in his book The Call about his great-great grandmother. She had been left widowed in 1815 with two small children. She became depressed and suicidal and went to a nearby river with a plan to jump in the water and end her short life. She wrote that as she stood by the river, she caught sight of a farmer on the other side of the river who was neatly and precisely plowing his fields. She became mesmerized by the exquisiteness of this farmer's work and then was convicted of the silliness of jumping in the river. Three weeks later, she was converted to Christ and then three months later she met Capt. John Guiness, the heir to the great Guiness brewery. His mother felt that being arrested by the sight of that farmer on the riverbank who was performing his work so excellently, changed her life and she wanted her family to know about it. The farmer probably never knew the impact he had on Mrs. Guiness back in 1815. But he is read about in 2010! Who knows the impact that you can have on someone's life by doing your work with excellence, as to the Lord as an act of worship? Your work really does matter to God!