Daily Devotional | The Purpose of Work

For most of us, work plays a major role in our adult life. The money we earn from work helps us put food on the table, affords us shelter, and allows us to purchase many other things, including essentials and non-essentials. We may equate happiness with our success at work and find satisfaction from the time we spend working. Through work, we form lifelong relationships and can even discover lifetime friendships. Our sense of fulfillment and purpose can stem from work.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Genesis 2:15 (NIV)

Scripture holds work in high regard. The Bible teaches us that it is good to work. We see God at work in creation and as our sustainer and provider. He works as our counselor, our teacher, as a carpenter and as a gardener. As believers, we can honor God by doing our work with integrity and performing our duties with excellence. In our respective workplaces, we can be ambassadors for our faith, pointing people to the Cross and to Christ.  Regardless of the work we do, our work matters, not only for what it provides for us materially today but for the eternal gift it can reveal to those we work alongside daily.

Prayer:

Lord, please help me as I go out into my workplace. Equip me to work with excellence and to have a joyful spirit in the tasks You have put before me. Let me be an ambassador for Your kingdom and a vessel sharing the Gospel with those I work alongside. Give me a listening ear, an open mind, a loving heart so that I may draw people nearer to an eternal relationship with You. Let me not gossip or speak unkindly of others, but lift up people with the words I speak. Allow my actions to line up with my belief in You so that I may walk with integrity in the workplaces You have called me to be in. Thank You, God, for the privilege of work. Allow me to bring You glory through the work I do. In Jesus’ name.