How do you view your work?

How do you view your work? I bet if I asked that question to 10 different people, I’d get 10 different answers. Maybe to some, work is just a way to earn a living and provide for their household. Maybe work is where someone finds a sense of achievement and the opportunity to advance – advance in position, advance in status, advance in life. Maybe others view their work as a way to feel fulfilled and contribute to a community. I’m sure there are plenty more ways that you could think of to answer that question.

Here’s a bold statement for you: How you view your work reveals a lot about the health of your soul. Allow me to illustrate a little bit.

When you first meet someone, how quickly do you get to the question (or some version of it), “What do you do for a living?” To be honest, it is probably one of the first three questions I would ask someone that I just met. Now, why do you think that this question is so important that we feel the need get to the bottom of it right away? Perhaps the answer is not so difficult. As a culture, we tend to connect our profession to our identity. Our work often defines who we are as people. 

There are certain implications to this sort of thinking. Here’s one implication – you will inevitably look for your worth and value in your work. That means that your worth and value will be completely tied to your job performance – a shaky foundation at best. 

Here’s another implication – you will inevitably look for your own salvation in your work. You will judge your worth to God based on the works you perform through your profession. This will be as fruitful as chasing after the wind. 

But grace gives you a re-orientation. Grace has freed you from looking for your salvation in your work. Grace has freed you from searching for your worth and value in your work. Grace has freed you because grace has shown you that you are so valuable and worth so much to God that he would give his only Son just to save you. Grace has freed you because Jesus has already saved you. 

“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one could boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

That freedom allows you to look at your work in a healthy way. Your work is the way that you serve and the way that God serves others through you. The pressure is off. Salvation is won. So, work diligently.