Hard Work or Hardly Working?
Sometimes, when people talk about giving 100%,
this image tells you what they really mean!
If you are called by God to do a work, then do it with all your skill, all your love, all your energy and all your time.
That makes sense to me.
For the most part, I have a pretty good work ethic.
I have a developed sense of responsibility.
I have an awareness of the urgency of the day.
I am deeply committed to the purposes of God that He has planned to be done in and through my own life (Ephesians 2:10).
I also am in community with a team of spiritual friends who are passionate and committed to the Lord and His work. They movitave me and inspire me with their ethic of excellence.
Unfortunately, there are some times when I am not so diligent, not so disciplined, not so faithful.
I recently read an exhortation from the great Reformer, Martin Luther, who had a tremendous work ethic. Being in the style of Martin's blunt and direct speech, he'll get right to the point.
Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. they do not pray; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture. . . . The call is to watch, study, attend to reading. In truth you cannot read too much in Scripture; and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, adn what you teach well you cannot live too well.
The devil, the world, and our flesh are raging and raving against us. Therefore, dear sirs and brothers (and sisters), pastors and preachers, pray, read, study, be dilgent...
This evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring.
Quoted in The Legacy of Sovereign Joy
by John Piper, pp 86.
Okay Martin - you speak to me.
The goal is not to do as little as we can to get by.
The goal is to be as faithful as we can, as diligent as we can, as disciplined as we can, as hard working as we can . . . all by God's grace. This is the testimony of Scripture.
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith. (1 Peter 5:8-9)
But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might . . . (Ecclesiastes 9:10)
.It is also the ethos of one of my favorite leaders, Ignatius of Loyola, who believed in mas, magis, more for the glory of God. In fact, that became the motto for the Society of Jesuits (AMDG).
Ad majorem
Dei glorium
For the greater glory
of God
If you have fallen off in your steadfastness and diligence in the service of the Lord Christ, and if you are neglecting the preparation you must constantly do so you do your work well, it will be good to spend time in prayer on these things.
Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com
