With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)
When performance evaluations are handed out in heaven, bonuses will go to those who made themselves useful to God outside the walls of the church.
Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. The church is ordained by God as His instrument for the training and equipping of His people, and as such, it will always have a role in His kingdom. Those who suggest it's time to do away with the local church swim against the Scriptures, which give it an honored place in God's plan.
Still, for most of us, the work God assigns us is outside the walls of the church. That means, for most of us, what we do on Monday morning matters as much to God as what we do on Sunday morning. In fact, those among us who believe we can live our lives apart from God on Monday through Saturday and then make up for it by keeping Sunday holy, or by using Sunday as a palate cleanser to erase the taint of our weekday actions, will be sorely disappointed by God's response.
Where you are when you read these words is where God expects you to do His work. Passages like Isaiah 58, Micah 6 and James 1 make it clear God is impatient with religious gestures not backed up by real-world actions.
If you're disgusted by the human condition, imagine His view of things. If you're flustered by an inability to get workers motivated, imagine His view of Christians who do their work half-heartedly. If you're disappointed in coworkers who sit and complain about the boss, imagine His disdain when it's His children doing the complaining.
God expects His people to equip themselves to be useful to Him by being useful to His creation. He expects us to reflect His character in our relationships with customers, coworkers and vendors. He expects us to be outraged by injustice, and to do something about it. He expects us to be concerned by poverty, homelessness and disease, and to do something about it. He expects us to see the gloomy destiny of those who don't know His Son, and to do something about it.
That we don't like our jobs, or aren't being challenged by them, or aren't being adequately compensated for them may be issues He chooses to address (or not), but He never tolerates them as excuses for dishonoring Him by giving less than our best effort.
Fasting, quiet times, church attendance, teaching Sunday School, reading the Bible; all of these are important aspects of our relationship with God. But they are not ends unto themselves, but rather ongoing training tools for the real work He calls us to: the places we go to work. When God goes looking for us, those are the places He expects to find us, with right hearts, doing our work as if He were supervising our efforts directly (Col. 3:23).
Michael Carter, Realtor Greenville, SC www.beachboyrealestate.com
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