Dear Friends,
Thank you for engaging with this blog and for your encouragement along the journey.
A quick reminder that these series of blogs will only be of use to someone who is:
- a follower or disciple of Jesus Christ
- committed to obeying Jesus Christ in all areas of life including the workplace
As we prayed at the beginning, I continue to seek God’s direction through His Holy Spirit with regards to the direction for the blog.
The last mini-series focused on biblical principles of work:
- The rhythm of Rest and Work
- Vision and Creativity
- Partnership
- Leadership
- Good Character
I am aware there are other principles of work we could have focused on so the above five is not exhaustive. May I recommend that you go back to the relevant blog if there are any of the five principles you need to refresh?
What I believe God is leading us to next is to review biblical examples of Good and Bad workers. The aim is so that we can learn to emulate the good ones and to steer away from the mistakes of the bad.
What better way to start the examples than the comparison between God and Man?
Examples from the Garden of Eden
So we begin from the book of Genesis where God gave us the perfect example of work and Adam gave us the worst.
God gave us examples of all the five principles of work already discussed and we can see these in the first 3 chapters of Genesis:
- God had a vision of what He wanted to create and we can all see the beauty and complex range of His creation in the universe – Genesis Chapter 1
- God created mankind in partnership with the triune Godhead – Genesis 1:26. He also showed partnership with Adam, for example, allowing him to name all the animals created – Genesis 2:19
- God worked during the day and rested at night, He worked 6 days and rested on the 7th – Genesis 2:2
- God showed leadership by giving Adam clear instructions about what he can and cannot eat in the garden and He explained the consequence of disobedience – Genesis 2:15-17
- God showed His compassionate character by creating Eve to compliment Adam – Genesis 2:21. He also cared for both of them even after their disobedience by clothing them – Genesis 3:21
Examples from the Carpenter
As shared in the last blog, Jesus is the exact representation of His being (Hebrews 1:3) and in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body (Colossians 2:9). These scriptures give us confirmation that we can know the full nature and character of God through Jesus Christ.
The life of Jesus illustrates characters we must emulate such as obedience to God, humility, love, compassion, caring, trustworthiness, truthful, respect, honest, welcoming, gentle, just, fair, generous, etc.
It is important to understand that Jesus was fully God and fully man when He lived on the earth for those 33 years. The bible and Jesus himself taught that there is nothing Jesus did that we, His disciples cannot do. However, I am convinced that this is only possible as long as we remain fully connected to God and submitted to the leading of the Holy Spirit. That is what Jesus did throughout His time here!
As we have previously discussed, the challenge for us in using Jesus Christ as our model of work is that very little is written in the Bible about Jesus as a Carpenter which was His secular job. On the other hand, the Bible gave us extensive coverage of His Ministry work in the last 3 years of His life. My understanding is that God did not want us to put too much emphasis on our secular job, but to see ourselves doing the ‘Kingdom work’ in our secular jobs.
Adam, on the other hand, gave us bad examples of how to live with characters such as disobedience, pride, greed, arrogance, jealousy, envy, betrayal, and irresponsible behaviour. Again, all these can be seen in the first 3 chapters of Genesis culminating in the disobedience to God’s command recorded as the first sin of mankind.
God created Adam and placed him in a beautiful garden with the instruction to work the garden and take care of it (Genesis 2:15). God only told Adam one thing he must not do, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die”.
I would propose that the big difference between Adam and Jesus, apart from Jesus being incarnate God, is how they respond to God’s command. Adam, who was made from the dust of the earth chose to disobey God in the garden of Eden. On the other hand, Jesus, who is God Himself chose to obey God the Father, causing Him to lose everything for a while, even to lose His life on the Cross. Jesus chose to surrender to the will of the Father in the garden of Gethsemane to redeem all humanity. Thank you Jesus!
The scale – Good or bad?
The lesson for all of us is that obedience to God is key. We show good character in work if we obey God and we show bad characters in disobedience. We take care of ourselves by having good work and rest rhythm, we work in partnership with others and lead others to Christ in obedience to God. The same can be applied to all other biblical principles of work that we have discussed. As God Himself puts it in John 14:15 and repeated two more times in the same chapter ‘If you love me, keep my commands’.
If we ‘get’ the Gospel and understand what Jesus did for us, we will love Him. And if we love Him we will obey His commands. His commands are to love God and to love people and we will demonstrate these by following the example of Jesus. So I suppose the real question for each of us is – are we saved in Christ?
I will end this blog by reminding us that Jesus Christ is offering the gift of salvation and eternal life to anyone who will place his or her faith in Him. All He asks is that you recognise you are not perfect (a sinner), that you confess and sincerely repent of your past sins, that you put your faith in Him, and ask Him to come into your heart and help you live a life of obedience from now on. You may pray to Jesus in your own words using the above pointers and as He promised in His words, He will come into your life.
If you just prayed the above prayer, please tell someone you know is a Christian so they can support you to grow in your new faith. Please feel free to contact us by email if you need additional support.
For those of us that just need to rededicate ourselves to God, we can still repent of our disobedience and ask God to help us to be a better representative of Him in the workplace and according to His word, He will help us.
Please continue to send your feedback and comments to hello@fmministry.co.uk or use the comment box below.
God bless you and keep growing in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Adesina