Working For God

My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.
–John 4:34

In Matthew 21, the father gave his two sons the same command: “Son, go work today in the vineyard.” I would like to point out four principles I see in the father’s command.

First of all, Jesus reminded us that God has given every Christian a job to perform. It is not popular in today’s Christian culture to talk about working for God. People say, “God is not as interested in what we do for Him as He is in our relationship with Him.” Imagine you tell your child to clean up their room, but an hour later, you find your child sitting in the corner with their eyes closed in a meditative trance. You say, “What are you doing?” “Oh, I am just meditating on how much I love you and how wonderful our relationship is. I am just enjoying our time together.” How would you respond? “That is great, but get to work!” We want our children to enjoy a relationship with us, but we also them want to do what we have asked them to do.

It is the same way with God. God is interested in our relationship with Him, but He is also interested in our performance–it is through our obedience that we prove we really are children of God. In John 4:34, Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” The only reason Jesus was on earth for thirty-three years was to the do the work God commanded Him to do. In John 9:4, Jesus said, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day.” Every one of us has a job to do.

Second, our main work is to perform God’s work. Regardless of where our paycheck comes from, our main assignment is to do God’s work. Jesus told us in Matthew 28:19 what that work is. He said, “Make disciples of all the nations.” The reason God has left us here on earth is to introduce people to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and to help them grow in their relationship with Him. We are to be working in God’s vineyard.

Let’s get personal for a moment. All of us are busy and tired. But what are you tired from? Look back over the last few weeks at your activities. How much time did you spend doing the one thing God asked you to do? How much time and energy did you devote to either introducing people to Jesus or helping them grow in their relationship with Him? Even in church work, it is easy to get bogged down in peripheral things instead of doing the one thing we were commanded to do. Our main work is to do God’s work, and God’s work is introducing people to Christ.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “The Other Story About The Two Sons” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2008.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org