Anything worth doing is worth doing well. That is good old fashioned advice, the kind we won’t shake a stick at. But, that advice is missing a key ingredient, namely, the only way to do anything well is to do it unto the Lord.
I grant that pride and some natural stubbornness can motivate a man to climb Mount Everest or put in more hours at the gym than the next guy. But these sources of energy will fail you, deceive you, and at the end of the day, they don’t provide the horsepower that devotion to the Lord provides.
Paul said, “whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “Whatsoever ye do” means nothing is excluded. Whether you change diapers, plow driveways, run suicides, shoot jump shots, complete math homework, shuttle children from one end of town to the other, cook dinner, or answer e-mail, you must do it unto the Lord.
And this is no sentimental statement. You can’t do a lousy job and then claim to fix it by singing the doxology over it. “There is my lame work,” we say. “And now I will sanctify it with a benediction.” No, you may not do that. A benediction is not a bit of hocus pocus that turns the fruits of our laziness into the fruits of the diligent. “But I sang the doxology unto the Lord,” comes the reply. OK, fine and good. But the text said that your work was to be unto the Lord.
This kind of life is not like the one Israel lived when making bricks without straw for Pharaoh. We server our Father who loves us and gave His Son for us. He accepts C+ offerings so long they are offered up in faith. He then sends us back out with training to do greater works than before. And those works must be unto the Lord.
Jared Longshore – January 28, 2024
