Dignified Work

Ex.20: ⁹ “You have six days each week for your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day, no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants…”

The fourth commandment is the longest commandment and it has two parts. The first part focuses on the dignity of work and the second part focuses on the blessings of rest. God starts off by saying, “You have six days each week for your work.” 

The commandment is hugely about the rest; but without the work, there can be no rest. Work is a gift and we need to see work as an expression of the image of God in us. If you are working in the cleaning department of your organization, understand that it is an expression of God’s image in you. How so? God is a God of order. If you are in a security personnel, that job is an expression of God in you. God is protective; “the One that watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps”. Being a parent is an expression of God’s image because God nurtures. Regardless of what you do, as long as it is legal, it is an expression of God.

Work is not primarily for making money, or for making ends meet. Work is primarily an expression of God’s image in us. God did not put Adam in the garden and promise him a wage at the end of the month. The issue of a wage did not even come up because the labourer is worthy of his wages. If Adam works well, the garden will produce. God did not make the heavens and the earth in the hopes that He would make some money from it –by the way, who can pay God? So, work is more than just a way of making money. Work is about fulfilling the responsibility that God has given you. Providing for your family is work; provision is work that God has given you.

Ex.20:¹¹ “For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”  Could God not have made the heavens and the earth in one day? He could have completed all of creation in a fraction of an instant. So why did it take Him six days? It is to teach us that you do not have to do everything in one day! And that is a big lesson!

Prayer: Holy Spirit, help me to be excellent in all that God has placed in my hands to do, knowing that it is an expression of God’s image in me, in Jesus Name. Amen!