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Welcome. Today we’re going to be talking about working for God, and how we can do so. When we work for God, there are some tools we need to keep with us to help ensure we do a proper job. We’re going to talk about five tools we can use to do the Lord’s Work. A carpenter wouldn’t go on a job without his hammer or saw, and so we shouldn’t go to the Lord’s work without these essentials.

And they are essential. This past summer, I had some issues in my life where I ‘misplaced’ a tool or two, and let me tell you, trying to metaphorically ‘cut a board with a measuring tape’ is a losing battle! So it is important to keep your tools with you, and in proper working order!

If I asked you what the biggest problems are today among the faithful, what would your answer be? Might it be moral problems? What about institutional problems with the churches themselves? What about divorce, and the splintering of the family? Or maybe the destruction of traditional values? The list could be very long, that’s for sure. But I would submit that there is an even bigger problem present in the faithful: the lack of work.

Make no mistake, Christianity is not a spectator sport. All believers are supposed to get into the game. Let’s check out the Bible on this issue: (Eph 2:10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Walking in the good works means we should be getting them done. God has marked us all for good works, as this verse tells us. God has set situations and opportunities for us to do good works in His name. That doesn’t mean sit back and watch others do things, nor does it mean to toss a dollar in a plate on occasion, it means to engage ourselves and actively work for God!

And this enthusiasm that I’m talking about isn’t just a quirk of my personality or

anything like that. This too is part of the Word of God that speaks to this issue. Speaking about Christ, (Tit 2:14) Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Thayer’s Greek Definitions tells us that the Greek word translated as ‘zealous’ means one burning with zeal. This agrees with the English definition of the word as well, so we have no way we can possibly duck the meaning we find in this verse.

We are just simply to be zealous about getting the work of the Lord done. It should be something that we look forward to and that excites us. We should be just as into spreading the Word for God as we are about the stats of our favorite sports teams. We should be as into Jesus as we are into what’s happening with the celebrities that fill the rag mags. We should be as studied on God’s Word as we are in our favorite sci-fi series.

Many times, we are not as into God as we’re into those other pop culture things. That’s a real shame because God can give us a joy that no touchdown ever can. The Bible is filled with stories greater than any magazine could ever produce. Jesus is far more interesting and valuable to us all than any two-bit celebrity ever could be. And no sci-fi could top learning about the being that created the entire cosmos!

So we have to focus our studies and learning towards the Word of God and develop the passion and zeal that we are to have for God, who has seen in all His divine mercy and grace, to offer us salvation from sin through Jesus Christ!

The reason why the work we need to do in the world is not done is because we do not equip ourselves with the proper attitudes to get the work done. We do not take time to give ourselves these five tools we’re talking about today. We allow life to interfere with our services, and we become one with the world instead of keeping our eyes on God. We’ll talk about losing ourselves to the world a bit more later. For now, let’s get right into the five tools we need for our service to the Lord.

Tool 1 – A personal love for the Lord. This is pretty obvious. If you don’t love God then you aren’t going to be doing any work for God. But…if you DO love the Lord, then get out there and get your sweat on! Do something, even if it’s just being a bad example! I kid, but we do all need to serve God somehow. For all that God does for us, we can give back, we need to give back. When we sit around and take our blessings from a loving Father, and do nothing in return, we’re really acting like bratty, ungrateful children, even if we are conducting ourselves respectfully in the eyes of the world, we are being at least passively defiant if we do not do works as we’ve been commanded.

(Joh 14:23) Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (Joh 14:24) He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me. Jesus is telling us that if we love Him we’ll do what we’re told. By doing what we’re told, we’re keeping the word of the Father that sent Christ, so it’s a great idea for our spiritual standing to do as we’re told.

By doing what we’re commanded, we exhibiting our love of the Lord. If you do work for God, then odds are you love God, because obedience is a sign of love. And a personal love for God is the best motivator to obedience there is. Let’s check another verse: (1Jn 5:3) For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. God isn’t asking too much of us, and if we have a personal love for God, then we can more than handle the works He would have us do, such as supporting each other, spreading the word of God among the entire world, and uplifting the disadvantaged among us.

In fact, what we do speaks to the truth that we have in our hearts. (1Jn 2:4) He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Here we see that if we have a love of God in our hearts, we are compelled to do something to show it, because if we don’t do anything, we’re not keeping His commands, and therefore we do not have the truth in us. So therefore a love of God requires us to take action in support of that love.

Another personal love we need to have is for the brethren. The Book of Hebrews states it quite plainly. (Heb 13:1) Let brotherly love continue. You really can’t get any more straightforward than that! All of us that carry the love of God in their heart and works as we’re commanded to do have ultimately the same goals, so we really should support each other as we move forward in our respective jobs.

(1Jn 4:20) If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? (1Jn 4:21) And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. We must expel hate from our hearts if we are to love God the way we have been told to. In fact, we’re told to (Heb 10:24) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: we are to inspire each other to good and loving works, instead of hate and darkness. Our personal love should extend to our fellow workers as well.

Moreover, we must have a love for the lost. Let’s consider (Luk 19:10) For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus came to save the lost, that was His main focus. We can see this attitude in (Luk 15:7) I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. So as we know, Jesus came to save sinners, and we know that we are all sinners as we can see in the book of Romans, we can draw from the text the idea that we need to love the ‘lost’.

If you don’t have love in your heart then what you do will not matter anyways. (1Co 13:1) Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. (1Co 13:2) And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (1Co 13:3) And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. By these verses we see that when we do things without love in our hearts it does nothing to help us so therefore we must firstly and always keep love in our hearts, love for our Lord, love for each other, and love for those we are reaching out to help.

Tool 2 – A powerful faith in the Lord. The man that believes nothing will do nothing. This one seems a bit obvious but you would be surprised to find how much faith affects us, and how many of us it does affect. There are great deals of people who aren’t working for the Lord because they lack the faith to take the first steps. I myself wanted to do something like this podcast for the Lord for a very long time but I did not have the faith to step out and serve God like I needed to. I know I wasn’t alone in that position either.

If we don’t think we can do something, if we don’t have faith, we’re not even usually going to try. Most people will not turn to faith and believing on God if they have doubts, they will instead make excuses, and those excuses will keep them from doing whatever it is that they should be doing.

We can see an example of this mentality in the Book of Numbers. Moses sends the spies into the land of Canaan, and after they report back on the strength of the peoples living therein, they doubt that they can take the land that God had given to them. They were freaking out and not having faith in God. (Num 13:31) But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. The spies were afraid and had no faith in the promises of God. We have to make sure we don’t end up like those spies because we know that God did fulfilled His promises as He always does.

With faith all things are possible. Let’s look at an instance when Jesus spoke of faith. When answering His disciples about why they could not cast out a demon He said: (Mat 17:20) And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Notice the size of the faith mentioned by Jesus, that of a mustard seed. A mustard seed is a very small seed that grows into a tree that can reach heights of ten feet or more. The point is that the slightest amount of faith can do things on a miraculous scale. Moving mountains by command is like an epic Jedi level feat.

Beyond this, if you have faith, you have to have works. That’s just the way it is. (Jas 2:17) Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. The converse works as well, if you have works, but no faith, they are dead also. By having the tool of faith you are essentially required to get to work with that tool. This makes all kinds of sense because a hammer can build a house, but it won’t drive a single nail if you never take it out of the toolbox.

It’s like having a lightsaber and never using it, or being the captain of the Enterprise and leaving it sitting in spacedock. The tool is the faith, if you have the faith, then you must put it to use or it is quite literally wasted. This tool probably is the equivalent of the hammer, being one of the most important and most used tools in our arsenal. If faith is the hammer, then works are the nails. So yeah, this is an important tool for us to have.

Tool 3 – A joyful heart. We cannot perform our duties if we are all downhearted and downtrodden. You cannot serve God while in what I call ‘eyore’ mode, a.k.a. “woe is me” and such. No one does great work while they are depressed or look to the task with sadness. If you go with a heavy heart, then you won’t put your heart into your work and then the quality of work suffers for it.

I think you all know this already, but financially, my family is not well off. In all actuality, my computer is probably the most expensive thing I own, more so even than my car. So we’re good friends with being broke, and money troubles are never far away. But we don’t lose heart because we know we are God’s children. We know we have a Heavenly Father looking out for us, and that He has a plan for us. We are working to better our position of course, and we do so with a joyful heart, remembering that there are any number of great things to be happy about in our lives, even if we can’t afford all the new, shiny gadgets that are continually coming out.

I will admit though, this is one tool that I lose on occasion, and that’s why I took an extended break last year. I had a lot of trouble with keeping a joyful heart last year. I allowed the weight of the world to come down on me, and I forgot that I can lean on the Lord to help me through. Instead, I tried to struggle through on my own, which did nothing but make me miserable. I can attest firsthand that we have to remember that God is with us, or else we can easily lose our joyful hearts.

Need some inspiration? (1Jn 3:1) Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (1Jn 3:2) Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. We are the children of God! What does a parent do for a child? Parents look after their children as well as love them with all their hearts. God will look after us and He loves us with all His heart. If there is anything worth being joyful over, that would do it!

Check this out: (Eph 1:3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: God has blessed us all with spiritual blessings! Yet another sign of how much God loves us, and that is something that should make us feel really good. No matter how bad things get in the physical world around us we should remember that God has blessed up spiritually, which is where it really matters.

(2Ti 4:7) I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: (2Ti 4:8) Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing. So if you are keeping the faith and doing the Lord’s work, keep your heart joyous knowing that in that great day we will all receive our crowns. God gives us so many reasons to keep our heart joyful it’s not even funny. When you do take those steps into the dark parts of life try to remember and carry the light of Christ with you. Yea though we sometimes walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need to keep our chins up because God is with us, and He will see us through.

Keeping our hearts joyful is like keeping a saw blade sharp. The better maintained the tool is, the easier the work you’re doing becomes, and not only that, but the quality of your work increases as well. A carpenter keeps his saws sharp, and a Christian should keep their hearts joyful.

Tool 4 – A continual reliance on prayer. Prayer is one of the most important tools that a Christian has. I consider prayer to be a Christian’s ‘heavy artillery’ along with being a tool we can use in the Lord’s work. Prayer is a most basic thing, it is us taking time to speak to God, to listen with our hearts to God, and generally is a great way to get our spiritual bearings.

Not only that, but by praying we are enlisting God’s aid in our endeavors, increasing our effectiveness all the more. Also, (Jas 5:16) Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. The prayers of the righteous man are very productive. That means we can get things done with prayer, and why not? We are praying to the great Creator of all things after all!

If you can’t be motivated to speak to God in prayer, then you are really not going to be willing to do His work, and that’s not good. If you won’t talk to the boss, you aren’t going to take the job seriously, are you? Prayer speaks not only to your commitment but also to state your faith is in. If you don’t pray, then your faith is almost certainly suffering.

Prayer changes things. This is a known fact. It has even been studied by various secular organizations and has born out to be true more than once. We don’t need a university to study the subject for us, for we as Christians know it works either from personal experience, or just from the straight up fact God’s word tells us so. (Mat 7:7) Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: (Mat 7:8) For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. (Mat 7:9) Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? (Mat 7:10) Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? (Mat 7:11) If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

With that said, we should keep in mind to pray for the things that can be changed. If you pray for something outrageous, then you won’t get what you’re praying for. Most likely when you do this, you are praying for something with the wrong mindset. You are likely looking to test God, and that’s a foolish idea at best. Don’t put God to the test, because you may end up on the business end of a very bad situation.

Point is, we are to pray with sincerity, not with a prideful heart. We are to ask God for His intervention in our lives, but we should not, and cannot really, demand anything of God. After all, we are just humans and He is God. Its okay to pray earnestly for great things in the world, but it’s not okay to pray as a test of God’s performance.

So we are to pray for the things that can change earnestly, and pray to accept and be in line with God’s will for everything else. If God chooses to not change something, then we need to pray to have our desire match His.

We must never give up our desire to change things in the world for the better using prayer. We should pray for everything we can, to change everything we see that needs changing. We should pray to be in line with God’s will, but never back off your heavy artillery of prayer. I can find no verses in the Bible telling us that it is possible to annoy God. It just isn’t in there, because I don’t believe we can. So pray it up with an earnest heart as often as you like.

God doesn’t say pray once a night at bedtime. He doesn’t say to limit your prayers to meals either. In fact, the verse I did find says (1Th 5:17) Pray without ceasing. Good advice!

Tool 5 – Our last tool is effort, a persistent effort at that. The work we are to undertake is the job of a lifetime, literally. For us to spread the word and serve our fellow man and do everything else God has asked of us will literally take all our lives. We must stick in there and keep working.

This tool may be a bit harder to elaborate upon, but that is mainly because it is so simply understandable. We know that we need to help the poor in the world and we all know that the likelihood of some kind of Star Trek level utopia where all have plenty is not likely to happen in our lifetimes, if ever at all. So we have to be persistent in our efforts because there will always be work to be done.

Just like God never gives up on us, and never abandons us, we too should remain vigilant in our efforts to keep working for God. Look at Noah, it took him over a century to build the ark, but he didn’t lose faith, he didn’t stop working. Instead he persistently kept at the task God gave him until it was done. And that persistence saved him, his family, and ultimately saved the bloodline of man. And Noah is only one example among many people in the Bible that served the Lord with their lives.

We must also not allow ourselves to be discouraged by a lack of apparent success. Not only might we be reaching people on a level we never know about, God still gives credit for effort. Though I do not have any scripture readily available to prove the thought that it is the effort that counts, I do believe this to be the case. Otherwise the Bible would concern itself with quotas and such when it speaks to what we as Christians should do. We are not told to save ‘x’ amount of souls or do ‘x’ hours in community service, instead we are told to pattern our lives after the example set by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I know its hard sometimes, and I know we all have to occasionally take some time to gather our thoughts and recharge our batteries, just make sure not to stay away permanently and not to fall into the sandpit of day to day life that the Devil seems to throw at us to keep us from service to the Lord.

In conclusion, we need to keep all five of the tools we’ve talked about today available to ourselves, and keep them ready to go so that we can always serve God in a way that is pleasing to Him. If anyone is going to get anything done for God, it’s going to be those that are loving, joyful, faithful, prayerful and persistent that get it done. What shape are your tools in? Until next time, God bless.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 7:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized | . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.