Feeling God’s Pleasure at Work

Which Best Describes You:

“God made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

“I’ve never known contentment. I’m forever in pursuit, and I don’t even know what it is I’m chasing.”

There is work that fits and there is work that gives us fits.

Ecclesiastes 5:18 (NCV) I have seen what is best for people here on earth. They should eat and drink and enjoy their work…

Ecclesiastes 2:22-23 (ESV) What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation…

Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. Do I have the right theology about work?

Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Colossians 3:23 (NJB) Whatever your work is, put your heart into it as done for the Lord and not for human beings…

2. Is my work in harmony with my core values?

3. Does my work demonstrate my uniqueness?

Psalm 139:13-16 (MSG) Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.

See S.H.A.P.E. Class, Core Class 301

4. Have I given the work I’m doing a fair shot?

Genesis 3:17-18 (NASB) “…Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field.”

Some Things to Remember:

God can use pressure at work to teach you responsibility.

Ephesians 5:15 (Phillips NT) “Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days.”

God can use problems at work to teach me character.

Romans 5:3-4 (TLB) We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character in us and helps us trust God more each time we use it until finally our hope and faith are strong and steady.

5. Am I doing my work for God’s glory?

John 8:54 (NIV) Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.”

John 12:27-28 (NASB) But for this purpose I came to this hour. “Father, glorify Your name.”

Galatians 3:13 (NASB) Christ redeemed us from the curse…having become a curse for us.