If Jesus is the Single Passion you live by (chapter 1), the beauty of what Christ did on the cross is the blazing centre of your joy in life (chapter 2 and 3) and, therefore, the goal of you life is to gladly make others glad in that same Jesus (chapter six), then that somehow has to be apparent in your work life.
The way we work is a vital part of us not wasting our lives, and as Piper says in chapter 8, that doesn't mean that everyone as soon as you become a Christian should leave your work for full time ministry.
Please don't hear in the phrase "secular vocation" any unspiritual or inferior comparison to "church vocation" or "mission vocation" or "spiritual vocation." I simply mean the vocations that are not structurally connected to the church. There is such a thing as being in the world but not of the world, as Jesus taught when he prayed in John 17:15-16, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." So Jesus' intention is that his disciples remain in the world (which is what I mean by "secular jobs"), but that they not be "of the world"...
~John Piper, DWYL, p132
The idea reflects back to Jesus' call for His people to be "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" in Matthew 5. Salt is spread throughout a whole dish to enhance the flavour of it all. You get one bit of your soup that has a congealed blob of salt and that bit will taste fierce! Salt needs to spread out to be effective.
God has placed you in your job... to be salty for that network of people you have relationship with. So consider today how you make the most of Christ in your workday.
No comments:
Post a Comment