Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Colossians 3:23 (NIV)
Work Heartily
According to the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 website, “The Dutch and Germans were praised for their agricultural prowess and hearty work ethics. Both the Germans and Dutch established strong ethnic block settlements in the West. The Germans flocked mainly to Saskatchewan, and established two large colonies in the early 1900s. Germans from the United States settled in St. Peter’s colony, comprised of fifty townships, which had 7,000 people in 1914. European Germans favoured St. Joseph’s colony, comprised of seventy-seven townships, where the 1916 population hovered around 11,000.”
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Too often, work is seen as drudgery. It’s why so many people live for weekends and days off. At the same time, far too many people get to retirement and find they don’t know what to do with their time. It’s a bit of a conundrum. Human beings are designed by our Creator to do work – even before sin entered into the heart of Adam and Eve and ruined everything, God called the first human beings to work the garden. If we don’t allow our work to become our god, it can play a healthy part in our lives. The Bible gives some good advice in keeping work in balance. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” All that we do as followers of Jesus we do for His glory. Work becomes worship when we desire to honour God in all that we do during the day. It isn’t difficult to put our all into our work when we know we are using the gifts that God has given us, and finding fulfillment in that.
These have been words from the heart.
Bob Beasley