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Christian, Your Job Is a Ministry Job

Your Job Is to Make God Look Great

In chapter eight of Don’t Waste Your Life, titled “Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5,” John Piper explains why secular work is designed to be God-like work:

So if you go all the way back, before the origin of sin, there are no negative connotations about secular work. According to Genesis 2:2, God himself rested from his work of creation, implying that work is a good, God-like thing. And the capstone of that divine work was man, a creature in God’s own image designed to carry on the work of ruling and shaping and designing creation. Therefore, at the heart of the meaning of work is creativity. If you are God, your work is to create out of nothing. If you are not God, but like God—that is, if you are human—your work is to take what God has made and shape it and use it to make him look great.

That is your calling today in whatever God has given you to do: make God look great. According to 1 Corinthians 7.17–24″ data-version=”esv” data-purpose=”bible-reference”>1 Corinthians 7:17–24, your job (assuming it’s not inherently unethical or immoral) is a ministry assignment from God. It may not be your career assignment, but it’s today’s assignment. And God wants you to carry out that assignment with dependent faith, diligence and excellence.

All work faithfully accomplished for the glory of Jesus in dependence on the Holy Spirit is spiritual work.

If God calls you someday to be a vocational minister, wonderful! It will be your privilege to be a servant-equipper to your brothers and sisters whose ministry it is to make God look great in the world. Just don’t long for vocational ministry because it’s more spiritual than other work. All work faithfully accomplished for the glory of Jesus in dependence on the Holy Spirit is spiritual work.

So wherever Jesus assigns you, “remain with God” (1 Corinthians 7:24) and see it as your ministry. Make it your mission “to take what God has made and shape it and use it to make him look great.”