by Dick Doster

I recently asked 100 people – who all attend church regularly – a simple question: why do you work? 

And from all 100, I got the same answer: money. They all expressed it in their own way, and none of them just coldly blurted it out. But their answer was the same. Every one of these God-fearing, Bible-reading men and women drag themselves out of bed every morning and wrestle their way through Atlanta traffic for one reason: to get money.

It’s a bad answer. And it is why the Church has lost so much of its influence in the world. All of us, faithful and faithless alike, spend nearly 70% of our waking lives at work. And that means that the motivation and inspiration for the faithful – 70% of the time – is precisely the same as everyone else’s. So, it’s only natural, when the non-believing world examines the way we live, they don’t see anything different. They don’t see anything about our lives that’s very compelling, or inspiring, or, for that matter, very interesting. Most of the time, we – just like the rest of the world – are all about the money.

But our lives ought to be about a different pursuit. We need to become reacquainted with the notion that God uses our work to meet the needs of His people. Our work isn’t supposed to be primarily about the money. It is, above all, about loving our neighbor. In their book "Your Work Matters to God" Doug Sherman and William Hendricks give a great illustration. They point out that most us, when we have dinner, thank God for the food. We do that because we believe He provided it, but we recognize that it didn’t drop out of heaven on to your plate. God used farmers to grow the vegetables. He used bankers to arrange the financing of the farmers’ land and equipment. He used a tractor salesman to provide the farmer with machinery to harvest his crops. And He used factory workers to build the machinery.

By God’s design, there are truck drivers to haul the food from the farm to the grocery store. And that means there must be truck builders and road builders, too. And at the grocery store there are stockroom boys, cashiers, and bag boys. In our culture, if you’re grateful to God for your food, you’ve got to be grateful for thousands of people who played a part in getting it to you. They all helped to provide you with your most basic need. And if they’re work provided for your need – didn’t they love you by doing the work?

It was Martin Luther who most emphatically pointed out that work was instituted by God to make sure mankind’s needs are met. It is by our work in the secular world, Luther said, that the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick healed, the ignorant enlightened, and the weak protected. It is through our work, he believed, that God’s people participate in His ongoing care for the human race.

If we want our work to be about something more profound, we’ve got to understand that work is our best opportunity to love our neighbors as ourselves. Cotton Mather, the Puritan preacher, once said, "God has made man a social creature. We expect benefits from human society. … human society should receive benefits from us. We are beneficial to society by the works of that special occupation in which we are employed…." And in the Institutes, John Calvin wrote, "all the gifts we posses have been bestowed by God and entrusted to us on condition that they be distributed for our neighbors’ benefit."

Think about it: who’s going to live the more compelling life, an insurance salesman who wants to sell as much insurance as he possibly can? Or the one who, because he loves his customers, sells the amount that’s right and responsible? Who’s going to be more interesting and inspirational, a lawyer who’s out to bill as many hours as possible? Or the one who, in obedience to God, truly cares about the lives of his clients? And who’s going to lead the more attractive life, a banker who makes loans because they’re profitable for his business? Or a banker who, because he loves his neighbor as himself, wants to help people get the new home that’s just right for them?

If we’re in our jobs just for the money, we might be in the wrong job. Or more likely, we’re simply in the job for the wrong reason.