Sacred or Secular Work?
2008 December 2
“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular; it is why he does it.” A. W. Tozer
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17)
- – - -
Is it all about YOU?
10 Responses
leave one →
Great quote, Mike.
Thanks.
I believe that the way that the kingdom works is like a mustard seed. We are to be that seed wherever we are, whatever we do. Unfortunately, we think reduce that to either a) talking to people about our faith, or b) being nice (loving) people. These are good, and part of the work of the kingdom, but the kingdom of God is much more radical. It is one that is defeating the dark powers of this world (empire) on both a personal and systemic level. Justice, mercy, submission, love supplant greed, power, oppression. This is incredibly counter-cultural, and costly if we live it out, especially in the workplace. So instead, we often end up compromising for a & b while the empire continues to thrive. But the good news of the gospel is…. Gods justice, mercy, and goodness will prevail. His team wins. Question is, are we on the right team?
What’s wrong with this quote is that it makes it difficult to judge a man’s deeds. Luckily we can still judge a woman’s deeds.
I worked for an airline at one time in reservations. You got a lot of calls from people in agony over a loved ones death, or terrible accident, sickness, you get the picture. I would always sympathisize with them, but having had the same problems at one time myself, be able to get enough information out of them to make a ticket, find out addresses of funeral homes or hospitals while talking. Find flights, find out how far away from the airport they are, book it and tell them to just get to the airport and identify themselves to our agent at the airport. If it was a very small airport, I could call the agent there and tell them to be very good with the person and get them on the plane, we could even hold the plane for a while back then. Every now and then my boss would tell me I went way to far with people and that is not in our job description and then he would wink and say he hoped he got my station if anything ever went wrong in his life. I would always tell him Jesus just put me on automatic pilot at those times.
THE laugh for the week! My kind of humor—you know, the “get over yourself” kind?
Mike…God has blessed me over and over by giving you an amazing gift of posting many comments that are just where He has been at work trying to teach me a significantly deep lesson…and I keep trying to avoid hearing Him…and I check your blog and there it is again…I’m grateful He doesn’t give up on me.
Amen, Mr. Tozer! This is a good prompt for me that it’s probably time to re-read Pursuit of God and Pursuit of Man again.
I have always loved this quote by Tozer, maybe even more so now as I will transition from being a “full-time minister” to just a “regular member.” Thanks for sharing it.
Can I still be a Christian and disagree with Tozer? I’ve been reading Dorothy Day lately, and I relate more to her quote from Peter Maurin:
“What glorious hope! There are all those who will discover that their neighbor is Jesus himself, although they belong to the mass of those who do not know Christ or who have forgotten Him. And nevertheless they will find themselves well loved.
“It is impossible for any one of those who has real charity in his heart not to serve Christ. Even some of those who think they hate Him have consecrated their lives to the poor, among the sick, among prisoners, among strangers.
“Many who serve Him officially have never known who He was, and many who do not even know His name will hear on the last day the words that open to them the gates of joy.’Those children were I, and I those working men. I wept on the hospital bed. I was the murderer in his cell whom you consoled.’”
Thoughts?
I believe all work done to the glory of God is sacred. Jim McGuiggan has a great chapter about this in his book “The God of the Towel”.