Kay Cude is a Texas Poet. Used with permission.
Author: elizabethprata
Christian writer and Georgia teacher's aide who loves Jesus, a quiet life, art, beauty, and children.
Guess which fruit of the Spirit is little spoken of and hardest to practice?
By Elizabeth Prata
You get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit!
People of an age know this saying. It used to be said quite often. In some small pockets, it still is.
It was a time when parents were the boss and the kids were supposed to gratefully and quietly receive whatever it is that was being handed out. No asking for something different. No demanding ‘I want it now’. No waiting till a more convenient time for them. It was eat this/do this now or forgo it totally.
I blame Burger King’s “Have it your way“. (Just kidding, but let’s take a look as a metaphorical example).
For 40 years Burger King has been touting that you don’t need to eat cookie cutter meals without substitutions, taking what’s presented as is (take THAT, McDonald’s) but you can mix and match to your liking. After 40 years BK decided that they weren’t only going to let you know that you can have it your way, but you can “BE your way”. In other words, create your own reality. All so that customers can make an emotional connection with the fast food company and their product. Sometimes I wonder about ad people…:)
Fernando Machado, Burger King’s senior vice president of global brand management, explained.
Burger King says in a statement that the new motto is intended to remind people that they can and should live how they want anytime. It’s ok to not be perfect … Self-expression is most important … By contrast, he said, “Be Your Way” is about making a connection with a person’s greater lifestyle. … champion individuality…
And so it continues.
‘Have it your way’ is the embedded motto of a generation. That’s fine, ad people can devise jingles and slogans all they want. The generation they’re aiming at with their message are constantly barraged with societal claims to individuality and instant gratification, so be it. It shouldn’t affect Christians. Until it does.
A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. (Prov. 25:28).
When a child of the millennium converts, he has to dispense with the cultural baggage he’s accumulated, here in the West anyway. They are a new creation and must unlearn the cultural mandates of self-indulgence and instant gratification. The child who won’t take no for an answer in the grocery aisle. The teen who demands a phone upgrade. The young man dilly-dallying in college. The young adults putting off marriage and children because they need more “me time.” All for the aim of gratifying desires and indulging lusts.
Have you noticed the little-talked about mandate in the Bible about self-control? Its silence in preaching and discussion is out of proportion to the number of times we’re told to practice it. I think we do need to talk about self-control more.
Galatians 5:22-23, 2 Peter 1:5-7, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 speaks of self-control in the following particular sense. Discipline and self-control are important. I’ll lay the foundation of what self-control is before getting to why it’s critical to develop it.
In the Greek according to Strong’s, the word self-control as it is used in the above 3 verses, it’s “egkráteia (“self-control, Spirit-control”) can only be accomplished by the power of the Lord. Accordingly, 1466 /egkráteia (“true mastery from within”) is explicitly called a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:23).”
Today we will examine the fruit of self-control (Gal. 5:23). Basically, to have self-control means that we behave in a manner appropriate to the given situation. It means we defer when it is appropriate to defer. It means we speak when we need to speak. It means that we control our tempers and do not blow up every time things do not go our way. It means that we ignore the minor mistakes of others instead of trying to prove that we are always right.
Exercising self-control often means that we put other people before ourselves. It often involves putting the good of a group ahead of the good of an individual. Source
Since we know what self-control means, why is it important to cultivate it? Aside from the biblical mandate that says we must, that is.
Because self-control leads to self-denial. We are supposed to pick up our cross and deny ourselves. How can we deny ourselves if we can’t control ourselves?
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
If we are constantly indulging every whim, we won’t have developed the fortitude to deny ourselves on behalf of another person’s good. If we can’t control our tongue, for example, and display some restraint with what we want to say, we tarnish our witness before the unsaved. Even more so, in this age of self-expression and instantly fulfilled desires, a sacrificial, unselfish love will stand out like a beacon.
Here are some resources on developing self-control-
What does the Bible say about self-discipline?
What would the world look like without “Common Grace”? I’ll tell you exactly…
By Elizabeth Prata
We know that common grace exists in the world. Even the worst sinner knows of his Creator’s grace, (Romans 1:18) because they see it and experience it every day. Sunshine, rain, beauty, the planets in their courses, the tides in their domain. The regularity of seasons, the twinkle on the stars, the crops that come up. All these are examples of the Creator’s Common Grace. (Matthew 5:45b).
Common grace is a term theologians use to describe the goodness of God to all mankind universally. Common grace restrains sin and the effects of sin on the human race. Common grace is what keeps humanity from descending into the morass of evil that we would see if the full expression of our fallen nature were allowed to have free reign. (Source)
Common grace is not only displayed in the creation, but also in another aspect, a very important one. The human race is thoroughly depraved. We are all born with a sin nature. This does not mean every human is as bad as they could be. There are Mister Rogers in the world, and there are Hitlers in the world. Some people are definitely nicer than others, but we all stand in opposition to God and are at enmity with Him, performing sin. Total depravity means every human is totally unrighteous, every one. (Romans 3:10).
Common Grace is not just a display of beauty, but an active restrainer of sin.
It temporarily restrains sin and miliates against sin’s damaging effects. Apart from divine grace, the full expression of humanity’s fallen nature would be unleashed in society, with catastrophic results. Biblical Doctrine, MacArthur, Mayhue, et al
What would the “full expression of of humanity’s fallen nature” look like if common grace was removed from the world? We can know what it would look like because common grace in creation and restraint of man’s evil through the Spirit will be removed from the world. This will allow humanity to fully express its sin nature to the uttermost. It will be called the Great Tribulation. (Daniel 12, Matthew 24:15).
This is a future event that has not occurred yet. But it will.
When the moment begins, common grace will disappear. Hail and fire, mixed with blood, will be thrown upon the earth. Rains will no longer be regularly falling. Extreme droughts will occur. Earthquakes of mega-size will happen. Grass and trees will dry up, globally, not just locally as happened in the Great Dustbowl, for example. Crops will fail. Rivers will turn to blood. The son and moon will be darkened. Common grace that set the word in its place and given regular of seasons and times, won’t happen. Nothing of creation will be able to be counted on during the Tribulation.
Adding to the woes of humanity besides outward physical troubles such as thirst, pain, and starvation, will be a worse specter. Evil. The internal sin nature will have full expression. (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8). We look at different events in history now and shake our head at the evilness. Russian Pogroms Dachau and Buchenwald. The killing fields of Cambodia. The Colosseum games. We try to convince ourselves that those were one-offs. They were an anomaly.
But they weren’t. They were mere, dare I say, comparatively gentle peeks at a sin nature that is so corrupt and depraved we can’t even comprehend it.
In that terrible time, the inward, suppressed, usually hidden sin nature of man will be allowed to be fully expressed. The horrors of that time will be so bad that Jesus said
For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. (Matthew 24:21).
Worse than brimstone razing Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim and killing everyone in those 4 cities of the plain (except 4). Worse than the global judgment of the flood where everyone on earth drowned (except 8 souls). Worse than the Golden Calf. Worse than when there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 17:6).
Wholesale murders and sorceries and sexual immorality and thefts… Antichrist and blasphemy and slavery and martyrdom… Every possible sin that man ever thought of will be present on earth and fully performed, and even new sins and evil will be invented. When God gives a society over, the passage below is what happens. We have seen it throughout history with this culture or that, and I believe God has given America over to its sins, but when being given over happens on a global level without restraint, just think of the horror!
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32).
The church will not go through this period. It is a time of punishment for Israel. We – the Church – will be assumed alive into heaven, both the living and the dead. We will be enjoying a welcome awards ceremony (Bema Seat), and consummation with Christ during this period of horror on earth,
If you are living in an area of America or anywhere, where sin is rampant, even though it is unpleasant, please think about what it will be like when common grace will be removed, rarely found, and sin will be fully expressed. The lost don’t know what’s coming.
Keep praying for the lost to come to Christ, generally and for specific people on your list (and mine, me too). Don’t waver, because the rapture is imminent. When that happens, the Tribulation will begin, Common grace will be a thing of the past. Grace won’t reign, evil will. Though the rapture has always been imminent, I feel that perhaps it will happen soon? I don’t know of course, no one does, but I’m grateful for a feeling of urgency, whether it happens tomorrow or after I die. I always want to be fervent for the Lord. In the face of the horror to come, who wouldn’t want to be?
The story of the rock wall
By Elizabeth Prata
The year was 1962. The couple was young, and it was their first house. They had saved up and moved from a small apartment over a funeral home in the city, to the best suburb in the state. The happy couple now owned 4 acres of rolling hills and wooded yard, a 90 foot chicken barn, and a 100 year old cozy Cape Cod home with a wide front porch, across the street from a pond. They had made it.
It was New England, which meant that the yard was full of rocks. If the wife wanted a garden, the rocks would have to be dealt with. What do you do with all these rocks? They did as all New Englanders had done since the first Puritans had stepped foot onto the rocky land: build a wall.
Being Italian, and knowing the best masons and builders were Italian (yes, the husband was proud of his heritage), they hired Sal and Guido to take the rocks dotting the soil of this lovely yard and the ones all strewn about, haul them to the front of the yard, and build a wall. Being Italian, it would not only be functional, but it would be beautiful. It would also last.
Sal and Guido, knowing that the best walls aren’t held together with cement, but gravity, set to work. Slowly. Sal and Guido did not move fast.
First they gathered the rocks from all about and laid them along the front of the yard. They made sure they could see each one. Once the rocks of all sizes and colors were carefully laid from one end of the yard to the other, they examined each rock, turning it over to check its size and its properties, then laid it back down. Then they did the same with all the other rocks.
This process took a while. The husband was becoming impatient. He could not see any progress. Just a bunch of rocks littering his front yard. He did not see any point to all this examination and care. The old Italian masons told the impetuous young man that anything built to last must be done slowly and carefully. Wait, they said.
There came a day that the old men started piling rock upon rock. They knew each rock well by then, and knew exactly where to place each one. They all seemed to fit! Gravity held the wall together. The careful eye from each of the old masons, knowing where to place each rock for maximum strength and performance had done its job.
At last, the wall was done. It was strong, and it was beautiful.
The wall is real, and the couple were my parents. I grew up here. This is part of the wall, there is more to the left unseen in the photo. There used to be more to the right, but it was done away with to cut a driveway. Fifty-five years later, the old builders’ work is still standing strong.
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)
The Great Builder is building His eternal church from living stones – us. He is taking care to examine each one, turn it over to see all the different properties and facets. He knows just where to place each of us for maximum effect and use. It takes time, but anything well-built takes time.
We are being gathered, shaped, honed for maximum use. One day, the spiritual wall will be complete, the last stone will be laid (Romans 11:25). His spiritual house will stand forever.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 13-18)
Does God hate anyone?
By Elizabeth Prata
Psalm 5:5, The foolish shall not stand in your sight: you hate all workers of iniquity
John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
I was asked about an apparent contradiction between a God who says he hates people who sin and the love He expresses in John 3:16.
There are different types of God’s wrath. There’s cataclysmic wrath such as in when He sends tornadoes or hurricanes or earthquakes. There’s His wrath of abandonment such as when he ‘gives a person over’ to their sin (Romans 1:24, for example, or hardening Pharaoh’s heart). There’s eschatological wrath, prophesied to come in the future. And so on.
There’s different kinds of love. There’s God’s beneficent love to all general mankind we see in John 3:16 (That kind of love is shown as common grace, sending the rain to the wicked and the righteous alike). Then there’s His covenant love toward those He has purposed to save.
There’s different kinds of hate, too. Look at Luke 14:26,
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Is Jesus telling people to literally hate their parents? No. How do I know that? Because Jesus would not advise breaking the Fifth Commandment, “Honor thy Mother and Father.” No, He was using hate as a metaphorical comparison, you must love Jesus SO MUCH that by comparison is seems that your love for your parents is hate.
Is the hate expressed Psalm 5:5 the same kind of hate? No that is literal hate. It seems weird that God is love is also a God who hates.
That’s because in this day and age people vastly underestimate God’s hatred of sin. We’ve had a generation or two of “Jesus loves you and wants you to have a good life” kind of evangelism. It used to be “You’re a sinner that God will send to hell for rebelling against Him.” Sin is a huge problem to a thrice holy God. (Revelation 4:8, Isaiah 6:3).
Since God is love, sin is the polar opposite of everything He is. He hates sin- and the people who perform sin. Which makes his love for us all the more spectacular. When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, He clothed them. Even though they had just done one of the most evil deeds in the universe of all history (Judas’ betrayal being #1, this can be seen as #2) He still loved them enough to clothe them and send them on their way and did not kill them immediately. That’s love through hate.
We’re familiar with the phrase “Love the sinner but hate the sin”. It’s a wonky phrase that actually does more damage than is helpful. If we are to love the sinner we must confront his sin. Here, Cameron Buettel explains in a clear and concise way about how important it is not to divorce the two, the sin and the sinner performing it.
That determination to separate who a person is and what he does has also infiltrated the church. The exhortation to “love the sinner and hate the sin” is a clever Christian cliché regularly used to deflect people’s responsibility and accountability for their sin. While it’s true that we should both love sinners and hate sin, the cliché distorts those truths by unbiblically severing the two.
We should love sinners. We should hate sin. And we shouldn’t divide those two truths into separate categories. Our hatred of sin should manifest itself in a love that warns sinners—compassionately, but no less clearly—of the dire consequences their sin demands. Short of that, how could we ever claim to truly love them? Source
We can take this trajectory to its ultimate conclusion. Once a sinner has been warned, given the Gospel, refused and rejected, we turn it over to God. God knows the heart and knows when it it time for His general love to turn to hate, giving the person over to his sin with the sure and devastating consequences. Since He knows the heart, He knows when it’s time to love and a time to hate.
If we agree with the advice in the essay, and apply the same principle to God, we know He would do it in perfection and purity since He is perfectly holy.
Here are two good articles talking about God’s hate. This short devotional from Ligonier makes the love-hate situation really clear. Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis short article is good also.
Problems with Beth Moore’s teaching in list form- did you know there were this many?
By Elizabeth Prata
If I hire someone to do a service for me, like install the flashing on my deck, or clean my chimney, or fix my car, I want to ensure a quality job done. It is unlikely that I would re-hire a plumber who has demonstrated serial-mistake-making.
“I installed the wrong size pipe and that’s why it burst in the middle of the night.”
Would you rehire that same plumber? If you did, and he made another mistake…
“I forgot to turn the water off before I uninstalled the pipe, that’s why the laundry room is flooded.”
Would you hire him again?
“I used the wrong size wrench and that’s why the pipe is crushed now.”
Of course not, at some point very early on, you would seek a different person for the job.
So why is it that people continually overlook a false teacher’s wrong acts? Dismiss obvious errant theological interpretations? Why do they put their soul at risk in ignoring the myriad issues others have raised?
I know the biblical answers to these questions, my mind is at rest with God’s ordination of these things. I ask them because though my mind is at rest, my heart mourns.
We don’t call someone false after one mistake or two. But after decades of credible problems in a ministry with no hint of its teacher repenting or showing willingness to be corrected, it becomes obvious what is happening: that teacher is falling, not rising. Yet some people disregard scripture violation after scripture violation, and they keep drawing water out of the same poisoned well, even asking for more.
This hurts me. I grieve for the women who follow false teachers, who willfully resist the attempts from discipleship mentors, elders, pastors, discernment people, to instruct them of the imminent danger to their soul.
Beth Moore has been on a downward trajectory since the beginning of her ministry. Her issues are not new. I thought if I put some of the issues in list form, it might make things plainer. This list doesn’t even contain problems about her legalism, pop psychology, or her atrocious behavior on Twitter toward those who raise objections to her teaching. It doesn’t mention unethical publication practices such as deleting half a chapter from her Kindle version and leaving it in the hard copy without letting readers know there was a substantial difference in content they were paying for. One can only fit so much into one table.
And that is the point. This list isn’t even complete. Would you hire a plumber to fix your bathroom if he has year upon year made significant foundational errors? No, and he would probably lose his license! Would you seek a doctor whose practice is riddled with malpractice – or deaths? And how much more important is your soul to keep healthy and alive?
Please accept this table as an earnest proffer. I listed the unbiblical teaching or behavior, the consequence of that belief or behavior, and the scripture we can refer to.
There are links I can provide and substantiations for each of Beth Moore’s errors. I can provide documentation, if you ask. Let us reason over scripture and let our hearts become joyful as we seek purity in our walk, good teaching, and collegial fellowship with one another.
* The lifestyle issue is not because Moore is rich (she is). The Bible has no problem with wealth. Job, Abraham, Solomon, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and others were rich. The issue is what Beth Moore does with her money, how she uses it, and how open she is about her wealthy status. Jesus didn’t mourn the Rich Young Ruler because the man was wealthy, but because he gave up eternal life to retain his earthly property and money.
Enough with the ‘Girl, you are enough’
By Elizabeth Prata
“Girl, you are enough.”
“Girl, you are beautiful.”
“Girl, you’re a princess.”
“Girl, you’re fine just the way you are.”
I suppose it was inevitable. The Jesus is my boyfriend trend naturally morphs into the “I am a beautiful princess of God and I’m enough” trend. Browse Pinterest on the ‘Christian’ side of things and you’ll see plenty of soft-filtered flowery photos with mottos declaring these kind of statements.
Now, it’s true that we are daughters of the King. Galatians 3:26, John 1:12 declare we are children of God. And taking it a step further, God is King. And further, that children of a King are Princes and Princesses. All true, as far as it goes.
But wait a minute, if we literally take the metaphor stretched that far, wouldn’t men as Princes compete with THE Prince!? Yes. That’s why you almost always only see women being called Princesses and not male Christians as Princes.
Doing so manipulates women in an area where many are emotionally weak and needy, which is sad.
I am reminded of a scene in Exodus. Moses had been dwelling in the wilderness of Midian for 40 years when God called Moses to his ordained task, leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. Moses had just been instructed to remove his shoes at the Burning Bush because he was standing on holy ground. He is having a conversation with God. God told Moses he must speak to Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go.
Moses asked couple of questions which could be called legitimate. But as chapter 3 rolls into chapter 4 he crossed a line from earnest questioning to not-so-thinly disguised objections. By the time we read the conversation in chapter 4 verse 10, Moses has argued he is inadequate to the task. He is supposed to speak for God to Pharaoh but is ‘slow of speech,’ he complained.
Then Moses said to the LORD, Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. (Exodus 4:10)
In the “Girl, you’re enough, you magnificent princess” world, we would see scripture reassuring Moses that indeed he IS enough, right? We’d see God cooing over Moses, telling him, ‘Guy, don’t you know you are enough? You’re my Prince, my love, my cherished bouquet in the garden of God.”
Moses’s objections would be met with a thousand assurances six ways to Sunday of all the good things Moses is. God would assure Moses that he was…enough. Wouldn’t He?
But that didn’t happen. What happened was, God essentially said, ‘You’re NOT enough, Moses. You’re inadequate to the task. But I AM adequate. I AM enough.’
The LORD said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes him mute or deaf, or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? (Exodus 4:11).
The problem with the ‘you’re enough’ trend is that it downplays our weaknesses and dismisses God’s power to perfect us in our weakness.
And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Moses wasn’t enough. And God considered Him a friend, and spoke to Moses face-to-face! (Exodus 33:11). But we are NOT enough. That is as it should be. The wider the gap in our abilities for the task, the more we praise God that He fills that gap with His strength, His power, His abilities.
If we were enough, we would be God.
Is your church a spectacle in the right way or the wrong way?
By Elizabeth Prata
Where are your eyes looking? What’s claiming your attention?
The church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes central role in education, that is exactly what it managed to do. At the dawn of the attention industries, then, religion was still, in a very real sense, the incumbent operation, the only large-scale endeavor designed to capture attention and use it. ~Tim Wu: The Attention Merchants
These days there are competing operations, all vying for our attention.
For politics, power, war, sex, sports, social media, gaming, or entertainment the best spectacles grab mass attention. Our culture is no longer banded together by shared beliefs; it’s drawn together by shared spectacles. ~Tony Reinke, Competing Spectacles
If culture is no longer banded together through shared beliefs but by shared spectacles, what of the church, where we’re supposed to be banded by beliefs but now share only spectacles? Woe!
Hopefully your church hasn’t sunk into the idea that maintaining a spectacle is the only way to capture a person’s attention. It’s our beliefs that unite us, with that three-fold cord not easily broken.
When a preacher lifts up Christ crucified, it is the premier spectacle that captures us, the doctrines around that cross are the only draw that holds us together. Not concerts or hot dog barbecues or revival extravaganzas. Those spectacles hold attention only for a moment. Just the preaching of Christ and Him crucified is the pivotal sight before our eyes.
I pray your Lord’s Day is filled with the Word, song, prayer, fellowship, and the saturation of the shared belief that sustains and nurtures our souls.
Work, work, work
By Elizabeth Prata
I’ve got one week left and then I go back to work. I will have had 9 weeks off.
I realize that 9 weeks off, in a row no less, is an understandably wondrous gift, one that many people don’t get in 4 years of working. (Please understand that I live for 12 months on a 9-month salary, so there is a downside).
I work in the education system, so the cycle of my life follows the school year, not the calendar year. The rhythm of my life is one of hectic, fulfilling, busy, challenging, joyful work, then summer collapse rest.
There were some years where I worked for 16, 18, and one notable moment, 20 hours a day, with one week off at Christmas and one week at Independence Day. I’ve in the past felt the relentless grind, overlaid with feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction but sometimes accompanied with frustration and dispiritedness. I’ve been in the work force for 42 years, give or take. There were periods in life where I had to work two jobs and even three, laboring for 7 days a week. I’m not unfamiliar with hard work, relentless grind, whether it comes in the self-employment world, as a minimum wage minion at the bottom of the heap, or in the education world with its benefit of work then rest sprinkled throughout the year.
The job I have now is the best one I’ve ever had. I love working with children. It is a pure joy to be around kids. I enjoy the school breaks that come with the school calendar (being older now, I tire more easily). I have the best colleagues and the absolute most wonderful bosses I could ever hope for. It’s all good.
But the beginning of the school year those first days back at work are a shock to my system. And Monday morning blues still hit.
It didn’t used to be like this. In the Garden of Eden, Adam worked, but it wasn’t work that tired him out or frustrated him, or dispirited the man. It was good work, done without sweat. God gave Adam three tasks; cultivate the Garden and keep it, name all the animals, and lead his wife Eve. (Genesis 2:15, 19, 24; Ephesians 5:22-23).
Can you imagine working without sweating? Not just physical sweat, though that will be nice, but work was absent the heart-pumping stress, hustle, hectic work that office people feel, or bus drivers, or police bomb defusers or…
How do I know work wasn’t the kind of work we think of these days? The verse where God curses work. Genesis 3:17b-19
Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
We know that heaven, i.e. the eternal state after the conclusion of all things, will be one of rest. But it will also be one of work. Whattt?
Reagan Rose covers this in his essay Will We Work in Heaven?
But for now, assuming Earth is redeemed man’s final destination, we would be right to wonder, “what will we do on that renewed Earth?” The answer is that we will worship our Lord, we will wonder at His majesty, and we will work.
Mr Rose continues with explaining that Heavenly Work Will Be Restful Work, and Heavenly Work Will Be Enjoyable Work, before he comes to his conclusion.
James M. Hamilton Jr wrote Work and Our Labor for the Lord, looking at work as it was meant to be, as it is, as it can be, and as it will be.
As work will be, “We can scarcely imagine it, but everything that makes work miserable here will be removed. All our sinful concerns about ourselves will be swallowed up in devotion to the one we serve. All our frustrations that we have to be doing this task and not the other one we prefer, will be abolished because of our experience of the one who gave the assignment. All inclination to do evil will have been removed from our hearts, so we will enjoy the freedom of wanting to obey, wanting to serve, wanting to do right.”
Imagine, being released from the bondage to sin and working in complete and perfect freedom to serve to the utmost in righteousness and in joy!
On earth our work often distracts us from worship, but in heaven work will BE worship.
What of work now, here on earth? We do need to work. “if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either” (2 Thessalonians 3:10)
On the Chris Craft podcast, Chris asked guest Phil Johnson “How should we represent Christ in the workplace?”
“Work hard.”
Amen to that. I know of a custodian who works very hard all day long. She never stops. She cleans toilets, hustles to classrooms to wipe up kid-vomit, sweeps the cafeteria floor after kindergarten has been through like storming Huns. She is kind, constantly smiling and always ready to praise Jesus whenever you talk with her.
One day a second grader was waiting and I was waiting with her in the lunchroom. The kid was watching the lone custodian clean the cavernous cafeteria. After a while the child turned to me and said “She works hard. And she has to do all that by herself. But she never stops.”
When a person works so hard (for the Lord as I know she does) and a child notices the work ethic, you know it’s a good ethic. A shining ethic. Do I work that hard? Do cheerfully perform any menial task set before me? With purity of heart and a sincere effort? Sometimes no, but the lady I’d mentioned is my role-model inspiration. She represents Christ in a way that few people I’ve ever seen do so, and she does it through work.
Work hard on earth, as Colossians 3:23 says
Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men,
And look forward to the day when you and I will be FREE to serve without sin tainting our work ethic or the work product. What a day that will be.
Meanwhile…Happy Monday!
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I made this collage some years ago when I was pondering work and being busy even in ministry work. Do we work so hard we become too busy for God? On the left side of the collage top and bottom we see heaven and worship in heavenly peace. Below that scene are the animals, who know what to do in their spheres. Even creation groans for release. On the right side, top and bottom, is the heaving, pulsating spectacle of humanity going to and fro, with only a few looking at the Light, even noticing it.
Book Review: Mary Rowlandson’s captivity
By Elizabeth Prata
Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
Mary White Rowlandson
It’s a riveting account of a Puritan woman’s travail through an Indian massacre and three months’ captivity, and eventual ransomed release. (1675-6). It was the time of King Philips War and the colony had gotten very bloody very quickly.
Mary is articulate in her afflictions and fervent in her reliance on God through the ordeal. Contains many scriptures and references to God. If a reader is not a Christian they will likely not enjoy the account as much or at all. I enjoyed seeing how Mary relied on certain scriptures as she saw her family killed, her children ripped from her, and as she endured hunger, thirst, physical hardship, and the devastating emotional loss of her child dying in her arms and her other children taken to different Indian villages, fate unknown.
In one scene that remains vivid in my mind, she looked to the left and only saw hundreds of Indians, and looked to the right and only saw hundreds of Indians, and became aware of the fact that she was the only Christian for miles and miles.
Some say the antiquated English the narrative is written in makes it hard to read. I didn’t, I found it less difficult than Shakespeare and enjoyed it at every part.
I first heard of this book (short narrative at 55 pages) when author Nathanial Philbrick referred to it in his book Mayflower, which I also enjoyed.
Free on Kindle.
Represents one of the first publications of a woman in the New World (Anne Bradstreet’s poetry was first).
the-end-time.org 