How to Enjoy Work Without Getting Paid
Why do you go to work each week? Is it because you like your job? If so, that makes the job somewhat easier. Hopefully, we can all find a vocation that we enjoy. Is the fact that you like your job enough to satisfy you? Do you work because you want to keep busy and you don’t want to be lazy or bored? Or do you work to get paid?
Ah, there it is! The truth comes out! We might like our job and we may be glad that we have something to do but at the end of the week, we need a paycheck because that is how the world works. We work to earn a wage. We need the money so that we can provide for ourselves and our families.
Well, guess what? I have good news! There is work out there for you to do that you can enjoy without getting paid. In fact, we might not even call it work at all. No, it’s not volunteering, like we might do through some type of community service. We all know that being involved in an effort like that can be rewarding because we are serving others and helping those who are in need. But in a sense we are still working to get paid when we volunteer to do community service – we are paid with the feeling we get when others are encouraged or blessed by our activity.
But there is a work that you can enjoy knowing that you are not going to receive anything at all. I am talking about doing something in the name of Christ. Some people might refer to this as Christians doing “good works.”
In the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Jesus discussed being salt and light in the world so that people might see our good works and glorify the Father (Matt. 5:14-16). There are works to do in the kingdom of God. They are works that build up the church, spread the gospel to the world, and show obedience to the Lord. Throughout the New Testament, we can see the church was involved in these kinds of works (Eph. 2:10).
But here is what I want to point out about the work you do for Christ. It doesn’t pay anything. If it did, then we could be saved by works. But we are NOT saved by works (Eph. 2:9). We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). We are saved when we access God’s grace by obedience to the gospel as we repent and are immersed in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins (Acts 2:38). But there is absolutely no work involved in our salvation. The work we do comes on the other side of the cross. And God is not dependent on our works as if He needed anything (Acts 17:25). But we serve Him regardless because we are motivated by what he has already done for us.
You see, when you understand what Christ did for you on the cross you will never again work in the kingdom to get paid. You will work because you love God. You will enjoy the work because when work is motivated by love it ceases to feel like work – instead it is simply an act of celebration for the way the love of Christ makes you feel. And with that type of motivation – any act of service becomes a blessing – but it is still absent of being a wage. Salvation was given at no cost to humanity. Loving obedience to Christ is simply the natural response to the perfect love and will of God.
So Christian, get out there and work for the Lord (Col. 3:17)! And remember, when it comes to being a part of the church, we are not working to get paid. We are working because Jesus paid.
“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” – 1 Corinthians 6:20
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AUTHOR: Jeremiah Tatum
