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Work is the Premise of the Sabbath

Sabbath is Sacred but Temporary

Let us balance this out. Sabbath is important. Sabbath is sacred to the Lord. However, Sabbath was not intended to be a permanent state. Some of us have been taking Sabbaths without going to work. This is not natural behavior. We were not designed this way.  

We have been so focused on the Sabbath as a religious event that we have failed to connect it with the rest of the six days. The Sabbath is a part of the week of the Lord. The week of the Lord is about the work He wants for us to do. You can have something that you are working on, in, or through for six days of your life.  

According to the ministry He has placed you in, you are supposed to be working for the Lord for six days. The ministry He has placed you in occurs in your workplace. The work you do six days a week justifies the Sabbaths in your life. 

What if God didn’t do any work on the first day through the sixth day and then said, “The seventh is a Sabbath.” However, other people try to work through the seventh. Entrepreneurs tend to work on things. Employees tend to work on things. Homemakers and people working in the domestic tend to be working through things. You get tired of just working monotonously at the same thing because you have failed to complete the Career Mandate by stopping to rest and review the work that you have done. 

Work is not what is causing you to experience fatigue. What you’re working on, what you’re working with, what you’re working through, and what you’re working in that’s frustrating you. If the environment changes, you would love creating because it is part of your innate nature.  

We need to feel productive.

Imagine this scenario. You take time off to go to the beach for a vacation. When you get there, you lay down on the first day to relax. After a while, you get a tan from the sun.

On the second day, you do the same thing again and get tanner. On the third day, you bring a book or your iPod with you thinking, “I’ve got to listen to something because I’m just lying here, and I’m browning off now.” 

Has anyone ever been in this situation before? “I’m browning off. Now, I can do something. So, I’m going to lie here, and then I’m going to get up, and I’m going to go for a dip, and then I’m going to come back. Let’s go down the road. Let’s go and see whatever else is there to do.” In this vacation, you feel the urge to do something. You cannot just lie around on the sand doing nothing.  

Work is the premise of the Sabbath, isn’t it?  Isn’t the Sabbath more meaningful because you did your work?  The Sabbath becomes a great time because you have made yourself productive all-week round. 

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Sabbath

insider

The Favor Upon God’s Insider

The Favor Upon God’s Insider

The Insider works six days a week and is the most well-liked and accomplished group member. The fact that you are taking this stance allows your coworkers to investigate and learn more about what makes you so favored. This creates a window of opportunity for influence.

According to the principle God has laid out for you here, you are required to work on, in, or through things for six days. On the seventh day, you take the opportunity to rest, recover, and review your progress. Recuperation is an essential component of the work experience. People who don’t take time to rest become exhausted. The length of your sabbatical can range from one day to a week and even up to a month. There may even be a sabbatical year in your life, but the most important thing is to take time to step back and recharge your batteries.

We have constructed an entire religion around the seventh. When we look at it, we see it as a religious tradition, according to which you should not work on Saturday and Sunday. When, in reality, according to the Career Mandate, Sabbath is a necessary part of your job duties, you should take it. This is the part of your job where you take a step back and relax a little. Because rest is an integral part of one’s work, it can be considered a religious act and a work-related activity. The fact that you can rest indicates that you have faith in God enough to follow His commandment.

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Shabbat

“Shabbat”

“Shabbat”

You are required to have a career. “Shabbat” is the Hebrew word for the Sabbath. Where did the Sabbath start? It did not begin when the Lord passed down the Law to Moses. No, it started right there in Creation. When God chose to create the world the way He did, He was creating a model. In six days, He made everything, and on the seventh, He rested. Having said that, God already presented a model for our Career Mandates, wherein the Sabbath is a significant part of the process.  

The Sabbath is not a ritual. Moreover, it is not a traditional practice. The Sabbath is a spiritual law. Furthermore, it is a principle. Moreover, it is not how you religiously observe the Sabbath. It is why you do it. Why do we keep the Sabbath? 

Keeping the Sabbath is Our Obedience to God

We keep the Sabbath to obey God. We support the Sabbath holy to show Him that we work because of Him and for Him. Moreover, we keep the Sabbath holy to create an opening for people to see that God gives us the grace to get things done even when we do not work seven days a week. God gives us the grace to be productive in the six days allotted for work.  

People cannot accomplish all the tasks they can do in seven days. How can you, who only works six days a week, be able to do it excellently? Your officemate will wonder, “I’m here 24/7, working until my back breaks, but you only work 5-6 days a week, but you are the one who gets promoted! How does that make sense?”  

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Shabbat

Your Commitment To Your Mandate

Your Commitment To Your Mandate

“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” 

Maya Angelou 

Power Truth 

“Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwelling places. 

Leviticus 23:3 

Have you ever heard of people saying, “You know what, I’m waiting, Bishop. When I find out what my ministry is, that’s when I’m going to give it 100%”. You will find your ultimate ministry in life as you serve, not as you wait. As you serve the church, as you serve your workplace, as you serve your family, you will see what you are good at. You will recognize your gifts and your passion. You won’t see it, sitting on the couch all day, waiting for the Lord to reveal it to you. 

Personal Application 

  1. What is keeping you from worshipping God with your work? 
  2. How can you make your work your worship? 
  3. Have you discovered your faithful ministry in life? If so, what is it? 

Mandate: 

Points to Ponder on 

  • Each one of us has a career mandate.  
  • God assigned Adam his “Career Mandate,” Adam worshiped God through his obedience. 
  • It is unnatural to have no work.  
  • The job of pastors is only to equip every believer to conquer the field or industry they are assigned to be Insiders in.  
  • Ministry is service. Your work is your service.  

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Mandate

mandate

You Were Designed for Your Career Mandate

You Were Designed for Your Career Mandate

Where are you taking God’s Kingdom?

We are so interested in where God is, while He is interested in where we are. We should understand that God’s presence is not limited to the church facility. He is where you are.  

Our pastors are not the only full-time ministers. However, the job of pastors is only to equip every believer to conquer the field or industry they are assigned to be Insiders. That is what we are trying to do here. Moreover, we are trying to equip you to be God’s Insider in the industry you are working in. All of us are called to be full-time ministers in our workplaces. 

Mandate: 

There is a mandate. You are required to work because God designed you for it. Each person who goes according to their design to glorify and worship the Lord ministers to God. Thus, if you are working and doing it primarily to honor God and secondarily earn a living, you are a full-time minister. 

Being the Salt

Do you know what happens to anything that doesn’t fulfill its purpose? Like the salt that loses its saltiness, everything that does not fulfill its purpose will be thrown out. Jesus said this, didn’t he? Why keep the salt if it has no saltiness to show for it? 

Think about it. What would you do if you ate dinner and saw salt and pepper on your table? The salt looks like salt, but it’s not salty. What would you do? You would see it to have no purpose for it to be on the table.  

How many times have you asked God, “I’d like to know what my purpose is in life? What is my purpose?” If you have asked this before, I want you to say to yourself: “Ministry is my purpose.” It’s so simple. Ministry is service. Having said that, your work is your service. In fact, your purpose on earth is to serve, contribute, and make a difference. In the same light, you are called to service. That’s it. This is your purpose. 

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Order of Creation : Calling Then Family

Calling and Family

God placed man’s career calling ahead of his wife and his family in the order of creation. Do not get me wrong. We are not trying to create a conflict between home and work life.  

If you are a single woman reading this, I am saying that God wants you to marry someone who has already discovered his destiny and purpose. I’m saying that the worst thing you could do is to marry someone who has no career calling with their life because that’s an unnatural state. Ladies, you are supposed to be with someone who already has a relationship with God and, secondly, someone who has already received his calling from the Lord. Gentlemen, before you go out seeking for your mates, seek God first and seek the calling you have in Him.  

It is unnatural to have no work. We find ourselves in this mess in society when we’re marrying people with unemployed, idle minds. We find ourselves in a mess when we settle for marrying people with no vision and purpose. Ladies, it is unnatural for men to live off you.  

God said, “It’s not going to happen. Adam, you are going to be working when Eve meets you. When Eve lays eyes on you for the first time, you will be working.” This picture was what God intended for relationships between husbands and wives. Please, do not use up the excuse that times are hard and you could not get a job. Suppose you cannot get a job or volunteer. Do not sit around and be idle, asking when God will show you your wife.  

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Family

Work

Blessed to Have Work

When God made Adam, the first thing he does is work. During this time, the world was perfect because sin had not entered the world yet. The perfection that Adam and Eve had experienced was not reflected in the absence of work. There was work.  

Work was not the punishment. Hard labor was the punishment. The question is, what are you experiencing right now? Are you placing yourself in the position of fulfilling your career mandate or in the position of the curse of sin? 

Adam’s Job Was a Blessing

Adam had a job. He had a business. First, God told him to keep the garden. In fac hobby that God gave Adam to help him pass the time until game consoles are created. Have you ever tried to keep a garden or even just a single plant? You know it’s a job, especially when the garden is the size of a country.  

The second job Adam was given was to name all the animals. This is intended to be a mental exercise. Moreover, the task also requires a mental database. Similarly, God intended for Adam to exercise his creativity to name things, put them into categories, and label everything.  

If you think Adam had it easy, Scripture reveals to us how he had a lot of work to do. Nor does he wake up in the morning thinking, “Oh, what to do today?” Adam wakes up in the morning with a purpose.  His first thought of the day would be: “Got to get on with my work. Got to do like my daddy does. We’re going to rest on the seventh day, but I got work to do.”  

The purpose of Adam’s existence was to worship God. How did he do it? By working. Moreover, this is true that work is even the basis of his marital relationship. If you read on, we see that it is stated, “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him help, meet for him (Genesis 2:18).” The whole idea here was to help.  

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The Career Mandate

The Career Mandate

Each one of us has a career mandate

You have a career mandate. Did you know that? Let me guide you through Scripture to show you what this mandate is about. First, let us start with the most obvious. Is there a difference between a human being and an animal? 

No matter how “human” an animal looks like, they won’t be able to write this book, not in a million years. Our intelligence, creative capacities, and dynamic nature set us apart from animals. 

No other creature has these debates because we are worlds apart from the nearest looking human being in terms of intellect and creative capacity. This is what the bible calls the image and the likeness of God. The Bible tells us that we were created in the image and likeness of God. We are God-like beings.  

Some passages will call you a God because you are His offspring. Your spirit came from Him. Your body was made from the dust. According to Scripture, although your body was made from dust, it was only through God breathing into Adam’s nostril that man became a living soul.  

Image & Likeness

It’s not our nose that makes us like God. It’s not our hair. It is our unlimited creative capacity. Our creativity makes us unlike anything else in the world 

The first chapter of the first book in the Bible opens with this, “In the beginning, God created….” How does God introduce Himself to us? At work. What clothes was God wearing when He introduced Himself to us? Working clothes. He is working on a plan to materialize His own idea in six days, representing stages. 

How do you represent yourself?

God has introduced Himself to you. Let’s focus on that. The opening chapter of Genesis is like God saying, “This is my introduction. This is how I want you to think of me.”  

When you introduce yourself, you’re telling someone how to think of you. “I’m introducing myself to you in work clothes.” He’s Almighty. He does not have to spend six days on anything. He could say, “That’s all there.”  

But He did that for us. He did that so that it could make sense to us. God was doing something foundational for us. God created the world and everything in it to show us something. It is like God saying, “No, we’re going to stage this out. We’ve got a plan. First things first. We will do what we have got to do in the first stage, then we review the first stage, and God saw everything he did and said, ‘It is good. Okay, now the first stage is good. We can move to the second stage.’” 

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The Career Mandate

The Salt and the Light

The Salt and the Light

A Command for Believers

Jesus declared that those who follow him are the “salt” and the “light” of the world. These were not suggestions. These were not options. Jesus did not say, “You can be the salt” or “you have to potential to be the salt.” He is talking about your very being. Christ was describing your nature as a believer living in the world. He said you are the salt and the light. 

We cannot underestimate the value of salt. In the ancient world, the context by which Jesus used the term “salt” metaphorically refers to Roman soldiers who received their wages in salt. The Greeks even considered salt to be divine. God required all offerings presented by the Israelites to contain salt under the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 2:13).  

When Jesus called the disciples to be the salt of the earth in Matthew 5:13, they understood the metaphor. They understood their job description as Insiders. Did you know that salt was not readily available in the modern world during that time? In the same way, what you offer as believers is not readily available in your industries. 

The Distinction of Salt

What are the characteristics of the salt that caused Jesus to use this symbol? Salt preserves food. Before people created the refrigerator, they used salt to keep food in ancient times.  

Salt had a property that stopped decay. The disciples were aware of the value of salt. Without salt, the fish they had caught will spoil quickly. They needed to pack it in salt to preserve it. Jesus intended you to work as an Insider in the industry you are in to stop the moral decay in the sin-infected world of that area.  

Salt needs to be lavished on the food to be preserved to stop the decay of this food. Salt, as a preservative, is only helpful if applied to meet that is riding. If you place to fish in one container and salt in another, the salt cannot preserve the fish. We see the pattern here, don’t we?  

Insiders

We see that Jesus intended for us to be Insiders. There needs to be close contact between the believer and the world to impact the world and prevent moral decay. Moreover, the spiritual health and strength of the Christian are to counteract the corruption in the system. As Christians, we were never intended to exist in our own “holy” bubble until the time when Jesus came again. Therefore, we are called to be the salt of the earth. 

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The System of the World

The System of the World

It’s all about systems

The city has a system. It is a mechanism that is made up of parts and components. It has culture and subcultures. Reaching a city means that you have a presence in every aspect of the city.  It does not necessarily mean that you have to be the most significant influence, but you need to have an impact in every area of the world. 

The Great Commission is about evangelism in the world. In the same way, the Great Commission is meant to be an “inside job” that starts with courageous believers going into the world. In this respect, we have to be in it to win it. We have to be in every area of society, every industry, and every aspect if we want to fulfill the call of the Great Commission truly. 

 At the end of the day, fulfilling this call is what we are here for. If we were not here for that purpose, we should have gone to heaven the moment we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. We have a purposeful God. We are here on earth because we still have a purpose of serving.  

You cannot win a world for Christ if you are not a part of it. An outsider cannot beat the system. An outsider does not have enough influence to be able to win the system. You have to be in the system in order to establish a stronghold over it.  

Reflection

  1. Describe the rulers, authorities, and powers that exist in the darkness of your workplace. 
  1. How are you being the salt in that office or business? 
  1. How are you being the light in the industry?  

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Enter-the-Arena

Enter the Arena

Darkness in the World 

Darkness is the absence of light. It is not a force. It is simply an absence of something. We live in a world where there is no light. The reason why your presence is needed in your workplace is that it is hidden in darkness. You can go inside your workplace to be the light. You go inside the system for it to see the light.  

A verse we will discuss extensively in this book is found in Ephesians 6:12. Paul is revealing to us that a spiritual battle exists. For some of us, we already know this. But let’s look closer and see what this passage is telling us in the context of functioning in our workplace. Paul tells us: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). 

There are rulers, authorities, and powers in this world and forces in the spiritual world that are working against believers. Paul called this world “dark.” It is different from those spiritual forces of evil that exist in the heavenly realms. Darkness is not the force that we are battling with. Instead, it is what exists in the darkness that we are wrestling with (i.e. the rulers, authorities, and powers in this dark world).  

If you enter a dark house, it is not the darkness in the room that harms you. Instead, it could be an intruder hiding in the dark that could be dangerous for you. How do you expose the threat? You open the lights. Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light.  

Be the light

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Believers have the light of life because they follow Jesus. You have the light of life. The question is, are you bringing this light into your workplace? Does your workplace have life because of you? The only way by which the darkness in your workplace can be overpowered is when you bring your light there.  

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 14-16) 

The passage above may seem like it is ridiculous. Why would someone light a lamp and put it under a bowl? Wouldn’t it defeat the purpose of lighting the lamp in the first place? However, the lamp that Jesus was referring to was the light that he had lit within every believer who chooses to follow him. It was lit so that we can be his agents in the dark world.  

Is your light hidden?

The problem most Christians deal with is that they do not expose their light. They keep it hidden. They only reveal their light on Sundays when they are among fellow believers. However, what would the purpose of the lamp be when it is placed out in the brightness of the sun? The light of the lamp is supposed to shine in the midst of darkness. And if you dread going to work on Mondays, then that’s your first clue as to where you should shine your light on.  

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Enter-the-Arena

Excellence-Creates-Your-Influence

Excellence Creates Your Influence

Excellence Creates Your Influence

If you bring value to that field through excellent service in love, you have a right to talk about anything you want to talk about, and they are all going to listen and say, “Yes, please tell me more.” If you storm into your office and say, “Hello, everyone. I’m a Born Again Christian, and it’s about time that somebody heard the word of the Lord up in here,” then you have just made yourself a strong argument against Christianity.   

Are you walking the talk?

Have you ever seen these horrible drivers with a Jesus bumper sticker on their vehicles? There was one time wherein I wanted to stop one guy one time and tell him, “Listen, you can put Satan on the back of your car. Be an adverb for him because you’re not telling me anything about Jesus at all.”  

It’s about understanding a presence you are meant to bring into an industry. That’s the first key to ministry in the marketplace. It’s not a message that you get. Although, we have an important message to plant. You can bring the presence of Christ before you bring the message of Christ. 

Someone said, “I’m going to bring the message.” You say that because you don’t understand covert kingdom operations. You don’t understand that God does not have to be named to be present. He doesn’t have to be announced to arrive. That’s the real message of Esther. Did you know that?  

Esther is the one book in the Bible in the name God doesn’t appear. But God is all over the book because Esther is a covert agent who gives God access to the king’s bedroom. It’s covert and about bringing a presence into a field that establishes your credibility to speak.  

Then, there is Joseph the Dreamer. He brought so much value to the kingdom of Egypt. An archeologist said that they had identified a time, and that seems to match up with the Joseph saga chronologically when Egypt was monotheistic. These are just a few examples that we will go into deeper as we discuss insiders’ accounts in the Bible. 

How can you contribute?

You can add massive value to the people’s lives in your workplace. Once you do this, you can influence a person’s faith. They will be thinking, “You do not add any value to my life. Why do I have to care about you or your faith?” No one cares about why you value your faith until they know how much you care.  

When you approach them without adding value to their lives or showing them that you genuinely care for them, you are just creating a debate about religion. Get out of the business of debating religion.  

If I can feed you and clothe you, I can talk to you. That’s what Jesus did. You see Jesus bringing massive value into people’s lives, and that’s what made His words credible. Without the miracles, who would have listened to Jesus? Think about it. The purpose of the gifts is to give credence to your message. Think about how you are being an Insider to your workplace.  

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Excellence Creates Your Influence