New Addition

I have committed to write a poem a day for the year. I started a few days into the new year, but that's okay. The poem is usually written at night, and though a couple of time I have written in haste, I have always written with spiritual intent for my content. That all said, I will not be posting most of these poems online. Nevertheless, I am sure that other poems will be posted from time to time, as the Spirit leads me to write. Maybe you will join me in this year-long venture?

ABRIDGED Making much of God from 8-5 (From John Piper's: Don't waste your life, Chapter 8)

1. We can make much of God in our secular job through the fellowship that we enjoy with him throughout the day in all our work.

• “In whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”
• “I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever” (Psalm 86:12).
• “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).
• “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27).
• “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8).

2. We make much of Christ in our secular work by the joyful, trusting, God-exalting design of our creativity and industry.

• “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:27-28).
• “Let the rivers clap their hands . . . the hills sing for joy . . . and the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 98:8; 19:1).
• “Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep” (Ecclesiastes 5:12).

3. We make much of Christ in our secular work when it confirms and enhances the portrait of Christ’s glory that people hear in the spoken Gospel.\

• “to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:9-10).
• “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
• “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Colossians 3:23;
  cf. Ephesians 6:7).

4. We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning enough money to keep us from depending on others, while focusing on the helpfulness of our work rather than financial rewards.

• “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. . . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:25,
  32-33).
• “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
• “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain”
  (1 Corinthians 15:58).
• “Work with your hands . . . so that you may live properly
  before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).
• “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you” (John 6:27).
• “those who buy [should buy] as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.”
• “I have food to eat that you do not know about. . . . My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:32-34).

5. We make much of Christ in our secular work by earning money with the desire to use our money to make others glad in God.

• “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread” (Proverbs 12:11).
• “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
• “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
• “Don’t steal, work!”
• “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”

6. We make much of Christ in our secular work by treating the web of relationships it creates as a gift of God to be loved by sharing the Gospel and by practical deeds of help.

• “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” (Proverbs 10:11).
• “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
• “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).