The Word Before Work

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.’” (Exodus 31:12-13)We began this series by reading Exodus 31:1-5 in which we are told that Bezalel—an artist and culture-creator—was the first person to be “filled with the Spirit of God.”The context of that passage is a large chunk of Scripture in which the Lord gave Moses detailed instructions on Mount Sinai, starting with The Ten Commandments in Exodus 19-20. Exodus 31 is the last chapter in this run, but it doesn’t end with the aforementioned scene of Bezalel being filled with God’s creative spirit. Before the Lord adjourns His meeting with Moses at Mount Sinai, he has one last thing to say: He reminds His people to observe His Sabbaths (see today’s reading above).Now, keep in mind, the Lord has already issued the third command to “remember the Sabbath” in Exodus 20:8, and He doesn’t remind Moses of any of the other commandments before He concludes this monumental meeting. So why, after filling Bezalel with His creative spirit, does God remind Moses, Bezalel, and the Israelites to rest? Let me propose three reasons.First, this was the rhythm God himself took on for His creative work. After commissioning Bezalel and team to create like Him, God is reminding them to rest like Him because they are made in His image. The Lord told His people to “observe my Sabbaths.” The implication is clear: I rested from my creating and I designed you to do the same.The second reason I think God repeats this command to rest after commissioning Bezalel to create is that He knew that culture makers are especially prone to workaholism. Creating new things is life-giving, God-like, intoxicating work. As we’ve seen throughout this series, creative work is “very good”—central to who God is and who we are as His image-bearers. Thus, it can be easy to forget to rest, hence God calling special attention to this command here.But if creative work is good, why is rest necessary? That brings me to the third reason I think God reiterates the command to rest: Because we need to remind ourselves that it is His power, His grace, and His Spirit that enables us to create. Bezalel needed to be filled with the Spirit of God in order to do the work God created him to do. The same is true for you and me.Believer, the Creator God lives in you, guiding you as you create good things that point to His glory. Let that humble and empower you to engage in your work with great energy and ambition today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord has given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the Lord has commanded. Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lord had given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, “The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done.” (Exodus 36:1-5)We’re in a series exploring the few passages of Scripture that focus on the life of Bezalel—the first person the Bible says was filled with the Spirit of God—extracting applications for our own work as culture makers today.This morning’s passage from Exodus 36 focuses our attention on this truth: Culture making is never a solo endeavor. All of us need community to create.In Exodus 31:6, we are told that God “appointed Oholiab…to help [Bezalel]” in the creation of the Tabernacle. So God, in His graciousness, gave Bezalel a partner. And in today’s passage, we see that the general-contractor duo of Bezalel & Oholiab received help from the broader community, with the people of Israel bringing “freewill offerings” that were “more than enough” to “carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary.”Bezalel needed to rely on others to bring his creations to life. The same is true for you and me. In order to do the work God created us to do, we must learn to create in community.Take these devotionals, for example. My name may be the one you see in your inbox, but make no mistake, there is an army of others behind each email. My friends help me work through the ideas before they’re written. My assistant proofreads each draft. And an email marketing company enables me to distribute these devotionals all around the world.Not only do we not create alone, but in a way, even God created in community. When we tell the story of Genesis, we tend to only picture God the Father speaking the world into existence. Sometimes we forget that the Spirit was there “hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2) and that Jesus was present and engaged in creation (John 1:2-3).Nobody creates in isolation. All creation happens in community.Why does this matter? Because the embrace of community is in line with God’s design, it breeds humility, and it can protect us from the Enemy’s inevitable attempts to sabotage our creative endeavors.In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is isolated from his community while at the same time being hunted by his enemy, Voldemort. Harry receives some wise counsel from his friend, Luna Lovegood, who says, “If I were You-Know-Who [Voldemort], I’d want you to feel cut off from everyone else; because if it’s just you alone, you’re not as much of a threat.”You and I need each other to do the work God created us to do. Embrace the community around you as you work to do your most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 31:1-5)We’re in a four week series studying the life of an obscure biblical character named Bezalel, extracting applications for our own work today. Last week, we saw the significance of Bezalel—a creative—being the first person said to be “filled with the Spirit of God.” This week, we’re looking at this same passage from Exodus 31 from a different angle.Exodus 31:1-5 is one of many sections of Scripture that debunk the myth of “the creative genius.” In our culture today, we are enthralled with entrepreneurs, YouTube celebrities, and other culture makers who build empires seemingly through grit and creativity alone. But as today’s passage reminds us, while grit and talent may be part of the equation, in the end, all creative success is graced by God.Bezalel didn’t create the Tabernacle out of nothing. He started with God’s creative Spirit, “with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.” Furthermore, Bezalel was given the raw materials of gold, silver, bronze, stones, and wood. All of this—all of these good gifts—were graced by God. As James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”Bezalel’s creative endeavors didn’t start with grit. They started with grace. The same is true for you and me.Now, does that mean grit plays no role? Absolutely not! Colossians 3:23 commands us to “work heartily as unto the Lord.” It wasn’t enough for Bezalel to be graced with these gifts of skill and resources. He had to roll up his sleeves and do the work to put those gifts of grace to use!I’ve said before that Christ-followers must wrestle with a unique tension between “trust and hustle”—on the one hand trusting in God to provide, while on the other hustling to put our God-given energy and skills to work. Another way of saying this is that we, like Bezalel, must embrace both grace and grit—accepting gracious gifts from our Father (such as talent, materials, and opportunities), while also demonstrating grit to steward those gifts well.But let’s never forget that even our ability to “be gritty” is a gift of grace. In the words of Moses, “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).Let this dichotomy of grace and grit humble and motivate each of us as we engage in our work today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.” (Exodus 31:1-5)Here’s a mind-boggling truth to start your week: The very first person the Bible says was “filled with the Spirit of God” was not Adam or Eve. It wasn’t Abraham. And it wasn’t Moses. It was a creative named Bezalel.On the surface, this seems startling. But I would argue that in singling out Bezalel in this remarkable way, God is simply reminding us of something He’s been saying all throughout time: creativity is central to who He is and who we are as His image-bearers.After all, the very first thing God reveals about himself in Genesis is His creative spirit. Before He showed us that He was loving, holy, or just, God showed us that He is a God who works. A God who’s productive. A God who creates.And of course, Jesus revealed this same creative spirit when “the Word became flesh,” spending 85% of his adult life as a carpenter, leveraging a skill set very similar to Bezalel’s.What is God showing us through all this repetition? He’s showing us that work and creativity are not meaningless “fringe” things. They are central to who God is and who we are as His representatives in the world.This means that while some (like Bezalel) may be “filled” with more of God’s creative likeness, all of us are creative because we are all made in the image of God. As Jen Wilkin says, “Even those of us who would not call ourselves [creative] recognize our ability to combine several average things into something above average. We take piles of data and turn them into pie charts. We take eggs, butter, cheese, and onion and turn them into an omelet. We are not creation-optional beings.”All of us create, and in doing so, show the world what God is like. The object of Bezalel’s creative endeavors illustrates this well.Bezalel was filled with the creative spirit of God in order to build the Tabernacle—a physical representation of “the universe the way it ought to be” with God at the center of it. The Tabernacle was essentially its own world, with everything pointing toward God. So when God called Bezalel to create the Tabernacle, He was inviting him to mimic God’s creation of the earth in Genesis, thus bringing glory to God by emulating His creative Spirit to others.You and I won’t build a literal Tabernacle today. But as we go to work, let us remember that as we create, we are revealing the character of our great God. Let us allow that truth to motivate us to create with excellence as a means of most accurately reflecting our Creator.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com But 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)The most visited attraction in Barcelona is not a theme park or a soccer stadium. It’s an unfinished church that has been under construction for more than 135 years.If you visit la Sagrada Família, you’ll instantly see why the church is so popular. For starters, it is truly awe-inspiring. But there’s a second reason why the church is such a draw. In an age that prioritizes speed over everything else, the pace at which la Sagrada Família is being built commands our attention.We are used to seeing restaurants built in weeks, houses in months, and skyscrapers in just a few years. The idea of spending more than thirteen decades building a church is simply incomprehensible to most. It is that commitment to slow, masterful work that draws millions of people each year into a church that was intentionally designed to make the world stop and stare at great craftsmanship as a means of pointing us to the glory of God.Before designing la Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí had already earned worldwide acclaim as a master architect. But in 1883, Gaudí began to catch a vision for la Sagrada Família, and the project started to monopolize his attention. A devout Christian, Gaudí envisioned a church that would visually tell a narrative of the life of Christ and quite literally “proclaim the excellencies” of God through its incredible scale and craftsmanship.Gaudí became so convinced that architecting this church was his God-given calling, that for the last twelve years of his career he declined offers to take on any other projects so that he could focus intensely on mastering this one.The result? Gaudí gave future generations the blueprints for what has become the most spectacular church in the world. As one well-traveled yet skeptical journalist said, “I passed through the door of the [church]—and almost at once, any doubts were expelled. It is the most astonishing space with immediate emotional punch.”Whether you’re an architect, an entrepreneur, a pastor, or a marketer, achieving mastery of your craft is hard. Really hard. But is it worth it? Absolutely! Why? Because masterful work loves our neighbors as ourselves, opens up doors to share the gospel, and leads to the most sustainable satisfaction of vocation. But most importantly, as la Sagrada Família makes so vividly clear, masterful work captures the world’s attention and reveals the glory and character of the exceptional God we are called to reflect.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God….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….Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:3,17, 23-24)In the past few weeks, I’ve made the case for why Christians should focus on pursuing mastery of one thing at a time vocationally and what we should be looking for in our “one thing.” Today, we’ll take a glimpse at how you can achieve mastery of your craft for the glory of God and the good of others.In my team’s extensive research for my new book, Master of One, three keys to mastering any vocation came up time and time again.Key #1: ApprenticeshipsIn James 4:6, we are told that “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” The Lord’s faithfulness to this promise shone through vividly in our research. More than any other quality, humility marked the stories of every Christ-following master I interviewed.Once we have found the work we are going to sink our teeth into, it is of the utmost importance that we humble ourselves and seek out the mentorship of others who are already masters in our chosen field.Key #2: Purposeful PracticeIt is well known that master performers in any field spend thousands of hours practicing their crafts. But here’s what’s less known—it is only what researchers refer to as “purposeful practice” over long periods of time that leads to mastery.Purposeful practice is characterized by four things: specific goals, intense focus, frequent discomfort, and perhaps most importantly, rapid feedback.As Proverbs 12:15 says, “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” For the Christian, the purpose of mastery isn’t our own fame and fortune. We pursue mastery primarily for the glory of God and the good of others. And it is simply impossible to know if we are loving and serving others well through our work if we aren’t regularly seeking their advice and feedback.Key #3: Discipline Over TimeTo become truly masterful at any vocation, you must have the discipline to spend thousands of hours purposefully practicing that craft. This is why it is so important to take the proper time to explore many different career opportunities before choosing to commit to any one. Because it’s not enough to make a choice. In order to do our most masterful work for the glory of God and the good of others, we must find one vocational thing worth staying committed to over a significant period of time. As Scripture reminds us time and time again, nothing but “diligent hands will rule” (Proverbs 12:24).

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times. (Mark 4:3-8)Between my research for Called to Create and Master of One, I have interviewed nearly 100 Christians who are world-class masters of their crafts. When I’ve asked these people to describe how they discerned their “calling” or their “one thing,” their responses are remarkably similar. Nearly all of these masters tended to ask three questions throughout this process:1. What am I passionate about?2. What gifts has God given me?3. Where do I have the best opportunity to glorify God and serve others?I know what you’re thinking: “That’s nice, but what does it look like for those three things to come together?”I think it looks like the divine multiplication described by Jesus in The Parable of the Sower.In his excellent book, Culture Making, Andy Crouch points out that this is essentially “a parable about parables—an explanation of the whole parable-telling strategy.” What Crouch means is that parables are a lot like seeds, in that the sower must be liberal in scattering them to large and diverse crowds in hopes that their truths will take root in the hearts of a few listeners. Viewed in that light, Jesus’s words not only offer us insight into how his Word is received, but they also provide a beautiful picture of how we should think about finding and focusing on our calling.When you first start to try to answer the three questions above, you have little idea what your vocational “one thing” might be. So, you scatter seeds widely by trying a lot of different things professionally. Some of those “seeds” will fall on rocky places and some will fall among the thorns; but with enough experimentation, some seeds will fall on good soil that starts to show signs of divine multiplication where the Lord is clearly multiplying our work “so that it bears thirty, sixty and a hundredfold beyond what we could expect from our feeble inputs.”That’s how masters describe discovering the intersection of passions, gifts, and opportunities. That’s what we’re looking for in our “one thing.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)Last week, I argued that in order to best glorify God and love others through our work, we should pursue becoming a “master of one” rather than drifting into becoming a “master of none.” To do this, we must get clarity on the work God has created us to do and the courage to say “no” to virtually everything else.I don’t think anybody understood this better than Jesus who displayed a remarkable awareness of the natural limits time and attention place on our ability to fulfill our life’s calling, or what Jesus referred to as the work the Father gave him to do (see John 17:4).In Luke 9:51, we are told, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” (emphasis mine). The picture here isn’t of Jesus scattering himself across a myriad of nonessential activities. Jesus was laser focused on his “one thing”: preaching the good news of redemption in word and ultimate deed.In today’s passage, we are told that as Jesus was “on the way” to fulfilling that mission, he stopped by the home of Mary and Martha and taught a lesson on focus that they (and we) so desperately need. In the scene, we find Martha distracted by many things, while Mary was focused on just one. Jesus’s response? “Few things are needed—or indeed only one.”Commenting on this passage, Tim Keller hit the nail on the head: “[Mary] decided what was important, and she did not let the day-to-day get her away from that. As a result, she was drawn into a greatness we don’t even dream of. Because we are more like Martha than Mary, we’re sinking in a sea of mediocrity” (emphasis mine).The world is constantly pressuring us to be more like Martha than Mary, convincing us that the path to happiness and impact is the path of more—more jobs, more commitments, more money, etc. But here, Jesus offers us a better, simpler, saner way. He offers us the path of less but better.In a world full of Marthas, let us allow Jesus’s words to permeate every aspect of our lives, especially our work. Instead of scattering our gifts and energy in a million directions, let us seek the one vocational thing we believe the Father has given us to do and then master that work for his glory and the good of others.How do we begin to find our “one thing”? That’s the question we will turn to next week.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)There’s an old saying that goes, “He’s a Jack of all trades, and a master of none,” used to describe someone who is good at many different things but not excellent at any one of them.I don’t have a problem being a Jack of all trades, but I do think we Christians ought to have a big problem with being described as “masters of none.”Why? Because the essence of the Christian life is to glorify God (or, in the words of John Piper, “reflect his greatness”) and love our neighbors as ourselves. How do we fulfill that call through our work? By doing our work masterfully well and being “imitators” of God’s character of excellence (see Ephesians 5:1).The opposite of mastery is mediocrity, and mediocrity is nothing short of a failure of love and a misrepresentation of our Father.Dr. Anders Ericsson, “the world’s leading expert on experts,” is famous for discovering that it takes roughly 10,000 hours of “purposeful practice” to achieve mastery of any craft. Given this, it’s no wonder we are a society full of masters of none.I’d venture to say that most of us feel like we are making a millimeter of progress in a million directions with our lives and our careers. We are good at many different things, but we aren’t excellent, masterful, or exceptional at any one of them. We are overcommitted, overwhelmed, and overstressed, spending way too much time focused on minutiae rather than mastering the work God created us to do.So, how do we find the work we can do most exceptionally well in service of God and others? What is the solution to being a master of none? The solution is becoming a master of one.It’s believed that the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none,” is a misquote of Benjamin Franklin, who actually encouraged his readers to be a “Jack of all trades, and a master of one.” Whether or not Franklin uttered this phrase is irrelevant. The fact is that in order to best glorify God and love others through our vocations, we must do our work with excellence. And we can’t do our most excellent work until we discern the work God has created us to do most exceptionally well, and then, once we’ve found it, focus on becoming a master of that craft.As we enter this new decade, let us all passionately pursue mastery of the work the Father has given us to do, for his glory and the good of others.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you….Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip….Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple. Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests? Surely the islands look to me; in the lead are the ships of Tarshish, bringing your children from afar, with their silver and gold, to the honor of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Foreigners will rebuild your walls, and their kings will serve you. Though in anger I struck you, in favor I will show you compassion. Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations—their kings led in triumphal procession. (Isaiah 60:1, 4, 6-11)Over the past three weeks, we have seen Jesus appear to us first as creator, then as a carpenter, and last week, as a gardener.Today, we look ahead to the final advent, where Jesus assumes his eternal throne as Christ the King.The passage above is one of my favorite in all of Scripture. In this text, Isaiah is painting a prophetic vision of the “new Jerusalem” of Revelation 21 where “[God] will dwell among the people,” and Jesus will reign as king forever.But pay attention to what else is happening in this scene. People from all nations are coming into the new Jerusalem, and they’re not coming empty-handed. The people of Tarshish are bringing their ships. The people of Midian and Ephah are bringing their livestock. The people of Sheba are bringing gold and frankincense. Jesus is inviting these people to bring their very best works of culture—“the wealth of the nations”—into his eternal Kingdom.New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says in his book Surprised by Hope, “What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing…building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems…loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly…They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.”In other words, the work we do in between the first and final advent matters.The Kingdom of Heaven is not devoid of culture. Based on this passage and other clues throughout Scripture, I’m willing to bet it is filled with it.My prayer is that that hope will inspire us all to do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. And who knows? Maybe one day, Christus Rex—Jesus the King—will graciously take those creations and work them into our forever home.