Pre-order The Sacredness of Secular Work today and you could win an epic trip for two to celebrate the sacredness of your “secular” work in a castle, vineyard, cathedral, and more! Entering to win is simple: Step 1: Pre-order the book on Amazon or one of these other retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

Pre-order The Sacredness of Secular Work today and you could win an epic trip for two to celebrate the sacredness of your “secular” work in a castle, vineyard, cathedral, and more! Entering to win is simple: Step 1: Pre-order the book on Amazon or one of these other retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

Pre-order The Sacredness of Secular Work today and you could win an epic trip for two to celebrate the sacredness of your “secular” work in a castle, vineyard, cathedral, and more! Entering to win is simple: Step 1: Pre-order the book on Amazon or one of these other retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

Pre-order The Sacredness of Secular Work today and you could win an epic trip for two to celebrate the sacredness of your “secular” work in a castle, vineyard, cathedral, and more! Entering to win is simple: Step 1: Pre-order the book on Amazon or one of these other retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

Pre-order The Sacredness of Secular Work today and you could win an epic trip for two to celebrate the sacredness of your “secular” work in a castle, vineyard, cathedral, and more! Entering to win is simple: Step 1: Pre-order the book on Amazon or one of these other retailersStep 2: Fill out this formNO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US Residents, 18+. Visit jordanraynor.com for full rules, entry steps (incl alternate entry), prize details, odds & other info. Void where prohibited.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 5 of 5Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)I’ve said this multiple times throughout this series, but allow me to say it once more: The Great Commission to “make disciples” is indeed great! But it’s far from the only thing Christ has called us to do. And there are serious problems with treating it as such. We’ve seen three of those problems thus far in this series:Jesus never didIt neglects the other aspects of God’s kingdomIronically, it makes us less effective at the Great CommissionHere’s the fourth problem with treating the Great Commission as the only commission: It blocks you and me from seeing how our work matters for eternity—how, in the words of the Apostle Paul, our “labor in the Lord is not in vain.”If the Great Commission is the only commission, then our work has value only when leveraged to the instrumental end of evangelism. And if our work has only instrumental value, then most of us are wasting most of our time. That’s terribly disheartening because God has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). To quote the inimitable Alexander Hamilton, we all “wanna build something that’s gonna outlive” us. We want this life to count for the next one. But if we can’t see how that’s possible, we lose purpose, hope, and a deep sense of connection with God as we go about our days. Leo Tolstoy, the writer of classics such as War and Peace, once said that it was this idea that “brought me to the point of suicide when I was fifty years old…It is the question without which life is impossible…It is this: what will come of what I do today or tomorrow?...Or expressed another way: is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death which awaits me?”That is the question, isn’t it? What is the purpose of building a business, working a register, or planning an event if those actions don’t lead to an opportunity to share the gospel? Sure, they are means of loving our neighbors as ourselves in the present (see Matthew 22:39). But beyond the here and now, how do those actions matter for eternity?So long as we see the Great Commission as our only commission, it will be impossible to answer that question. Which is why I wrote The Sacredness of Secular Work, to help you see how 100% of your time at work can matter for eternity and not just the 1% of time you spend “sharing the gospel.” The book releases January 30 but you can pre-order it today on Amazon or one of these other retailers!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 4 of 5The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Psalm 37:23)The Great Commission is indeed great. But as we’ve been exploring in this series, there is great danger in treating the Great Commission as the only one Jesus left us. One of those dangers is that it ironically makes us less effective at the Great Commission. Why? Because it makes Christians feel guilty for working in the very places most likely to make disciples!Dr. Michael Green, an expert on the explosion of Christianity in the first few centuries, says that the historical evidence “makes it abundantly clear that in contrast to the present day, when Christianity is . . . dispensed by a professional clergy . . . in the early days the faith was spontaneously spread by informal evangelists,” who shared the gospel “in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls.” That was true in the early church, and likely to be true for the foreseeable future as non-Christians are more reticent than ever to darken the door of a church and entire nations are closing their doors to Christian missionaries. But when the Great Commission is the only one we hear preached and when the only people we see on the stages of our churches are pastors and “full-time missionaries,” those of us who work as entrepreneurs, baristas, and accountants inevitably feel guilty about working anywhere other than the mission field. Most dramatically, that guilt will lead us to leave the very workplaces where we’re most likely to make disciples. At a minimum, it will make us half-hearted creatures while we stay there. For the last two years, I have been working on a book that will be released in January called The Sacredness of Secular Work to help you see how your work matters for eternity even when you’re not “sharing the gospel.” But do you know what’s interesting? I’ve shared the gospel more in the last two years than I have in the ten years prior. Why? Because once you understand how 100% of your time can matter for eternity and not just the 1% when you get to explicitly share the gospel, it makes you come fully alive. And fully alive people attract the lost like craft coffee attracts hipsters.Psalm 37:23 says that “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives.” God doesn’t just delight in watching you walk a co-worker through the Romans Road. He delights in every Zoom meeting you lead, every diaper you change, and every Uber you drive with excellence and love and in accordance with his commands. May that truth lead you to be fully alive as you work for his glory today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 3 of 5As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.…And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward. (Matthew 10:7-8, 42)When Jesus called his disciples to “proclaim” that his kingdom had come, he instructed them to “heal,” “cleanse,” and “give.” Not just evangelize and “save souls.”Because of that, I’m confident that Scott Harrison and his team at charity: water are doing “kingdom work” by giving clean water to millions of the world’s poorest image-bearers. But some Christians disagree. For example, a wealthy Christian we’ll call Bill once told Scott: “We're not going to give to charity: water because you're not a Christian organization. If those people don't know Jesus, they're going to burn in hell anyway. You need to be giving the gospel along with clean water.”Bill’s response may sound harsh, but it’s actually quite rational if the Great Commission is the singular mission of the Christian life as so many church leaders are suggesting today. This pervasive message leads people like Bill to believe that the only work that’s truly “kingdom work” is the work of “winning souls” and gaining new citizens of God’s kingdom.But Scripture makes clear that God’s kingdom contains more than just the Sovereign and his subjects. The kingdom is also marked by: beauty (see Isaiah 35; Revelation 21:9–21)justice (see Isaiah 30:18; 61:8)order (see 1 Corinthians 14:33)abundance (see Isaiah 25:6–9; 49:10; 65:22; Joel 3:18)cultural excellence (see Isaiah 60; Revelation 21:26)a sense of belonging (see Psalm 68:6) a sustainable earth (see Isaiah 51:3; Revelation 11:15–18)That’s a partial list of what God longs for us to experience with him for eternity. But when we treat the Great Commission as the only commission, we make it easy to ignore these “non-soul” aspects of the kingdom. The implication is that building an abundance of clean water doesn’t matter. Cultivating beauty as an artist or hairdresser doesn’t matter. Creating order or a sense of belonging on your team doesn’t matter. Unless, of course, those things are currently in vogue and can be leveraged to the instrumental end of “sharing the gospel.”This misguided thinking leads to the fair accusation that Christians are “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.” But as New Testament scholar N.T. Wright aptly points out, “It is when the church . . . acts with decisive power in the real world—to build and run a successful school, or medical clinic, or a credit union for those ashamed to go into a bank. . . that people will take the message of Jesus seriously.”Amen. To that end, cultivate the kingdom values listed above in your work today. And watch how God uses your “kingdom work” to make others long to meet our King!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 2 of 5After his suffering, [Jesus] presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)Last week, we saw that for the very first time in Church history, many Christians today have interpreted the “Great Commission” to “make disciples” as the singular mission of the Christian life.If that’s true, then most of your work is meaningless. The product you’re building, the beauty you’re creating, the car you’re repairing—none of it matters unless you can leverage those things to the instrumental end of “sharing the gospel.”Believer, this is an egregious lie. And a crazy dangerous one for reasons we’ll explore over the next four weeks. Here’s the first problem with treating the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus left us: Jesus himself never did!Today’s passage tells us that Jesus spent forty days speaking “about the kingdom of God” after his resurrection. I did the math. There are 3,456,000 seconds in forty days. The Great Commission takes roughly twenty seconds to read out loud. Do we really think Jesus intended for us to interpret what he said in 0.00058% of this time as the exclusive mission of the church? I don’t think so. But many people argue that the Great Commission should be the end-all be-all for Christ-followers because the command to “make disciples” was the last one Jesus spoke before ascending into heaven. But actually, it wasn’t. Check out the full passage: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19–20) If Christ meant for us to interpret the call to make disciples as the only commission of the Christian life, he could have said so. But he didn’t. Instead, he used his address before his ascension to reiterate the importance of obeying “everything” he commanded during his time on earth.Believer, I pray you’ll have an opportunity to share the gospel with a co-worker today. But even if you don’t, please know that today can still matter greatly for eternity.1 John 3:22 says that “we keep [God’s] commands and give him pleasure when he sees what we are doing.” That means when you simply “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’” and do what you say you’re going to do at work (Matthew 5:37), when you “do good” to your enemies and competitors “without expecting to get anything back” (Luke 6:35), and when you “pray…in secret” at your desk (Matthew 6:6)—all of that obedience contributes to God’s eternal pleasure. May that encourage you and motivate you to “obey everything [Christ has] commanded you” to do today!

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Beyond the Great CommissionDevotional: 1 of 5Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19–20) One of the deepest and most dangerous lies in the Church today is that this passage—often labeled the “Great Commission”—is the singular mission of the Christian life.This, of course, has tremendous implications for our work. Because if the Great Commission to “save souls” and “make disciples” is the only thing that matters for eternity, then most of us are wasting most of our time.This is what many of us are being told explicitly by church leaders! In the words of one influential pastor, “The consequences of your mission [and here he’s talking exclusively about the Great Commission] will last forever; the consequences of your job will not.”But here’s what’s fascinating: Treating the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus left us is brand spanking new in church history. According to three faculty members at the conservative Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, “Before at least the seventeenth century, the [Great Commission] was largely ignored when discussing the church’s missional assignment.” So how on earth did the Great Commission functionally become the only commission modern Christians feel called to? Perhaps part of the reason is the label we’ve attached to Jesus’s words in Matthew 28, turning it from a commission to the singular “great” one. But here’s what’s mind-boggling: The term “Great Commission” isn’t even part of the original biblical manuscripts. It’s a man-made heading that, as the preface to the NIV Bible warns, is “not to be regarded as part of the biblical text.” And get this: The label “Great Commission” didn’t even show up in popular print until the late 1800s when Hudson Taylor coined the term to recruit people to serve as missionaries in China. The term “Great Commission” is not a part of the inerrant Word of God. It’s simply the catchiest marketing slogan of the modern missions movement.Now the command itself? That’s a different story! Hudson Taylor was right when he said, “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” Lest I be misinterpreted, let me say this as clearly as I can: The Great Commission is indeed great! It’s just not only. Why is it so problematic to treat the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus gave us? Here are just four reasons: Jesus never didIt neglects the other aspects of God’s kingdomIronically, it makes us less effective at the Great CommissionIt blocks us from seeing the full extent of how our work matters for eternityJoin me over the next four weeks as we unpack each of these four dangers in detail together!