Devot. Labor or Service?

Dear Friends,

I pray you have had a blessed week!  The devot. for today is another Labor Day devot and I pray it is a blessing.

I was just thinking of a verse that means a great deal to my family in regards to Labor or Service for the Lord.

1 Cor. 15:48 says, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."   The things we do for God count!

Please also remember our nation and it's 9/11 families tomorrow in prayer.  No matter how many years go by, it is still a painful reminder, esp. for those who lived through it or lost a loved one in it.How our nation needs the Lord in her life right now in the midst of the utter craziness going on in our world.  

" If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven,

and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."  (2 Chronicles 7:14).  I hope you learn something new from the devot. and you and your family have a blessed and safe weekend.

Devot. used by permission.  Taken from http://www.icr.org/

 

September 7, 2015 Labor or Service? “Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work.” (Deuteronomy 5:13)   The term “labor” to many seems to connote drudgery or routine, repetitive, demeaning toil. As used here in the fourth of God’s Ten Commandments, however, the Hebrew word abad means rather to “serve” and is so translated 214 times in the King James. Only one other time is it translated “labor,” and that is in the first rendering of the commandments (Exodus 20:9). Thus, the command could well be read: “Six days shalt thou serve. . . .”   Furthermore, the word for “work” (Hebrew melakah) does not denote servile labor but “deputyship” or “stewardship.” The one whom we are to serve or act as deputy for, of course, is God Himself when we do our work. In the ultimate and very real sense, the Lord is our employer, and we serve Him, not man. Therefore, “whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” (Colossians 3:23). Every honest occupation, if carried out for the Lord’s sake and to His glory, is “divine service,” and every Christian who holds this perspective on his or her work (be it preaching, or bookkeeping, or homemaking, or whatever) is in the Christian ministry—for “ministry” simply means “service.”   Note also that God has ordained not a four-day or five-day workweek: “Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work,” He says, thus commemorating the six days in which He worked in the beginning, “for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth” (Exodus 31:17).   One day, Lord willing, we shall hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21). Then, throughout the ages to come, “his servants shall serve him” (Revelation 22:3) with everlasting joy. HMM