43: Your work matters to God (John 1:1–5,14)
Devotional / Produced by TOW Project
Scripture Reading: John 1:1–5,14
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:1) The majestic opening of John’s Gospel shows us the limitless scope of the Word’s work. He is the definitive self-expression of God, the one through whom God created all things in the beginning. He stretches out the cosmos as the canvas for the expression of God’s glory.
The Word is working; and because his work began in the beginning, all subsequent human labor is derived from his initial labor. Derived is not too strong a word, because everything people work with was created by him.
John’s Gospel is not grounded in separating the spiritual versus the material, or the sacred versus the spiritual, or any other dualism. It does not portray salvation as the liberation of the human spirit from the shackles of the material body. Jesus’ followers are not called to abandon some sort of “secular” world in order to enter a “spiritual” one. Instead, Jesus calls his followers to receive and use the power of God’s spirit in the present world. He came to restore the world to the way God intended it to be, not to lead an exodus out of the world.
If further evidence for God’s ongoing commitment to the creation is needed, we may turn to John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” The incarnation is not the triumph of the spirit over the flesh, but the fulfillment of what the flesh was created for in the beginning. And the flesh is not a temporary base of operations, but the Word’s permanent abode. If the world in general is of such immense concern to God, it stands to reason that the work done within that world matters to him as well.
Prayer: Jesus, thank you for being the Word made flesh. You came to restore the world to the way God intended it to be, not to lead an exodus out of the world. May my work bless your work of restoration today. Amen.
For Further Exploration: Read In the Beginning Was the Word (John 1:1-18) from the Theology of Work Bible Commentary.
Author: Theology of Work Project.
Theology of Work Project Online Materials by Theology of Work Project, Inc. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.theologyofwork.org
You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), and remix (to adapt the work) for non-commercial use only, under the condition that you must attribute the work to the Theology of Work Project, Inc., but not in any way that suggests that it endorses you or your use of the work.
© 2014 by the Theology of Work Project, Inc.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
