I’ve written before about how Christians are to approach secular productivity books.
There are often many things that need to be corrected and reoriented towards a Christian worldview, but yet Christians can fully utilize productivity approaches, concepts, and tools that come from secular society.
In fact, worldly time management methods and technology can actually be seen as gifts from God. All good things come from God. All truth comes from God.
We can thank God for leading secular thinkers to develop these tools and systems and can then employ them for our uses with thanksgiving towards God.
But there’s a deeper layer which we need to consider.
Even the Devil Has Knowledge
I recently read a fantastic devotional from John Piper, entitled “All Truth is God’s Truth,” Says the Devil.
Piper discusses how mere knowledge of truth is insufficient.
The impression is given that just knowing God’s truth and recognizing it as such is a good thing, even a worthy end. But the problem with this is that the devil does it…
Alongside “All truth is God’s truth,” we need to say, “All truth exists to display more of God and awaken more love for God.” This means that knowing truth and knowing it as God’s truth is not a virtue until it awakens desire and delight in us for the God of truth. And that desire and delight are not complete until they give rise to words or actions that display the worth of God. That is, we exist to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31), and merely knowing a truth to be God’s truth does not glorify him any more than the devil does.
Increasing Love
So we can look at a worldly book like Getting Things Done and redeem it by infusing it with a Christian worldview. But this isn’t simply so we can be more productive.
It’s so that we develop a stronger love for God as the good giver of this truth. Without this stronger love, a recognition of this truth is incomplete.
An Occasion for Worship
So when you use your productivity tools today, when you employ methods and techniques developed by unbelievers, when you increase your efficiency with secular technology, make sure that you stop and give thanks.
Don’t stop simply with knowing the truth. Give thanks to the God of all truth. Let these good gifts increase your love for him and drive you to worship.
Photo Credit: Simon Cocks (Creative Commons)
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