The root of bringing God glory is imitating God’s character.
This isn’t true just with what we would think of as morality (not stealing, not lying, not murdering) but is also true with several areas that often don’t get discussed nearly enough.
We rest because God rests. We work because God works. We love because God loves.
We are productive because God is productive.
For God’s Glory
Wayne Grudem in Business for the Glory of God:
One way that we can glorify God is often overlooked… And it is the key to understanding why human beings have an instinctive drive to work, to be productive, to invent, to earn and save and give, and to do the thousands of specific activities that fill our days. This additional way to glorify God is imitation – imitation of the attributes of God.
More from Grudem in his Doing Business and Pleasing God Seminar:
In doing [productive work], people demonstrate wisdom and care for others and skill and knowledge – all imitations of the attributes of God.
…
Increasing the production of goods and services is not morally evil – and it’s not morally neutral – rather, it’s fundamentally good and pleasing to God. It’s part of his purpose in putting human beings on the Earth. When we create something, productivity creates value in the world that didn’t exist before. Therefore, productivity imitates God in his creativity.
God-Given Urges
And it’s amazing to further consider that the drive to be productive and to work and to create and to make a difference comes from God.
God’s wisdom led him to create us with a need and a desire for material things. This wasn’t necessary. Angels don’t need material things. The desire for and delight in more and better material things wasn’t necessary. There’s no parallel in the animal kingdom. The animals don’t care if they have better cars or eyeglasses or computers. In the process of productive work, we have multiple opportunities to glorify God.
The Distortions Don’t Change What Is Truly Good
To be sure, we don’t want to work hard for evil purposes such as materialsm, pride, or greed. These are deadly snares.
But Grudem points out that these are distortions of what God intended – that shouldn’t cause us to look down on the good that is in producing things materially. No more than premarital sex should cause us to despise the marriage bed or the existence of sluggards should cause us to despise rest.
We’re called to be imitators of him. So be creative, industrious, skillful, productive – and look like God.
Photo Credit: Koshy Koshy (Creative Commons)
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