Purpose Work

Lives of Integrity

As a professor, one of my goals is to teach my students to do their work and manage others with integrity. While most of them readily know what integrity is, it can be a difficult concept to define. One of the ways I help them understand it is by looking at Ephesians 4:1 which states, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” In other words, if we say we follow Christ, then our lives should showcase how God has called us to live. We can’t say with integrity that we are a Christian, and yet live in such a way that is contrary to His teaching. This is true in each aspect of our lives; we must follow His way of doing things in our homes, our work, our church, and our communities. 

To help us further understand what a life that is worthy of being identified with Christ looks like, Paul provides a description of the types of attitudes and actions that should characterize our lives. We should conduct ourselves “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:2).While it is easy to see from the last two phrases (“bearing with one another in love” and “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit”) that Paul was focused on how the Ephesian Christians interacted with one another, these descriptors can be applied to our lives outside of our church family as well. Christians should prefer others over themselves, thus demonstrating humility and not pride. They should deal gently with difficult people and have patience with challenging situations, recognizing that God has dealt bountifully with them and therefore, they can be conduits of that grace towards others. Lastly, they should be people who work towards peace and who strive together with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to be His hands and feet to a lost world. Living a life worthy of the title “Christian” will display the attitudes and actions that echo the life of our Savior.

However, doing this well means that we are committed to living lives in this manner regardless of whether it is convenient for us. As I remind my students, the very first part of this verse tells us that Paul wrote those words while he was imprisoned. And this wasn’t figurative language. Paul was unjustly locked up and had his freedom restricted. Yet, despite this, he was committed to living in a way that honored God. Even though he had plenty of reasons to think his conduct was inconsequential while he resided behind prison walls, he recognized that because he claimed the name of Christ, he had a duty and an opportunity to display Christ-like character even when the impact of doing so may have seemed insignificant. He was committed to living consistently with God’s standards regardless of how easy or how difficult it was. This is what a Christian living a life of integrity will do. 

It’s one thing to display humility, patience, and love when things are going well for us. It is a completely different challenge to do that when deadlines are pressing in, people are frustrating you, or when you are wrongly locked up as Paul was. But Christians should not be committed to following the ways of God only when it is easy. If we desire to be men and women of integrity, if we desire to be men and women who represent the name of Christ well, we will display the characteristics of our Savior when it is easy to do so and when it is hard, when it is convenient to do so and when it costs us. We will live in a way worthy of the name of Christ in whatever situation He sovereignly places us in. 

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Work

Courageously Working

As someone who teaches management, the account of the Israelites rebuilding the temple and the Jerusalem walls has long been special to me. The Bible has much to teach us about how children of God should work and the meaning and importance of our work, but it contains limited detailed accounts of work getting done that have understandable parallels to organizational life of today. The history of the rebuilding of the temple, however, runs counter to that trend. Not only do the accounts of this construction project teach us much about God and faithful obedience to His commands, they also can give Christian managers a way to evaluate their approach to the administrative task when compared with the leaders that God had appointed to manage this effort. Studying the book of Ezra (as well as the rebuilding of the Jerusalem walls in Nehemiah) can provide numerous lessons for business professionals today. 

One challenge for workers of all kinds is enduring in the work regardless of the circumstances. It can be tempting to grow weary when the challenges of the job seem immense or when our confidence in our abilities is weakened. It can be difficult to even start a project when the enormity of the task seems outside of our scope or expertise. Sometimes when we see the job set before us all we see are the potential obstacles and we can be quick to be discouraged, even before the work has begun. 

This is one of the reasons why I appreciate Ezra’s attitude when he was tasked with the monumental challenge of rebuilding the temple. Instead of being overwhelmed with the magnitude of what he had been tasked with or being filled with worry over how he would get things done, he looked at what God was already doing and had confidence in how God would complete the work. Ezra 7:28b recounts his words: “I took courage, for the hand of the LORD my God was on me, and I gathered leading men from Israel to go up with me.”

Did you catch that? Because he knew that God was with him in his work; he was encouraged, and then proceeded to get a team to join him in the work. Because he had seen how God had provided through the favor and good graces of the king, he trusted that God would provide for what would come next as well. Ezra’s confidence was contagious and because of his dependence on God, others joined him in the work.


There is a lesson in this for us as we approach our work – whatever that may be. There will likely be a time for all of us where the work God has given us will seem difficult and the obstacles extensive. There may be times where our jobs seem mundane, and we will feel unappreciated. We may long for different circumstances, or we may wish for different roles. But these situations and feelings are inconsequential compared to what is actually significant. For every Christian, what truly matters is that if God has called us to the work, that is reason in and of itself to approach the work courageously, because He will be with us as we do the tasks to which He has called us. What was true for Ezra, is true for the Christ follower who is called to be a business manager, an artist, a stay-at-home parent, or a variety of other roles. We can be encouraged in our work when we are following God’s leading in our lives. And as we do so, we will experience the goodness that comes from His hand for those that depend solely on Him. 

It is easy to read the book of Ezra and be impressed with all that Ezra and his team accomplished. But let us never forget that the work started when God initiated the project, and He gave all that was needed to get the job done. God will do the same for the work that He has prepared for you and for me. It is our job to courageously depend on Him, and to trust His good hand to provide all that we need.

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