Indispensable

Christian Working Woman Transcript

Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - When You’re “Dumped On”

What is the difference in your job and your work? Our work will give us an opportunity to exercise the gifts we have–the abilities God has given us, whereas our jobs may not use our gifts. The use of our gifts always brings fulfillment and joy into our lives.

Another difference is:

2. Your job will result in income; your work may never result in income.

We all are willing to go to our jobs each day primarily because we get a salary or compensation at regular intervals for performing that job. I'm not saying you can't enjoy doing your job and that there aren't other motivational factors involved. But there are very few who would continue going to their job each day without compensation.

Your work may never pay you a dollar, but it will pay benefits that cannot be valued in earthly terms. When you are doing your work, what God has called you to do, you're putting deposits in God's heavenly bank, where thieves can't steal it and rust cannot destroy it. Our work certainly brings compensation, but it's deposited in a different bank and held as a long-term investment.

In our society where people are valued by the size of their salaries and bank accounts, this is a totally different perspective and one we have to adjust to. It's one of those areas where we must fight not to allow the world to shove us into its mold, into its way of thinking. What have you been sending on ahead to deposit?

3. There is always someone else who can do your job; there is no one else who can do your work.

You know, if you called your employer tomorrow and said, "I'm not coming back; you won't see me again," guess what? They would survive. It might cause some temporary problems, but somebody soon would move into your shoes, learn your job and do it.

However, you are indispensable when it comes to your work. If you don't do the work God has called you to do, it will go undone. Now, that's a pretty frightening thought–and quite frankly, it should frighten us to think that we could miss the work God has called us to do.

Those people you interact with every day are your special "people group," that can be reached uniquely by you. If you don't use your gifts to do God's work for the people in your world, nobody else will fill in the gap.