Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• What Do I Do If I Don’t Like My Job? In this short video, Bryan Chapell states “So when we’re in a job that we don’t like so much, apply the George Bailey Test. If you didn’t do it, if nobody did it, what would be the effects upon the world? And suddenly, we begin to recognize that even in the onerous jobs, there is a glory that God intends for his people as they do what needs to be done.”
• 11 Passages to Read When You Lose Your Job. Crossway shares these helpful passages from scripture to read when you lose your job.
• The Groan and Glory of Our Work. Scott Sauls writes “Work is glorious because of how it intersects with God’s ongoing creative, restorative mission in the world.”
• Saints are Needed in Every Sphere. In this discussion, Carl Ellis, Phillip Holmes, and David Platt talk about why we need Christians in a wide variety of vocational spheres—and the effect their work can have for the kingdom.

Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:

• More links to interesting articles
• The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
• My Review of Master What Matters: 12 Value Choices to Help You Win at Life by John Maxwell
• Quotes from the book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic

• The Benefits of Working a Job for a Long Time. In a recent article, Russ Gehrlein discussed the potential negative consequences of working the same job for a long time.  However, there are many upsides to longevity in a role, and those are what he addresses in this article.
• Called to Lead. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace is available in both a paperback and Kindle edition. Read a free sample (Introduction through Chapter 2).
• Proverbs 22:29 and Faithfulness in Work. Adam Nesmith shares three lessons the Lord has taught him about faithfulness in work.
• Third Third Flourishing…. Can’t Do It Alone! Mark D. Roberts writes “God has created you as a relational being and you will live fully and fruitfully when you are in relationship with others. This is true in every season of life, especially in the third third.”
• My Christian Beliefs are no Longer Welcome in the Workplace. What Should I Do? Increasingly, Christian employees are finding that their worldview is no longer welcome in the workplace. Should they try to remain as a witness, or is it time to move on? From one of Ligonier’s live events, Stephen Nichols and Burk Parsons address this growing challenge.
• The Flourishing Pastor Podcast. The Flourishing Pastor by Tom Nelson was one of my favorite books of 2022. Now there is a podcast. Check it out.
• When Colleagues Think Your Faith Is a Joke. Miranda Carls responds to the question “My coworkers think my faith is a joke. They’re never mean about it. They just don’t realize the significance of it. What should I do?”
• Leaders Who See The Lowly. Entrusted to the Dirt writes “Leaders who see the lowly and unimpressive are the kind of leaders worth following – and the kind of leaders we should want to become. This is because how we treat the lowly is truly a window into our character.”

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Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

• In all our everyday responsibilities and commitments—whether they involve investing millions or changing diapers, working on a factory assembly line or plowing a field or sitting in a boardroom—we can view them as the very instruments God will use for His purposes and to glorify His name. Alistair Begg
• God prizes faithfulness, not success. Dan Doriani   
• If the blessing and contentment of the Lord attend your life, whether you are a CEO or an intern, whether your work involves balancing the books or changing countless diapers, you can return blessing with blessing by pointing back to Him in all you do and say. Alistair Begg
• A cobbler, a smith, a farmer, each has the work and office of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops, and every one by means of his own work or office must benefit and serve every other. Martin Luther
• The work you do now will go on into eternity. Scott Sauls
• There is no ideal place to serve God except the place in which He has set you down. Alistair Begg
• The most powerful kind of leader is one who uses his or her authority ultimately to serve the ones being led. Tim Keller
• Whatever our specific calling, God has uniquely and divinely equipped each of us to perform this work assignment to His glory. Luke Bobo
• When we begin to realize that there’s dignity in every vocation, then we realize that every job has a purpose of serving others and bringing glory to God. Bryan Chapell

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

Master What Matters: 12 Value Choices to Help You Win at Life by John Maxwell. Center Street. 204 pages. 2022
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Maxwell Moments, a new line of John Maxwell books, is described as “an innovative new line of derivative books unlike any other Maxwell books in the marketplace. They will look and feel fresh, appealing to a younger and more innovative audience. Titles in the Maxwell Moments series will be single-concept books in a creative format, chock full of wisdom, insight, and inspiration. Each will contain the essence of one of John’s messages, divided into short chapters to be savored in small bites, read in a single sitting, given as gifts, and used as mentoring tools.”
In this volume in the series, Maxwell tells us that there are only a handful of important value choices you need to make in your entire lifetime to win at life. He states that most people overcomplicate life and get bogged down. He covers twelve important choices, each given their own short chapter, to make in order to be successful. They are:

• Focus on today.
• See the glass as half-full.
• View everyone as a potential friend.
• Do what you say you’ll do.
• Put important ahead of urgent.
• Give your family your best.
• Make yourself better every day.
• Think your way to the top.
• Never put off your health.
• Keep money in perspective.
• Make room for faith.
• Give more than you take.

He tells us our choices are the only thing we truly control, and that the most successful people in life are the ones who settle their value choices early and manage those choices daily.
Among the subjects he addresses in the book are your daily agenda, a positive attitude, good relationships, adding value to others, resolving conflict quickly, keeping your commitments, maximizing your potential, good thinking, being generous, excellence, and your priorities.
Maxwell Moments may very well find a new audience for John Maxwell’s teaching, and I think that’s great. For me however, I prefer his full-length traditional books.

Below are 15 of my favorite quotes from the book:

1. Winning at life is going to bed at night knowing you have done your best and given yourself to the things that matter the most.
2. Many people figure that tomorrow is bound to be better, but they have no strategy for making it better.
3. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
4. Everything you are doing now is something you have chosen to do.
5. To change your life, you need to change your priorities.
6. To be successful, you can’t allow what’s urgent for others to drive your life.
7. When you take control of your day, you take control of your life.
8. There is no substitute for time when it comes to your family.
9. Experience is good only if it’s reflected upon and you learn from both mistakes and successes.
10. The greater your thinking, the greater your potential.
11. The ultimate goal of thinking is translating ideas into action.
12. If you want to win at life, you must make your health a priority.
13. One of the greatest causes of debilitating stress in people’s lives is doing jobs they don’t like.
14. What is the greatest choice you can make to win at life? What value has a lasting impact? Being generous.
15. Don’t measure your life by the number of people who serve you or the amount of money you accumulate. Look at how many people you serve. The greater your giving, the greater you’re living.

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Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

We are reading through You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic. The list of demands on our time seems to be never ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty–like you should always be doing one more thing.
Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach in You’re Only Human. He offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn’t create us to do it all.
Kapic explores the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency. He lays out a path to holistic living with healthy self-understanding, life-giving relationships, and meaningful contributions to the world. He frees us from confusing our limitations with sin and instead invites us to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community.
Readers will emerge better equipped to cultivate a life that fosters gratitude, rest, and faithful service to God.
This week we look at the second half of Chapter 8: Why Doesn’t God Just Instantly Change Me? Here are a few helpful quotes from this section of the chapter:

• Only the unhurried tend to value process, including God’s faithful work over the long seasons of our lives.
• Thus, Jesus’s earthly life of normal development and growth also shows us God’s original creation design for humans. God delighted in process, just as he does in his restorative work of new creation.
• Again, marks of growing in the Spirit do not include how many miracles one can do or how many astonishing experiences one has, but whether one is growing in love for God and neighbor.
• Ordinarily, God changes our lives by persistently picking us up when we fall and slowly but consistently drawing us to the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit. In this process he reconnects us with others, replacing our callousness with compassion, our hatred with love, and our fears with hope.