The capitalistic tower of Babel

Genesis 11:1- 4 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

It is evident that God created us to work. Scripture points to the fact that before sin entered the world, man harvested the garden and "sherrifed" God's creation for Him. That was a God glorifying work as it cultivated God's creation and carried out His will for man and creation. Only eight chapters after the fall though, we see man's perversion of work starting to really spike up. What was the sin of the tower of Babel? Pride. Their work was not done for the will of God, to accomplish the purposes of God, but to make a name for themselves. Humm, is there any of that around today?

When you really peel back the purpose of your work, what do you see? Are you working unto the Lord or are you making a name for your self?

Even in our American church culture, we can easily slip into a trap of thinking that we can pour our entire energy focus and passion into our jobs, and as long as we give God a 10% tithe then we are serving God well with our work. While the tithe is a great starting place for giving, we are missing the point if we only talk about money made from our work, and not our actions while we work. If the only "spot" given to God is 10% of the fruit of your efforts, then what about the other 90% of your money and 100% of the time you spend at work? Is it yours or God's? Who allows it to exist? Who empowers it? Whose name does it glorify?

These are critical questions about our life's work. We must remember that God does not need our money, and His goal is heart change so that we can Love and Glorify Him through Christ. For most of my life, my work was about glorifying Chad with more stuff and praise from men. My purposes really looked like the tower of Babel except I gave God a 10% tithe of it. That was until God pointed me to the fact that Jesus did not just give 10% of His life and blood on the cross, He gave 100%. That changes things for us all, doesn't it?

So how do you glorify God at your job? Let him lead you to daily mirror compassion, mercy, restoration, service and all of the aspects of Christ to your coworkers, customers and vendors. How does that look for you? Why don't you spend time to ask Him?

As our model, He gave 100% of Himself to His work of redeeming mankind for God's glory and did not hold back anything.He is an "all in" God and our life's work should strive to Glorify His name.