2020 Daily Devotion - Day 123

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There is an old story I like to tell about a man who had a garden filled with beautiful flowers. As he was working in the garden, a man walked by and said, “That sure is a beautiful garden you and God have.” And the gardener responded by saying, “You should have seen it when God took care of it by Himself.”

When I remember this story, it reminds me of another garden – the Garden of Eden, where God created Adam and Eve and placed them in this beautiful garden with the instructions to take care of and make it prosper (Gen 2). In fact, He gave to them the authority to take care of everything He had created, and this is still expected of us today.

We are meant to work. Work was in the world before sin was in the world. The Bible says if someone does not work, neither shall they eat. Work gives us purpose and the opportunity to be used by God for His purposes in the world; no matter the work as long as it is moral and ethical work. So, we are not meant to sit around and watch and complain. We are not meant to make excuses for why things are not better. We are to be engaged and involved. I have heard it said, “I should pray like everything depends on God, and work like everything depends on me.” This is a very good balance in keeping with the spirit of what God told Adam and Eve.

Genesis 1:26-28 ESV
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Pray with me:
Heavenly Father, You give purpose to everything and everyone You create. We were never meant to merely sit and watch what happens. We were not meant to only pray. We were meant to take care of Your world. Help us to take this seriously, even if it means we have to go back to school or ask for help from a mentor. Empower us to get up and get going. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
 
Yours because of Him,
Pastor John R. Steward
Senior Pastor
Mount of Olives Church
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