RISE: Hard Work
I was having a conversation with a young Christian friend a while back, and this person asked me an interesting question. “Isn’t work a product of the fall?” He referenced the scripture in the bible where God is handing out the penalties for disobedience in Genesis 3.
“And to the man he said, ‘Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grain. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.'”
Before being asked this question, I never really gave that idea much thought. I had to go back and read exactly where God placed the concept of work in the garden of Eden. It didn’t take long to see that God put Adam to work before the penalty for sin. And it sounds like it was pretty hard work too! Genesis 2:15 lets us know that God placed Adam in the garden “to tend and watch over it”. In verse 18, we see that Adam needs a helper so God makes Eve. So yeah, there was a lot of responsibility and work going on. So what’s the difference before the curse and after?
The difference was that, after the curse, the work that they were used to doing wouldn’t result in fruitfulness. They would actually have to work MORE and get LESS in return. As farmers, they would sow into a ground that was fighting against them and refusing to give them what their work was worth. (You know where I’m going with this.) The scripture tells us that mankind would still be able to eat grain from an unwilling ground. That was God’s mercy on display. But when the curse isn’t involved, we have a picture of hard work PLUS an environment that is willing to be a blessing to the sons of God. We see the investments of our work and time ALWAYS resulting in fruitfulness.
The key to fruitfulness is in the gospel. Do we really understand what Jesus did when He conquered sin and invited us to abide in Him? He is not a weak Jesus who sheepishly asks us if we would let him come into our heart. The Word made flesh rose victoriously, called us by name, transformed us, and baptized us into Himself. We are sons and daughters of God and JOINT HEIRS with Christ. This is the same Christ that ran up on a fig tree and was like, “I AM the Life. If you don’t want to be fruitful while I’m around you, then you’re the one cursed and not Me.” He flexed on a tree, y’all! He refused to live under the same curse of an unwilling ground that Adam did because fruitfulness has always been a top priority for God. “Be fruitful and multiply”, remember? And here’s the key: Jesus worked HARD. During one of His claims to be God in John 5:17, he says “My Father is always working and so am I.” But he only invested His time into what His Father told him to do. That’s why He was always producing fruit.
I want to encourage you as an artist. Don’t settle for working hard and barely getting a return. That’s not your portion as a son or daughter of God. And don’t let the world OUTWORK you. In one of her songs, Rihanna says “we sweat for a nickel and a dime, turn it into an empire.” If the world can make careers in music and artistry with limited resources and limited revelation in a world that is hostile to fruitfulness, then the people of God can do so much more. Remember who you are!
#RISE
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