Want to “shine among” lost co-workers? Do this.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky. (Philippians 2:14-15)
Want to “shine among” the non-Christians you work with? Paul tells you how: “Do everything without grumbling or arguing.” Apparently, working without grumbling and complaining was as countercultural in Paul’s day as it is in ours.
C.S. Lewis once said that, “Hell begins with a grumbling mood.” The inverse is also true. People can get a whiff of heaven through the joyful mood of its citizens. Dr. Randy Alcorn goes so far as to say that, “Happiness in Christ is one of our most powerful evangelistic tools.”
The question, of course, is how can we be joyful and work without grumbling when your co-worker replies all to yet another email or your boss makes an urgent request at 4:45 on a Friday? By focusing on what Christ has done for us.
Just a few verses before...
How traditional retirement takes the Lord’s name in vain
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. (Philippians 1:21-22)
Today, we’re kicking off a new series exploring wisdom for our work from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, looking at one insight from each of the book’s four chapters.
We begin in chapter 1 with Paul’s words that—so long as he’s alive—he will give himself to “fruitful labor” for the kingdom.
Those words are countercultural today as retirement remains a goal for the vast majority of Americans. And thanks to the growing “Financial Independence, Retire Early” FIRE movement, Gen Z plans to retire earlier than any previous generation at the ripe young age of 54.
How do these people plan to spend the second half of life? The social media bio of a leader of the FIRE movement is telling to that end: “Mr. Money Mustache was a thirtysomething retiree who now writes about how we can all lead a frugal yet Badass life of leisure.”
This idea of tradi...
