Richard Doster writes this in byFaith Magazine. Make sure you don’t miss his provocative last line:
God’s people can, as agents of His redemptive plan, transform business, stripping it of selfish ambition and pursuing instead what’s best for their neighbors. Through business, God’s people can harness mankind’s creativity, and with it nurture His creation, developing products that make the world more satisfying. Through the economic power of commerce, Christians can make the world safer and healthier. The members of Christ’s Church, distributed in offices around the world, can transform greed into good stewardship, showing the world that business has a biblical responsibility to create new wealth and provide a fair return to investors (Matthew 25:14-28). But, with an eye toward the consummation of Christ’s kingdom, we also create wealth in order to create new and satisfying jobs, which offer the hope (and perhaps a glimpse) of a coming world where there is no poverty.
God has placed His people in business so that they can — in humility, and making full use of the talents and resources He’s given — serve customers, employees, suppliers, and the world at large, looking out for the interests of others and providing for their needs.
On their deathbeds, many Christians will regret that they didn’t love their neighbors, care for the poor, or advance Christ’s kingdom as they should have. They might therefore, with their final breath, gasp: “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” (via)
What a great reminder for us to see our work in and of itself as an opportunity to love our neighbors. Knowing that our productivity is a means of God’s grace, we should be driven to work hard at our jobs instead of playing Bejeweled all day until the boss walks by.
But we also can’t forget the fact that direct, personal love is always preferable to indirect love that has to go through middlemen before it reaches its recipient.
Paul, the professional tentmaker, didn’t boast about the love he expressed by sewing goats-hair cloth into temporary dwellings for people in the market. He expressed love primarily to the people (including coworkers and customers) he influenced to live for Jesus. That’s exactly what he wrote to the believers in Thessalonica: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy” (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).