Ministry in Deed and WordSample

Why Matters

In business, the “why” behind what you do is crucial. Entrepreneurs especially know this. You’re not going to get out of bed every morning and enter the risky start-up world if you don’t have a strong motivation for why you’re doing this in the first place.

The same is true when it comes to integrating our faith and our work. We may know the why behind our business, but do we know the why behind our lives?

For some reason, “God’s will” for our lives remains this mysteriously indiscernible thing that no one ever quite understands or figures out. We all want to know what God’s plan is for our lives. But this isn’t the right question. We’re focusing on the “what” instead of the “why.”

Notice that this verse says to commit “whatever you do.” It doesn’t say “figure out exactly what God would have you do and then do that for His glory”—although that may be today’s common wisdom. It says commit whatever you do to God. That’s your why.

The what of your business is less important than the why. And the why is so that God would be glorified in all of it.

Maybe it took you a long time to start your business because you weren’t sure if it was God's will. Well, regardless of how you came to discern what God’s will actually is, you can now live in the fact that God’s will is for you to glorify Him in whatever you do. Period.

We can take what we do now and do it for God’s glory. It’s that simple. This is what ministry in deed looks like. It means we start acting like this is exactly what God wants us to do and we do it with an attitude and effort that brings the attention back to Him.

Instead of dividing our lives into things we do for God and things we do for ourselves, we can take everything we have and commit it to the Lord. What God does with it is completely up to Him

Further Thought

• What are the parts of your life that you give to God and what are the parts you keep to yourself?
• How would your life look differently if you committed everything to God?
• What would keep you from committing your work to God?