Image God Through Your WorkSample

When done “as unto the Lord,” your work is both virtuous and praiseworthy. We know that work is good because God is a worker. Not only was He the first laborer, but the New Testament tells us that Jesus, together with His Father, continued to work and ultimately completed all the work His Father had given Him (Gen. 2:2–3; John 5:17; 17:4).

Beginning in Genesis, we read that God worked in creating the worlds and the universe. Not only was God working at the beginning, but He also commanded all His creation to work too. He commanded the vegetation and the animals to grow and produce after their kind.

After creating male and female plants and animals and commanding them to work to fill this new world with copies of themselves, God created people. These special beings were to be like their Creator in unique ways. Together they were to represent or image Him and, like Him, rule over “the whole earth” (Gen.1:26), filling His good creation with replicas of themselves and ultimately with imprints of Him.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female” (Gen. 1:26–27). Then He called His female and male representatives to image or mirror Him by working as He did. He blessed them and said, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth” (Gen. 1:28).

This command is usually referred to as the Creation Mandate because, in it, God set forth His will that these image-bearing creatures would be workers like Him. As equals, the man and woman were to partner together to rule and oversee all He had made, making sure that it flourished and filled every corner of the earth. Then, after the six-day work of creation was complete, God pronounced this wonderful blessing and benediction: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed” (Gen. 1:31, emphasis mine). The plants were very good. The animals were very good. Women and men were very good, indeed.

We’ve typically been taught to think that the purpose of work is to make enough money to vacation and then retire well. But this mindset misses the fulfillment and joy that comes in working. Work is part of God’s great blessing on the earth. The Garden of Eden was not an early form of an all-inclusive resort where Adam and Eve floated down a lazy river with nothing to do all day but sip fizzy drinks. No, it was a place where they were to “work it and watch over” the home God had given them (Gen. 2:15). Like the rest of creation, they were to grow and multiply, but they had one further command: to rule over all they saw and subdue it.

That means that every day both Eve and Adam had tasks to do to keep creation on the right track. The garden where God planted them was beautiful and perfectly formed, but it needed to be controlled and tamed by their daily labor. They were to work together as loving co-regents in this task. Work was joyous and satisfying and filled with shalom, a Hebrew word that speaks of deep peace and flourishing.