Ephesians 4:1
“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
When we respond to the call of Christ, our identity is not in the results we produce; our identity is in the God that we serve. This actually empowers us to do more and better work in order to produce better results.
It is my belief that the Christian who walks with Jesus is in a position to maximize their performance/productivity because their mind is not distracted by the fear of performing below expectations or distorted by the desire to boost ego. All of their focus and energy goes into doing their job.
They are motivated to serve God and others, not to avoid criticism or achieve recognition.
Os Guinness provides great insight here. “A life lived listening to the decisive call of God,” he writes, “is a life lived before one audience that trumps all others—the Audience of One.” To live and work in response to the call of God is to live before His eyes and His heart, and it transforms what we do and why we do it. Dr. Guinness puts it this way: “We who live before the Audience of One can say to the world: ‘I have only one audience. Before you I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.’”
The great irony is that God is both infinitely more accepting and infinitely more demanding than any human audience. He sees our failings and weaknesses, yet still loves us and fully embraces us. There is nothing we can do performance-wise that would cause him to love us more or love us less.
Yet at the same time, the Lord calls us to standards of living and working that are higher than any standard on earth (including social media, sports talk radio, and internet forums). And the Lord constantly evaluates us … not just our behavior, but our innermost thoughts and motives.
“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17.10)
Who can withstand such scrutiny? Who can hold up under that kind of relentless, piercing critique? The answer: People who have surrendered to Christ, who are redeemed by the blood of the cross, and who have experienced God’s grace. People who know that they are loved by God and called into relationship with him, and who also know that God is working in them and through them to accomplish purposes far greater than self.
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2.12-13)
So the question is this: Are we responding to God’s call? Is the work we do every day motivated by gaining approval and avoiding the criticism of others, or do we work every day for the Audience of One?
Hear, again, the word of the Lord: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” (Colossians 3:23-24)
