God has so arranged the world that work is necessary, and He gives us hands and strength to do it. The enjoyment of leisure would be nothing if we had only leisure. It is the joy of work well done that enables us to enjoy rest, just as it is the experiences of hunger and thirst that make food and drink such pleasures.
. But Jesus realizes that the most restful gift he can give the tired is a new way to carry life, a fresh way to bear responsibilities…. Realism sees that life is a succession of burdens; we cannot get away from them; thus instead of offering escape, Jesus offers equipment. Jesus means that obedience to his Sermon on the Mount [his yoke] will develop in us a balance and a “way” of carrying life that will give more rest than the way we have been living.
What we are is much more important to Him than what we do for Him. We mean far more to God than the work we do.
That’s what I love about serving God. In His eyes, there are no little people because there are no big people. We are all on the same playing field.
Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted; Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done; The work began when first your prayer was uttered, And God will finish what He has begun. Though years have passed since then, do not despair; His glory you shall see, sometime, somewhere.
Work is not a curse but a sacred calling. It was not given us as either a liability or limitation but as a holy right and responsibility. The curse that came to the first family for sinning was not that they would have to work but what work they did would now become ensnared in extra effort and a burden within a blessing. Whatever your work, there will be powers and principalities set to make all your needed effort troublesome and tiring.
What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow.
Once rediscovered ministers learn how to carry the power and the presence of God into the workplace, they become “mobile arks of the covenant,”… And as a result, they came to love weekdays as much as they already loved Sundays.
Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know.
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.