2 Thessalonians 3:10
“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”
Work is the master key to open the hidden wealth of your potential which is the greatest task and the most pressing need of your life. You are capable of more than you think or believe and more than others expect of you. If all your monthly effort ends in a monthly report that you don’t even know where it goes or ended up, you have a job, you are not working or investing.
JOB – A paid position of regular employment.
WORK – Activity involving mental and physical effort done in order to achieve a result, purpose or destiny.
There are 3 types of work, Physical work, Spiritual work and Intellectual or Mental work which is the most important type of work because it is the avenue to bring something new to life and it helps you to understand the spiritual work. The first thing God gave to MAN after blessing them was WORK. Genesis 1:28 “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
- Be fruitful
- Multiply
- Replenish the earth
- Subdue the earth
- Have dominion over everything in it
God gave the garden to man to till, keep and maintain = WORK. In order words, do something about your immediate environment or position; add value to it and make it what you want. “Change the status quo.”
The first land that you have to till, keep and maintain is your life. There is something still hidden or buried in it and only you can expose or bring it to life WORK ON IT. Till the ground of your life, cultivate the ground of your life, develop the ground of your life and nurture your ground. Your net worth is a direct response to how much work you are able to do on yourself which equates to how much value you are able to add to yourself and the way to make yourself indispensable and extraordinary is by adding value to yourself through WORK. The love of work is the secret to personal progress, productivity, and fulfilment. No one is ever paid per hour; everybody is paid based on the value they bring to the hour!
Purpose of Work
God wants us to be good workers, not good job keepers because it is His tool to make us productive and fruitful and God is more concerned with the use of the skills and talents He gave us than He is with our financial wealth or job title. We must work to reveal the invisible possibilities that exist in us. God worked through His spoken word to make the invincible visible, work is God’s gift to help people discover their potentials and until you start doing something to discover what you can be, you will miss the blessings inherent in work. In the absence of work;
- strength and energy waste away,
- dreams and visions wither and die,
- God-given skills and talents degenerate,
- Productivity wanes.
- Laziness aborts potential and sacrifices possibilities.
Benefits of Work
- Provision for physical needs,
- Builds self-esteem,
- Teaches the discovery and use of talents, skills, and abilities which are far more important than the acquisition of money,
- Develops in us an attitude that sees a challenge as a reason for rejoicing because it holds the possibility for success,
- Offers the opportunity to transform dreams into reality
- Multiplies resources,
- Work is a blessing to others as it enables us to give generously of what we have and who we are.
How to work hard & work smart
The workplace philosophy, experts and gurus will say – “Work smart don’t work hard” and we have all bought into this ideology and everybody is looking for ways to work smart and not work hard. The solutions they are offering to accomplish this theory are things like:
- Prioritise your tasks
- Be a good time keeper
- Have clear objectives
- Have a to do list
- Apply the 3Ds – Deal with it, Delegate it, Delete it!
These are all great ideas and practices but they will not in themselves either singularly or collectively make you work smarter. They may help you get the JOB done, but never make you work smarter because these ideas do not recognise the difference between JOB & WORK. You cannot work smarter and not harder or harder and not smarter. They go together because they both relate to YOU, not the JOB. In fact, in order to work smarter, you have to first work harder – “Intellectual work”
So, in other to work Harder & Smarter:
- Fall in love with the work
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Work is not a course, it is a blessing from God to help you maximise your life because through work you can:
* Maximise your time
* Convert your time
* Discover yourself
* Unveil the hidden treasures of the earth and in you
- Always do your best in everything you do.
- Anything that is worth doing; is worth doing well.
- Until you commit all (100%) to anything, you will not get a full result.
- Anything that is “nearly done” is not done well and will not yield a lasting or fulfilling result.
Remember:
– When you do a good job, you don’t get any reward
– When you do a great job, you get a good reward
– When you do an excellent job, you get a great reward
– When you do an outstanding job, you get an excellent reward
– When you do an extraordinary job, you get an outstanding reward
- Don’t compare yourself with or by other people’s standard.
Your yardstick of excellence is God’s standard and the standard that you have set for yourself. Success will always demand from you more than you are willing to give and life will not give you what you want or demand, it will only give you what you contend for. Run the race that is set before you, everyone will have to give account for his race.
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