Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work

by Timothy J. Keller

Meditate on these things, and the truth will change your identity.

when you see how much you are loved, your work will become far less selfish.

but by serving the One who said to his Father, “For your sake, thy will be done.”

No one can lead well if his heart isn’t in it, right?

“idols”

“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

counterfeit god

his “salvation”

He leaves open no in-between possibility of having no gods at all that we rely on to “save” us.

All those who do not at all times trust

God and . . . His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves,

If we do not believe that God is g...

inwardly setting up self as a false god.

while religious people may trust in their moral virtue or acts of devotion

ministry.

we realize that every city and

indeed every human heart is filled with idols.

we never break the other commandments without breaking the first.

it is because you have counted

success as more important than obedience to God or the good of your “neighbor”

the deeper, conditioning sin ...

Idolatry has power over our actions because it has power over our hearts.

“If I had that, it would fix everything; then I’d feel my life really had value.”

If circumstances threaten to

take it away, we are paralyzed with uncontrollable fear;

if something or someone has taken it away...

a...

Personal idols profoundly drive and shape our behavior, including our work.

Idols of control take several forms—including intense worry, lack of trust, and micromanagement.

When an individual makes and serves an idol, it creates psychological distortion and trouble; when a family, group, or country makes and serves an idol, it creates social and cultural trouble.

Christians seeking to work faithfully and well must discern the shape of the idols functioning in their professions and industries so as to both affirm the beneficial aspects and offset the excesses and distortions.

moral absolutes that are known mainly through tradition and religion.

struggled mightily with the idols of race and racism.

This insecurity fixes on race to bolster our sense of value. We

Closely related to this radical new hope in human reason was the absolutizing of individual freedom.

Traditional

life. But modern society responded by putting too much stock in the autonomous person.

So the modern idol of individualism has tended to raise work from being a good thing to being nearly a form of salvation.

Taylor’s system valued every task being simplified, standardized, and executed with absolute uniformity every time. As many have pointed out, this is how machines work.

injustice. Postmodernism enshrines the present reality, then, as an absolute.136

that technology, uncertainty, and the market have become the idols of a postmodern society.

postmodern idols cause individuals to become dupes of advertisers—falling into “unconscious conformity with other interchangeable products of the marketplace.

the United States, many recognize the cultural contradiction that consumerism tends to undermine the very virtues of self-control and responsibility

States, many recognize the cultural contradiction that consumerism tends to undermine the very virtues of self-control and responsibility

wars. Cynicism set in, and over time the most ambitious and talented people wanted to go into business and finance.

Cynicism set in, and over time the most ambitious and talented people wanted to go into business and finance.

Christians agree that when we sell and market, we need to show potential customers that a product “adds value” to their lives. That doesn’t mean it can give them a life.

them

will be put perfectly right, as St. Paul

To talk about fully redeeming work is sometimes