Curse Not the Day of Small Beginnings
Sandra Gilmore
Contributing Writer
I love that particular paraphrase of Zechariah 4:10, “Curse not the day of small beginnings.” Do you have a job that is “small”, maybe even unfulfilling? Do you dread going in to work? Can’t stand your boss? Does a minute seem like an hour? (Do I sound like one of those info-mercials? Just call in the next 15 minutes and we’ll double your order . . .!)
The Scripture says to “curse not” which means, in essence, do bless the day of small beginnings. When a situation has been blessed, it has pulled the best out of something. Have you blessed your job? Have you pulled the best out of it? How can you do this? Only with God’s insight and He speaks through His Word.
Philipians 4:19 (KJV) is a very familiar verse to most of us: “But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.”
Let’s dig a little deeper. The Greek word for need is actually defined employment. The Greek root word for glory refers to thinking. And the Greek root word for Christ refers to employing, or to furnish a need. The Greek word for supply means to fulfill or to “level up a hollow.” Ever leveled off a cup of sugar?
If you are actively employed, then God is telling you through this verse that He has filled a hollow place in your life with employment according to the way He thinks through the One who furnishes your need.
This insight can change what we perceive as a “dead-end job.” Using this verse and the original language as a basis, I’ve come to realize that the expression "dead-end job" is actually an oxymoron. The two concepts are opposite each other in the same phrase. Dead means that something is not living, not active or its purpose has been completed. A job or employment means that something is still active, serves a purpose and is on-going.
So, how do you bless your job or “small beginning”? Does your job have “hollow” places that need filling by someone with gifts like yours? Then, ask God for wisdom and direction to level them up. Do your co-workers have mindsets that are ungodly? Then, ask God for His Glory which changes how we think about things. Begin to literally speak blessings over your workplace, your workmates and your work process.
The Biblical instruction of blessing your small beginnings opens the door for wisdom and good fruits. Per James 3:16, its envy and strife that open the door to disorder and every evil practice. The Greek word for practice refers to setting up shop or an operation. It is similar to the way we use the word practice to refer to a doctor’s or lawyer’s practice. When we become disgruntled on a job, human nature takes us to complaining, worrying, neglecting or being bitter. We feel those things, focus on those things, think about those things and eventually act out of those things. We literally can take a bad situation to worse because we actually invite demonic activity to set up shop and have an on-going operation in our situation. Ug!
At the root of envy and strife is a mindset that says “God is not actually big enough to take care of me or to hold my place in the world. He does it for others and I want what they have but He just isn’t capable or won’t decide to take care of me.”
That mindset is simply a lie. Philippians tells us that God supplies our need according to His Glory or according to the way He thinks. Jeremiah 29:11 clearly reminds us that God thinks of us. When we shut the door to the envy and strife that come from false mindsets, we open the door to blessings from Heaven: wisdom, peace, mercy, and good fruit (James 3).
Jesus understands our situations. In the natural, Jesus had a not-so-glamorous job. It was short-term temporary, just a three year assignment. He didn’t have a corner office, in fact, no office at all. No vacation time. His co-workers were inconsistent in their performance, complained quite often and frequently missed their cues. One was even embezzling! Much of what He had to say fell on deaf ears. He endured prejudice. When people found out where he grew up, they sneered that “nothing good could come from Nazareth.” He was held back from assignments because people said he wasn’t qualified. And then when he did do something worthwhile, he got no credit, only criticism. It was the wrong day or the wrong person or he had overstepped his job description. Just who did he think he was?
So, how did Jesus handle this? He did what the Father told him to do. He said what the Father told him to say. He went where the Father told him to go. (John 5:19-20) He focused on the Father’s business. That focus gave him great contentment and confidence. Where is your focus today?
For this article, Sandra Gilmore draws from her twenty-year career in employee relations and job performance coaching. She and her husband, Tom, share their best role and favorite God-given job assignment: coaching their two teenage daughters via home school.
You may reach Sandra via Hopewell Ministries at www.hopewellministries.org or directly through email sandra@hopewellministries.org
Freedom at Last
Dr. Ed Young
The Winning Walk
"There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation;
There is no health in my bones because of my sin.
For my iniquities are gone over my head;
As a heavy burden they weigh too much for me.” (Psalm 38: 3-4)
Let me ask you a very personal question: Are you experiencing a personal rock bottom? Do you have an internal struggle that has spun out of control…a public or private battle with something that has overcome you? Do you have a dependency on something and does it seems like you will never be able to escape its hold over you? Could David’s words be your words? Today there are thousands who are struggling to overcome addiction and bondage in their lives.
You see, this is how sin works. It is attractive and lures us in and before we know it, we are being controlled by the very thing we thought we had control over. We eventually arrive at our rock bottom by trying to gain control. We want control of our lives. We want control over our family, our relationships, our emotions – we even want control over God.
The good news is that we cannot sin and get so far from God that there is no way out of our bondage. Only Jesus Christ can lead us to true freedom. So what did David do? The same thing that you and I are called to do when we find ourselves spiraling out of control to our rock bottom.
God has the power to free us from any sin if we will do our part and cry out to Him. The first step is to give up control and admit to yourself and to God that you are in way over your head. This is the most important step of all. After you surrender yourself to the power of God, you will find healing by believing in Jesus Christ and in His power. And the remaining steps will continue to bring restoration and create personal transformation that can be found only in Christ.
How to Use the Law - Lawfully - To Bear Fruit for God
John Piper
Desiring God
But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted. 1 Timothy 1:5-11
The question crying for an answer after Romans 7 and 8 is how Christians should use the law of God revealed in the Old Testament. The reason this question is crying for an answer is that Paul has said things about the law that show its weakness and powerlessness to justify us and sanctify us. Romans 8:3, "What the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh . . ."
Law-Keeping Cannot Justify You
I have argued that law-keeping can't justify us in the courtroom of God: If his verdict changes from guilty to not guilty, it will be because we trust in Christ's righteousness and death, not in our law-keeping. And if our hearts are changed from rebellious to submissive it will not be owing to law, but to the Spirit of Christ at work in our hearts. Again and again I have directed your attention to Romans 7:4, "Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God." In other words, if we want to bear the fruit of love in our lives – and we will bear this fruit, if we are children of God – then we must pursue at it in a way that does not treat the law as our first or chief or decisive means of change.
What Then Shall We Do with the Law?
But this continual reference to dying to the law has raised the question for many of you: What then shall we do with the law? Are we to read the books of Moses? Are we to read the Ten Commandments and the other laws in the Old Testament? What are we to make of the saints of the Old Testament who said things like, "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2). "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. . . . They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb" (Psalm 19:7, 10). "O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day" (Psalm 119:97).
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