A Reminder

"But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

1 Corinthians 15:57-58

One of the most discouraging ideas that can creep into one's head is the notion that what she does is without effect or purpose. Lately this has been increasingly tempting for me to believe. Often I ask myself what all I do really adds up to. I want to see the fruit of my labor, to see some product or result. I don't think that this is all that uncommon of a desire. We all want to have evidence of the value of our efforts. Often we work for the results, for what our labor produces. Honestly, I cannot say that I have seen the results of my labor in any traditional sense. It is strange for me to grow accustomed to a "job" that essentially has no distinct parameters or description other than to pursue and love youth so that they may encounter Jesus and come to a right relationship with God. I am not even so certain as to what this looks like in a practical sense. This is something I am figuring out. I am used to working for a wage, or as a student to work for a grade, but to labor without a clear idea of success is difficult. Being here is not easy for me. Often times, I feel a deep longing for home, for the familiar, for family, and friends. If I had no purpose in being here, my discomfort and struggles in being here would be pointless. However, there is purpose, but this purpose does not exist because my labor has results that I can see. I have read the verse from 1 Corinthians that I quoted above many times and have found great encouragement in knowing that my labor in the Lord is not in vain. That is a nice concept, but without an understanding of why our labor is not in vain it becomes a shallow, but beautiful idea. Something to be written on a placard or printed on a mug. This past week I went back and read all of the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians and I realized something that I had never noticed before. The whole chapter speaks about resurrection, victory and newness, freedom and forgiveness. Paul essentially says that if resurrection is not possible, if Christ did not raise from the dead, then we are fools to be pitied above all others and that we do not have salvation. The resurrection is the very cornerstone of our faith and the very thing that gives us victory from sin and death. I noticed something else though about resurrection. The verse I quoted above says to let nothing move us, to give ourselves fully to the labor of the Lord, knowing that it is not in vain, but why? The key to this verse is the previous statement "But thanks be to God! He gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore..." Oh, that sweet "therefore" that is so characteristic of Paul's writing. We should stand firm, we can know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain not because it produces results that we can see or because it produces results at all, but because we have victory in Jesus Christ. Laboring for the Lord is a response to Christ, to the power of his resurrection in our lives, not because we are expected to achieve something on our own or of our own, some success to testify to the validity of our service. Our labor is not in vain because there is already victory in it and it is motivated by something that is unchanging, something that happened not in vain, but to bring us into a relationship with God, free from sin and from human regulation. What a peace it is to labor not in vain, but with freedom and with victory.