HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, June 29, 2025 – As born-again believers, we do two types of work while still in a human body: Work for God, and work for the world. It may appear that these two types of work intersect and overlap on occasion, but that’s an illusion. Working for God is something entirely separate from working for the world.

WORKING FOR GOD

First and foremost, work for God is God-inspired, God-enabled, and God-fueled. It doesn’t originate in us; it uses us. We allow God to use us through our prayers. When we pray to God to do his will, he takes us at our word and works through us when and where it’s expedient for him to do so. For this kind of work, we don’t have to do a thing except give God the green light to use us for his purposes.

Teaching and preaching the Word—when inspired, enabled, and fueled by God—is an obvious example of being on God’s work crew. So is healing through prayer. So is dropping a word in someone’s ear at the right time. Never underestimate the power of a word dropped at the right moment in the right ear. Whole mountains have been moved that way. But we’re not the ones moving the mountains. God’s moving them, through us.

A hallmark of working for God is that the work doesn’t feel like work. During his ministry years, Jesus was famous for laboring nearly 24/7 in God’s fields, and he could do so because the preaching, teaching, and healing didn’t feel like work to him. He constantly reiterated that he was doing the work that God sent him to do. When you do the work that God sends you to do, you have supernatural endurance because you’re being supernaturally inspired, enabled, and fueled. You’re not pushing back against it or dreading it or rushing through it to get it done; you’re letting it flow through you.

It’s a beautiful thing, working for God. You lose track of time; you forget about eating, you forget about sleeping – you forget about everything except the work in front of you. Think of Moses on Mount Sinai getting the Law. I’m guessing those 40 days and nights he spent there with God felt like only a few minutes. That’s how it is when you work for God.

WORKING FOR THE WORLD

Working for the world, on the other hand, is something entirely different. It’s laborious; it’s tedious; it’s draining; and you do it just to get it over with. You’re constantly watching the clock, willing the time to pass faster. Working for the world is what we do for a living until God arranges for our daily bread to be provided some other way. Note that working for the world also includes things like housework and grocery shopping. None of these things are required in Heaven. They are worldly cares, not godly ones. Still, while we’re here on Earth, they need to be done.

We dare not shirk our worldly work any more than we’d shirk our work for God. We don’t stop doing our laundry or mopping our floors just because we’re born-again. But we do stop our worldly work on the Sabbath. We dare not not stop our worldly work on the Sabbath.

PAY

Because working for the world is so tedious and draining, we get paid to do it. We get paid to work for God, too, but in a different way. You work for the world, you get the world’s pay, which is money or money-equivalents like worldly privileges and benefits. You work for God, you get God’s pay, which is joy in the constant presence of God and Jesus through God’s Holy Spirit, revelations when you least expect them, and having your needs provided for without your having to do worldly labor for it.

By “having your needs provided for”, I’m not talking about putting a discreet “Donations” or “Support My Ministry” button on your monetized website and hoping for the best. And I’m definitely not talking about getting a salary for preaching (that’s worldly pay; and if you’re born again and taking a salary for preaching, shame on you). I’m talking about God providing supernaturally what you need as you need it, not because you look for it or request it: It just happens by the grace of God.

If it’s happened to you, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If it hasn’t yet happened, hang in there. For some it takes longer than others. It’s one of your tests. Look at how long Jesus worked for God (he was doing it already at age 12!) before his “God pay” fully kicked in at around age 30. Until it did, he labored as a carpenter for his daily needs.

We look to Jesus as our model, not to televangelists or YouTube prophets. If you’re stumping for donations or accepting a salary for preaching and teaching the Word, whatever you’re doing for that money is not work for God. Work for God is paid for by the joy of his presence, the Truth of his revelations, and your daily bread fresh-baked and dropped at your doorstep before you even wake up in the morning.

TL;DR

Though we’re obligated to do worldly work to some degree for the rest of our days on Earth, the highest of all privileges is to work for God and to be paid by God in his way and his time.