Work Heartily, as for the Lord

Work Heartily, as for the Lord

By M.T. Clark — P-2077 | 09/24/2026 – Today’s Audio Podcast

Today’s Message on YouTube:

Today’s photo of a grassy, tree-lined pathway between a row of tall trees and a suburban roadway comes to us from yours truly, as I captured this quiet lunch break walk on Wards Lane in Menands, NY, on September 10, 2026.

Well, it’s Thursday, and I share this pathway photo as a reminder and an encouragement to get on, or to stay on, the path of Christian discipleship.

I have taken to walking down this little strip of grass between the apartment complex and the road on my lunch break at work, while the weather still permits it. It is only a small shift in my trajectory down Wards Lane, but it makes a real difference in the level of peace I have while I walk, and in the level of safety too. I am not going to get run over by a speeding motorist over here in the grass. There is a lesson in that for our walk with the Lord. The small shifts we make toward Him, when nobody would think less of us for staying on the pavement, are the shifts that keep our peace and keep us safe. He rarely asks us to make a dramatic move. He usually just asks us to step over a little, and to walk with Him.

Speaking of the ordinary work the Lord invites us to bring to Him,

Our series, “Rooted in Him,” continues today with Paul’s instruction to work heartily, as for the Lord.

Work Heartily, as for the Lord

The Apostle Paul encourages to let our relationship with God be our motivation for everything in Colossians 3:23-24 (NKJV) when he tells us: “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”

Paul is telling us that the audience for our work is the Lord Himself, not the people who happen to be watching or paying. That single shift changes how we approach every task in front of us, from the biggest project on the calendar to the smallest chore we would rather skip.

To expand our focus and to open our eyes to scope of our relationship with God, Paul uses the word “whatever”.  He isn’t carving out a “spiritual work” that counts and a “regular work” that doesn’t. He is saying that whatever we do, the report, the sale, the sermon, the dishes, the customer service call, the parts pulled off a shelf, the code we type – all of it is included. There is no such thing as ordinary work in the kingdom, because every kind of work is offered to the same King.

Then Paul says to do it “heartily.” That word carries the sense of doing something from the depths of who we are, with enthusiasm. This is not the half-hearted, dragged-along version of the task, and it is not the resentful version we do while quietly hoping somebody else will notice. Paul is asking us to bring our whole self into what we are doing, because our whole self is who Christ has already redeemed.

Then comes the phrase that reframes everything. “As to the Lord and not to men.” That is the shift that changes an ordinary afternoon at the desk into an act of worship. When our audience is Jesus, we stop working for the approval of a boss who might not notice, or the applause of coworkers who might not care. We work for the Lord who sees, and we work with the freedom of somebody who already has His approval in Christ.

That freedom is a gift. A person who works for the applause of people is a person who is exhausted by lunchtime, because the applause changes with the weather. A person who works for the Lord is doing the same things with the same effort, but their simple acts of service become spiritual practice as the ground under their feet has become holy. Their work has become worship.

Paul closes with a promise. “Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” Paul is telling us that our work isn’t wasted. Every ordinary act done for the Lord is written down where nothing can take it from us. The inheritance is the language of a family, and Paul is reminding us that the Father who has made us His own has a real reward waiting for the ordinary faithfulness of His children. We are storing up treasures in heaven, and one day we will receive our inheritance for our faith-directed efforts.

Before I came to Christ, my work was a means to an end. It paid for the next thing I was chasing, and my heart was rarely in it. I did enough to keep the job and not much more, and the quality of my life at work reflected the quality of my life at home. Neither one had a real audience I was living for. I did the bare minimum at times, and whatever decent performances I turned in were to avoid criticism or motivated by material rewards for myself. I never really had pride in my work because I didn’t see any of it as being particularly meaningful.

However, after the Lord saved me back in 2010, my whole relationship with work started to shift. It didn’t happen overnight, and my job didn’t magically become interesting. But my audience changed. I started to notice that the Lord was in the room with me during the ordinary hours of the workday, and that the way I did my job was one of the ways I was walking with Him. Over the years, by God’s grace, which has grown into a real freedom. I can have a good day at work and know that the day was received by the Lord, whether or not anybody else noticed.

The other piece of this that has grown in me is the inheritance part. There is a rest that comes with knowing our work isn’t the source of our identity or our reward. Our identity is that we are children of God through faith in Jesus, and our reward is already secured in Christ. When those two facts settle in, work becomes a place we get to serve Him from, not a place we are trying to earn something in.

Paul is inviting every believer with a job, a household, a business, a farm, a shop, a classroom, or a shift to bring the whole thing to the Lord and to do it heartily for Him. Most of us will spend most of our lives doing ordinary work, and Paul is telling us that ordinary work done for the Lord is the very stuff a whole life of discipleship is made of.

So, whatever the Lord has put in front of you today, offer it to Him. Bring your whole self to it and let Him be the audience you are working for. The paycheck is a gift, the reward is coming, and the King you are serving is already glad you showed up.

Every step we take toward the Lord is a step in the right direction. So, keep on walking and talking with God.

— M.T.

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