“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

  When it comes to work, people tend to divide the secular and the spiritual. People often remark how sacrificial it is for me to be in full-time pastoral work while belittling their jobs—as if being a pastor is the highest calling ever given to men. This kind of thinking tends to distort our view of our particular calling as children of God. We think the more sacred-sounding jobs are more honoring to God, while a person who works in an office has a second rate job. We dichotomize people and label our work as secular, while the others have sacred work. Let me break that mindset. You see, all work is worship. Your job as a dentist, a secretary, a call center agent, a nurse, or a businessman is not less sacred than the job of a pastor or a missionary. All work is worship unto the Lord. When we understand that our work is worship, we would be just like Paul, who taps into the grace of God to work hard in his call to bring glory and honor to the Lord. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

1 Corinthians 15:10

  So whether you are a street sweeper – sweep with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength as worship unto the Lord. Whether you are an engineer or a doctor – do your best as worship unto the Lord. Whether you are a minimum wage earner or a millionaire—work as unto the Lord. By God’s grace, work hard. To do what you love is great advice, but people who understand that their work is worship would love what they do no matter what the circumstance. That’s because just like worship, we do it on good days and bad days!   Dennis Sy is the senior pastor of Victory Greenhills. He is married to Thammie and a dad to Alyanna, Mika, and Isaiah.