Not in Vain

These words from NT Wright's book "Surprised by Hope" have provided great encouragement to me this week. What do you think about them? How is God using them to speak into your life?

"What you do in the Lord is not in vain. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine thats about to roll over a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that's about to be dug up for a building site. You are - strange through it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself - accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God's new world. Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God abd delight in the beauty of His creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one's fellow human beings and for that matter one's fellow non-human creatures; and of course, every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world - all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that one day God will make...What we do by the Spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God's new world. In fact it will be enhanced there. (Surprised by Hope, 208)

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. 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 15:58)

Stay connected...