Love Gives Work Its Pulse
In Jesus the wheel runs true, work becomes worship, love carries the load, hope holds steady.
Devotional Credit: In Christ, E. Stanley Jones
Photo Credit: Unsplash
Paul remembers a church by three living notes. Their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. E. Stanley Jones lingers here and says, outside of Jesus you can still work, still labor, still grit your teeth in hope, but the soul goes missing. Life bumps along on broken springs. In Jesus, the same three become worship. Work hums with faith, labor is carried by love, and hope holds steady.
I am grateful for how Jones keeps all three together in the Lord, not in our willpower. Faith does not just start the journey. Faith keeps trusting Jesus to act in us as we act. Love does not just warm our mood. Love becomes the reason we stay, serve, and speak. Hope does not just wish. Hope anchors us in the risen Christ who will complete what He began.
This lands in ordinary places. At a desk. In a kitchen. On a job site. We still meet deadlines. We still change diapers. We still send the text and take the call. The difference is not a new set of tricks. The difference is union. Jesus within, shaping motive, posture, and endurance from the inside out.
So if your day feels like creaking metal and weary wheels, take heart. In Jesus, work receives faith, labor receives love, and hope receives steadiness. This is not a burden to pick up. It is a life to receive and trust. The Spirit makes it real as you yield.
Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
I remember your work of faith, your labor of love, and your steadfastness of hope in the Lord Jesus. In my Son faith works through love. Hope does not put you to shame, because my love is poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit.
You are my workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that I prepared beforehand, that you should walk in them. Whatever you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to me the Father through him. Do your work from the heart as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from me you will receive the inheritance as your reward.
Abide in my Son. Apart from him you can do nothing, yet in him you bear much fruit. Consider yourself dead to sin and alive to me in Christ Jesus. The life you now live in the body you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you. It is I who work in you both to will and to work for my good pleasure.
Stand firm. Be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not empty. Let all you do be done in love. According to his great mercy I have caused you to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Christ in you is the hope of glory.
Real-Life Analogy
Picture a grocery cart with a crooked front wheel. It fights you at every turn and groans on every tile. Then a store worker swaps the bad wheel for a true one and suddenly the cart glides. Same groceries, same aisle, different center.
That is what Jesus does within. He aligns the center and the whole motion changes. Today, when your task list leans heavy, take the posture of trust. Say in your heart, Lord, I trust you to turn this work into worship and to let your kindness move through me as I go. Then make the call, fold the laundry, or write the note with a quiet expectancy that the Holy Spirit will carry the weight and shape the tone.
Prayer of Confidence
Father, thank you that in Jesus my work is not empty. Thank you that love is the reason and hope is the anchor. I praise you that your Spirit works in me to will and to act, and that every ordinary duty can be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. I receive this day from your hand. Let every task become an offering, and let the fruit point to you.
Scripture References for the Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture Section
1 Thessalonians 1:3, Galatians 5:6, Romans 5:5, Ephesians 2:10, Colossians 3:17, Colossians 3:23-24, John 15:5, Romans 6:11, Galatians 2:20, Philippians 2:13, 1 Corinthians 15:58, 1 Corinthians 16:14, 1 Peter 1:3, Colossians 1:27, Psalm 62:5