Jesus is Coming, Look Busy.

The title of this post was a bumper sticker I have seen a few times and is also used to comedic effect in Johnny English. And though the general impression one gets is that one can fool God as easily as one fools one's bosses (or as easily as one can overuse one in a sentence), there is still a good moral point to it.

That moral point is that God is watching us. Every last second of every last day. He doesn't see just your actions, but your heart. What's more, He knows in advance exactly what you're going to do.

Jesus tells a story of women wanting to go into a wedding and waiting with their lamps. Some of them run out of oil and beg the ones that haven't run out of oil to give them some. The ones with oil refuse, lest they also run out of oil before the bridegroom comes and passes them by, so the ones without go to buy some, miss the bridegroom, and are locked out of the wedding feast. The ones who had oil had their vigilance rewarded. Jesus tells another story in which he asks what will happen to wicked servants who have hurt their master's other servants and killed his sons. He is answered that the wicked servants will be killed and better servants chosen, and Jesus tells that man he has answered rightly. In a third story, Jesus tells of men given five talents, three, and one. The first two doubled their master's money, and the latter buried it because he was lazy and afraid to lose it. He was cast out and his talent given to the one who had ten.

No, we cannot get to Heaven by our works, and thank God we can't, for if we could, Jesus' sacrifice and love would mean nothing. Yet we are clearly called to be doing something for God. Moreover, we are called to do before we are blessed.

Too many Christians, however, seem to have this attitude of, "Why should I work for God? He hasn't given me what I want yet." These same people go to work, knowing that they won't be paid today for their work today. I've worked at a place that paid one week after each two week pay period ended, so it was three weeks after I worked some hours before I got paid for them. It was four years after I started college that I got the reward I had gone there for (though, it must be admitted, I received an entirely different and at least as valuable education along the way). Why should God be different? He is the One Who dictated that the seed is planted before the harvest is gathered. He is the One Who gave different harvest times for different things. Corn and wheat may come up during a year and the harvest is just half a year after the sowing, but apples and oranges take years before the seed yields a harvest. We do not question these, yet we expect God's law of the harvest to somehow not apply to us, that we can be given some sort of advance for the value of our future services.

Here's what it boils down to: God instituted and still uses the law of the harvest. Our works are worthless, so far as they go in enhancing His glory or making Him richer. He blesses us for our hearts, our willingness to give what little we can to Him. And He blesses us after He has proven that we are after more than just His blessing.

So...what are you doing for God's kingdom while you wait for His blessing? Jesus is watching, look busy. Be busy. And, most importantly, focus on Christ and not what is in His hands.