“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Colossians 3:23-24 NIV

This spider worked very hard to sping this  unique web! I wonder how long it took?

Today is a holiday called Labor Day. Most people who have a job or work every day have today off. Labor Day was made an official holiday in the United States for everyone way back in 1894, that’s 125 years ago!

Do your mom and dad work? Do you know what their jobs are? And even though you don’t have a real job like mom or dad, I bet you do chores and work around the house to help out.

So really Labor Day can be for you, too! A special holiday to rest from our work, a little bit like the Sabbath (Sunday) when we rest from our work and celebrate God.

In the verse above, the Apostle Paul (who wrote lots of letters to churches as he traveled) tells how each of us how we should do our work. Whatever work we do; we should do it like we are working for the Lord Jesus. We should try our very best, be kind, think of others first, and get the job done.

Even jobs that aren’t very fun or we don’t like much, we should still do cheerfully and give our very best effort. When I was young, my job was doing the dinner dishes with my sister. We took turns washing or rinsing and drying. We neither one liked doing dishes. So, we whined, “Mom, can we just watch one TV show first?” or we complained, “Do we have to? We don’t want to do dishes.” Sometimes we just argued about whose turn it was to wash; anything to put off doing dishes. I’m sure we caused my mom a lot of distress over a little chore like dishes.

We were not doing our work like we should have; like we were doing it for Jesus. And we made it unpleasant for everyone, even us. Does that sound like you sometimes, too?

This week I want you to surprise your mom or dad. When one of them asks you to do a chore or something else, I want you to remember how Paul told us we should work. I want you to cheerfully agree to do it with a smile on your face and then I want you to do that chore to the very best of your ability. Work like Jesus is watching you and He will be smiling with you.

How good would that make you feel? I wish I could go back in time and do the dishes like Jesus was watching; no whining, no complaining, no fussing or arguing. We would have finished a whole lot faster and our mom would have been happy, too!

What other kinds of work do you do? Homework, cleaning your room, picking up, taking care of a pet? Do all of your work joyfully and like Jesus is with you. If you really want to surprise your mom or dad, do your chores before they ask you!

Blessings and enjoy doing all your work with Jesus!