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

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

MATTHEW 11:28–30

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In these verses, Paul instructs the Colossians to work in all contexts with all their heart. Our culture presents hard work as the endless grind, morning routines that start before the sun is awake, and days planned like military operations. Is that what Paul is encouraging? Are we to give everything we could possibly give to everything we could possibly do? How can we reconcile that with the command to rest.

The answer to this lies in the linchpin of these verses: serving Christ. What our hard work looks like is therefore based on who our boss is. So, who is he?

First, the Lord is different from any earthly boss, leader, or supervisor. He cares most about our heart. Working hard cannot therefore simply mean hitting performance targets – he cares about our thoughts, our motivations, and our character. He cares about the judgments we store up in our minds about our colleagues and revisit when we are frustrated. He cares about our attitude on busy commutes. He cares for the truth in the hours we bill for, and the reasons we give for the extensions we request. He cares about who we are, not just what we do.

Second, as we read in Matthew 11:28–30, Jesus is a gentle boss. We’ve already seen in this series that we have a God who created rest as a good pattern and provides refreshment for our souls. There are so many things we can mistake for working with all our heart: arrogant ambition, greed, self-importance, and superficiality. This is not the way Jesus operates. We serve a Lord who loves providing rest.

Imagine having a boss who cared that you rest well as much as they cared that you work well. Imagine having a boss who knew you more than you knew yourself, who cared for you like a friend, a father, a good shepherd. That is who we are working for – the gentle and humble Jesus.

Finally, Paul encourages us that our eternal rest with God will far exceed whatever this life offers. This is our ‘inheritance’ – a gift that we could never earn, but was promised out of grace. These verses encourage us to place our ultimate dreams not in hustle culture, but in Jesus, and our certain hope of a new creation with him. We can therefore work hard and rest well within that freedom, for the sake of our gentle and humble Jesus.

Dorothy Moorley
Dorothy Moorley is an incoming criminal pupil barrister and recent graduate of the CARE Leadership Programme.

What might it look like for you to give yourself fully to the work of the Lord without burning out to please and perform? How might that impact the way we respond to dilemmas and disappointment during our work day?