We Have an Important Responsibility

Section 3: Humanity

Week 3: God Created Us in His Image

Day 5: We Have an Important Responsibility

Matt. 5:43-48, Eph. 5:1-2

Most of us hate chores. They’re such small tedious things. Whether it’s doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, or making the bed, very few of us wake up in the morning looking forward to all the chores we have to do. The relative importance of such tasks doesn’t seem to warrant all the time and effort we have to put into them. There are so many “big” things we’d like to get done—like writing the next great American novel or running a marathon or binge-watching our favorite TV show on Netflix. But we can never seem to get around to those big things because we have so many little chores to do. Chores are the necessary evils that keep us from living our lives. 

It’s easy to look at some of God’s commands as chores. Do I really need to be nice to my neighbor or my coworker? They’re both annoying, and it seems like such a small thing in the grand scheme. Let me love others by going to India and serving in a mission there, or by building homes here for the homeless. Those “big” gestures seem much more important than taking a pie to the family moving in next door.

But taking the time to meet the new family on the block isn’t simply about being nice to your neighbor. It’s about reflecting God’s character to the world. Everything God calls us to do in some way reflects an aspect of God’s character (Matt. 5:48, Eph. 5:1).

In reality then, God hasn’t given us lots of little chores to do. He’s given us one main mission—reflect his image wherever we are.  Getting a handle on that simple fact has the potential to change the way we look at virtually everything in our lives because it means even the little things are really big things. From God’s perspective, nothing we do is little because everything is an opportunity to reflect his image.

Reflection Questions:

Has God been prompting you to make any changes recently? Do you view those changes as chores or as something central to your core mission in life?

Challenge:

Take one change you’re trying to make as the result of this study. Every time you have an opportunity today to put that change into practice, specifically remind yourself it is not a chore to be done—it’s an opportunity to reflect God himself.