In the workplace there are many daily decisions that you need to make. Sometimes those decisions are minor and may only affect you. But, as a leader, every decision you make has consequences and it affects people’s lives. Therefore, you need to be careful and seek God in each situation. Today, I want to share the devotional from my book Devotions for Working Women that encourages us to listen to God’s beloved Son – Jesus. He tells us to put aside our selfish ambitions as one of the things to do. Even though this may be hard in the workplace, we must to do it and then we can follow Christ while we carry our own cross.
Listen to God’s Beloved Son
# 237
Mark 8:34 (NLT)
Then he called his disciples and the crowds to come over and listen. “If any of you wants to be my follower,” he told them, “you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me.”
When Jesus was here on earth, He continually gave instructions to His disciples on how to conduct their lives as Christians. He also taught them how to do the things He was doing here such as healing people, casting out devils, and teaching the Gospel. Every person who makes a decision to follow Christ becomes His disciple. As one, we must follow His instructions including putting aside our selfish ambition, shoulder our cross, and follow Him. We have to carry our cross while we are here. The cross means to endure anything and everything up to losing our earthly life for the sake of the Gospel. Most of us will not have to experience that extreme, but our cross is also to put aside our fleshly desires on a daily basis. Our cross is choosing to be godly versus worldly.
God, the Father, is pleased when we listen to what Jesus says. During the transfiguration of Jesus (when He appeared with Moses and Elijah), a cloud came over them and a voice came from the cloud saying, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him” (Mark 9:7 NLT). God asked the disciples to listen to the teachings and the words of Jesus. We are His disciples as well, so this is for us. We must listen to what Jesus tells us through His Word. It is all recorded in the Bible for us.
Everything you need to succeed in your professional life, as well as your family life, is in the Bible. Read it, study it, and meditate on the words of Jesus. If you are going through hardship right now, believe that God will help you. If everything is going well, then don’t forget to be thankful to the Lord, the One who helped you succeed.