Earning or Stealing?

 

Fifteen years ago I worked for a couple of weeks on a union job in Dalton Georgia.  Georgia Department of Transportation was widening a road and needed to extend the concrete water chase underneath the new roadway.  There were not enough union carpenters available, so they hired non-union workers (including me) to complete their crew.  I knew a few of the men, but most were strangers to me.  A young man would stop by periodically and chat with us.  He usually had a board or two that he was carrying to another area of the job site.  He was pleasant enough to talk to, but I never did get his name.  Later, on another job, I we were talking, and the topic of this young man came up.  I asked around, but no one knew his name.  And upon further discussion, no one knew which area of the job site that he worked on.  Evidently, this young man was hired and walked around all day carrying a board or two from one side of the jobsite to the other, but he didn’t do anything!  He just walked around and chatted leisurely with different workers and blended in.  He picked up a check at the end of each week, but he did absolutely nothing to earn it!  Hey, there are many people in this world who do nothing to earn their pay each week.  Oh, there are some people on disability who genuinely need our help, but there are others who do nothing, yet still collect a paycheck.  Philemon was a good friend of Paul’s and Philemon had a slave who had run away because he was caught stealing.  But this slave, Onesimus, was saved under Paul’s ministry and became a changed man.  Paul sent him back to his master, Philemon, saying in Philemon 1:11, “Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me.”  Onesimus became more than a slave to Philemon, he became a Christian brother who served Philemon with joy.  What a change Jesus can make in the life of a man!  Not only a change in his spiritual life, but a change in his work ethic too!  Hey, has Jesus made a change in your life?  Has Jesus made a change in your intensity at work?  Or are you just walking around carrying a board or two?  Do you earn a check each week, or do you steal a check each week?  Think about it.