Your Labor in the Lord is not in Vain
By Paula Jo Nyman
By Paula Jo Nyman
I’m sitting in my empty Sunday School classroom…all the busy sounds are gone for the morning. I’m wondering why I only had one student show up for my class this morning out of seven. Perhaps there was something else going on. Or maybe I’m just not connecting with the students. Or worse yet, maybe I’m not even supposed to be teaching these kids!
Does this sound familiar to you? Maybe your “empty classroom” is wondering if you are supposed to be working with the youth in your church. Maybe it comes after a particularly hard day of homeschooling where you wonder, why am I doing this? Maybe it is when you wonder why you seem to be the only one who ever does any of the work in the WMF and what is it all for anyway?
“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers (and sisters), stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
The context of this Scripture is the great “Resurrection Chapter”, 1 Corinthians 15. Paul makes the case for the Resurrection, explaining what it would be like if there had been no Resurrection. He ends by telling us what it will be like when Jesus returns and our natural bodies become spiritual bodies and imperishable. What is the victory mentioned in the verses above? It is the victory over death! THANKS BE TO GOD THAT JESUS GAVE US VICTORY OVER DEATH. Death no longer has any sting for us…THEREFORE…let nothing move you! That’s right, it says let NOTHING move you. Even when you are in your empty classroom and you feel like giving up, your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Perhaps what I taught that day was just what God wanted that one student to hear! I may never know how it impacted him but God does.
Take heart and know deep down that as you give thanks to God and continue in His work He will not let it return void!!
