God Wants You to Work and Earn Money

Work existed before sin entered the world. This might surprise us because we tend to think of work as part of the curse, something we endure until we can retire and finally rest. Genesis tells a different story. When God placed Adam in the garden, he gave him meaningful work to do: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). The garden needed cultivation. It needed care. God designed humans to find purpose in this kind of labor.

The command to work appears even earlier in the creation account. God told the first humans to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion (Genesis 1:28). This wasn't punishment. This was privilege. God invited humanity to join him in bringing order from chaos, to cultivate what he had made, to help creation flourish. When we work, we use the materials and abilities God provides to help others thrive. We build communities. We spread his image throughout the world.

How Sin Changed Everything

The fall of humanity poisoned our relationship with work. What God designed as meaningful became exhausting and frustrating. God told Adam that cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you (Genesis 3:17-18). The soil would resist. The harvest would require sweat and struggle. Work became harder than God intended.

Sin corrupts more than just the difficulty of our labor. It corrupts what we think work is for. We chase accomplishments that don't satisfy. We build careers that feel meaningless. Solomon, who had wealth and power beyond what most of us can imagine, looked at everything he had achieved and concluded: So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind (Ecclesiastes 2:17). When humanity built the tower of Babel, they revealed what work had become for them: a way to make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4). Pride replaced purpose.

What Christ Restores to Our Work

Christ redeems our labor. When we trust in him, work regains the meaning God always intended it to have. Paul writes that whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). This includes our jobs, our careers, our daily tasks. God cares about how we work. He calls us to work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3:23). Our work stops being primarily about impressing our boss or building our reputation. It becomes an act of worship.

This happens through grace. Paul reminds us that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10). God prepares the work. We walk in what he has already ordained. This frees us from the crushing pressure to validate ourselves through achievement.

God's common grace extends to all people, whether they follow Christ or reject him. The Scriptures say that God is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made (Psalm 145:9). This means Christians can appreciate the work of unbelievers when that work brings genuine human flourishing. Modern medicine saves lives. Engineers design systems that bring clean water to millions. Scientists explore the universe God created. These achievements reflect God's gifts to humanity, even when the people doing the work don't acknowledge him. We can admire how God has gifted people from every nation and culture while still rejecting the pride and destruction that often accompany human progress.

Christ transforms how we approach our daily work. We should work with excellence because God deserves our best effort. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). We should view our ability to work as a gift, recognizing that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above (James 1:17). We should serve others through our work, seeking their good rather than our own advancement (Philippians 2:3-4).

God wants you to work. He wants you to earn money. These aren't concessions to a fallen world. They're part of how he designed humans to live. Work matters because God made it to matter. Through Christ, we can recover the dignity and purpose he always intended our labor to carry.