Labor That Is Not Lost

After a long argument about resurrection, Paul lands the whole thing on a practical word. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

The fear that quietly eats at a man in a years-long fight is that all his effort adds up to nothing, that the praying and the confessing and the getting up again are just spinning in place. Paul speaks straight to that fear. Your labor is not in vain, he says, and he grounds it in the resurrection he just spent a whole chapter defending. Because Christ is raised, nothing done in him is wasted, including the unseen work of a man refusing to quit on his own soul.

Steadfast and immovable are the words, and they describe endurance more than victory. Paul is not promising you will feel like you are winning. He is promising that the standing itself counts, that the effort is being recorded and kept by a God who does not lose things.

So the morning you drag yourself back to prayer with no feeling and little hope is not a wasted morning. In the Lord it holds weight, even when you cannot see the weight. Keep laboring. It is landing somewhere, in his hands.

Lord, I have feared that all my trying comes to nothing. Make me steadfast, and let me trust your word that in you my labor is not lost, even the parts I cannot see.