Good Monday morning, everyone, and thank you for listening to the podcast.

Well, is it sinful to fall short of excellence in our work?

This is a great question, relevant for a businessman, for stayed-home wives, for volunteers,

for students, for all of us.

And the question comes to us from a listener named Dylan.

Here's what he asks.

Pastor Jen, hello to you, and thank you for taking my question.

In Colossians 3, verses 22 to 24, Paul exhorts his readers to work heartily as for the Lord

and not for men.

Does this mean that any work not done in excellence is sin?

How do we apply God's view of work to cleaning our house, writing a paper for school, or working

a nine to five job?

I've been feeling guilty about the way I handle these things for months now, and I'm not

sure if I'm being self-righteous, or if I'm being disobedient to the Lord, is Paul describing

a type of excellence in all that we do.

Let me begin with an illustration from my ministry from about 30 years ago.

We were wrestling at the time in our church with how to think about expectations of excellence

in music, in worship services, and there was one group that stressed technical excellence

and quoted 2 Samuel 24, 24, I will not offer anything to the Lord, my God, that cost

being nothing, which being applied in our situation meant I will not offer God any music

in our worship services that has not cost to be an extraordinary effort of practice

so as to make it technically excellent, even flawless.

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