Throughout Scripture, regular people just doing their jobs had their lives changed forever when they met Jesus. So, wouldn’t it be a colossal mistake for us to treat our faith as “off-limits” at work? Lives change when Jesus is on the job, starting with our own.

Many religious teachers didn’t practice what they preached, but Jesus did. When questioned about who He was, He could let His work speak for itself. While Jesus’ identity was clearly seen through the work He did, can the same be said about us as His followers?

When you have an important decision to make at work, do you pray? Before presentations, performance reviews, and job interviews? Before finalizing your budget and selecting which candidate to hire? If not…why? To be a Christian is to follow Jesus – and before He made the most important decision of His mission work, Jesus prayed.

“What are you requesting?” his boss asked. Heart-pounding, he chose his next words carefully. His job, his future, and the futures of those he cared most about were all riding on this response. How could he make sure he got this right? “So I prayed to the God of heaven” (Neh. 2:4). Do you pray at work? As Nehemiah lived completely devoted to God’s will, it made a huge difference for him.

“It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.” Seeing the world give inside tracks can tempt us to become shallow schmoozers, too. Yet in a story as suited for a modern business meeting as its ancient setting, Jesus shows it’s not “who you know” but “WHO you know” that matters, leading us to do the right thing while everyone else plays games.

Job interviews are like “speed dating”: you and the employer are deciding if you have a future together based on a short conversation. This means your focus as a Christian is on presenting who God made you to be, discerning whether this job will bring glory to Him, and truly seeking His kingdom first.

The best job candidates do what Jesus said: instead of just describing their responsibilities, they show their fruit! Is your workplace a better place because you were there? If we are truly following Jesus, then they should be!

Imagine how surprising it would be to go hear Jesus preach, but then He tells a story about farming. Only true seekers could really hear what He was saying because His explanations made God’s kingdom bigger, not smaller. He challenges us to completely reorient our lives and see God’s kingdom in everything we do, too.

When Daniel and his friends proved to be the best in all of Babylon, what set them apart from everyone else was their uncompromising, all-encompassing faith. Instead of seeking to be successful and faithful, God calls us to trust Him so completely that we are successful because we are faithful.