If God loves Mondays so much, then why don’t we? Why is it sometimes so hard to pull ourselves out of bed on Monday morning to go to work? Part of the reason is because of the disconnect in our minds between the sacred and the secular. Hear this disconnect and the discontentment it creates in this note I received from a friend: “I pray regularly that God would use me in a capacity like yours and I long for the day when I would be free from what I do now to engage in real ministry.”

Somehow we have managed to convince my friend, who spends 50 hours every week interacting with unbelievers, that he is not in ministry, while I, who work almost exclusively with believers, am. 

This artificial line between work and ministry hasn’t always been there. Do you remember the story of Zacchaeus in the Bible? He’s most memorable because of a kids’ song about his height, but we don’t often think of him for what he was — a businessman. He made a lot of money, some of it dishonestly. But when God redeemed him, declaring that “salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9), Jesus said nothing about Zacchaeus needing to leave his job for ministry. Instead, He seemed to have instructed Zacchaeus to leverage his job (and money) for ministry, for that’s exactly what Zacchaeus did. He vowed not only to make restitution for any fraudulent business dealings, but to set aside half his wealth for ministry to the poor. This sacred/secular dichotomy that we so often feel today didn’t exist in Zacchaeus’ mind because it doesn’t exist in Jesus’, either.

Zacchaeus’ life had been so powerfully impacted by his good-news encounter with Jesus that he couldn’t wait to apply what he had learned to his workplace. Monday mornings were going to be radically different. No, he didn’t start preaching to his customers instead of collecting Roman taxes. Rather, Zacchaeus planned to treat his customers with honesty and respect. He was going to be the best, most trustworthy tax collector they had ever known. 

Here’s the first thing we must understand about developing a love for Mondays: Loving Mondays like Jesus does begins by loving Jesus. Work as ministry must be an outgrowth of my love and worship of Jesus. Our work, set against the backdrop of a deepening personal walk with God, becomes the next act of worship.