There is More to Christian Responsibility than God, Family and Work

Sharing is caring!

I recently read an article on the importance of setting priorities as Christians. It listed three responsibilities as the main priorities every Christian should have: our responsibilities to God, family, and work, in that order. It was the same classic list I’ve seen many times before and every time I see it, I cringe.

But before I tell you why I find this list disturbing, let’s review what we mean by these three categories.

God

What is usually meant by listing God as our top priority is personal piety – regularly praying and reading Scripture – and regular church involvement.

Family

After God comes family responsibilities. That is, a conscientious Christian will strive to maintain excellent relationships with their spouse and children by giving them the time and attention they need.

Work

And finally, a Christian’s third responsibility is work. A godly Christian will incorporate his faith into every aspect of his work by striving for excellence and integrity in everything he does.

All of this is fine and good…as far as it goes. But what I see in almost every instance of these lists is that they omit one important category of responsibility every Christian has: the responsibility to do good works.

The reason good works are important is not just because Scripture commands us to incorporate them into our lives over and over again, but because they relate to an entire category of relationship outside of our relationships to God, our family and our employer.

Good works refer to meeting the needs of the neediest of our fellow believers within the body of Christ (we are to “love each other as Christ has loved us”) and to those of our neighbors outside of the church (we are to “love our neighbor as ourselves”).

Omitting our responsibility to do good works in lists like these is no trifling matter. By simply listing God-family-work as a Christian’s three priorities, we subtly ignore the very reason we have been saved, leave destitute and abandoned those who need our sacrificial love the most, and bring dishonor to Jesus Christ and his gospel.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry

Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.

_______________________________________________________________

Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

_______________________________________________________________