TOPIC: GAINFUL LABOUR

TOPIC: GAINFUL LABOUR | Ecency

WEDNESDAY 8TH JANUARY, 2025

🎚 CENTRAL TRUTH:
We labour together with others, but it is only God that causes our efforts to yield gainfully.

📖 BIBLE TEXT:
1 Corinthians 3:5-10

🔑 KEY VERSE:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6).

🖊️ COMMENTARY
It is a common observation that as the year begins, many human activities resume in earnest and with high expectations, Some people act as if they were just waiting for the turn of the new year on the way they go about business, while some are 'waiting on God in prayer and fasting for as many days as they want. Offices and schools are opened, yet in all these, the harvest or results are never in the hands of man.

According to today's Bible text, there are three persons involved in every gainful or profitable labour: First, the planter. The planter represents the arrowhead, which is the visioner who caught the vision of the venture and initiated it, does the basic work and the initial investment. The second is referred to by scripture as the 'waterer'. He is the business partner. Your business partner may be your client, employee or anyone who patronizes what you do for profit. It is anyone who plays a role in the business to become profitable. Every business needs partners if the initiator expects a profit. The third person is God, and He is the most important person in our pursuit of a livelihood. "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase". It amounts to shadow chasing beginning your yearly adventures at the detriment of God. Anyone can plant, anyone can water (give support) but no one can bring about a harvest but God.

It is great foolishness to see your strategic partners as your rivals. Do not fall for the insinuations of the unwise. The Corinthian Church were seriously factionalized because they saw Paul and Apollos as rivals. But Paul did not fall for cheap jealousy but saw Apollos as his compliment. In the body of Christ, we are partners with different gifts and calling to produce a great harvest for the Lord.

🙏🏿 PRAYER
Lord, give me profitable partners and may my labour yield an uncommon increase.