“For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building” (I Corinthians 3:9).

Labor Day was established as a national holiday in this country in 1894 in order to celebrate the important part played by workers in the development of the nation. The first labor laws were passed only in 1802 and the first labor unions formed only in 1825, both being in England.

But God has been working since the beginning. After finishing His work of creating and making all things (Genesis 2:1–3), He has ever since been “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). Furthermore, although God “rested” from His work of creation, He very soon began His great work of reconciliation, and both His work of conservation and His work of reconciliation still continue today. Jesus said, therefore: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).

It is in this great work of reconciliation that we have the high privilege of being “laborers together with God.” Paul has reminded us that God “hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:18).

As farm laborers have worked in the fields and vineyards of the world to sow and water and reap, and as construction laborers have worked to build the structures and machinery of the world, so we who belong to Christ have the responsibility to produce spiritual fruit in our lives and the lives of others (John 15:16) and to add spiritual building blocks to God’s “holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21).

Instead of the primeval curse, therefore, our “labor in the Lord” (Romans 16:12) becomes a blessing when we “do it heartily, as to the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). And Christ promises, when He comes again, “to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:12). HMM