85% of Jesus’s Career

God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Genesis 1:28-31 (NIV)

The Bible gives us very little detail of Jesus’ life between the ages of twelve and thirty, when He began his public ministry. One of the only things Scripture notes about this significant chunk of time is that Jesus was known in His community for His work as a carpenter. This is remarkable! The only thing the Bible tells us about what Jesus was doing for half of His life was doing the work of a creator and entrepreneur, revealing to us this important characteristic of the Trinity.

Given Jesus’ ultimate purpose for coming to earth, you might have expected God to choose for the Messiah to grow up in the home of a priest, like the prophets Samuel and John the Baptist, or maybe in a Pharisaical household, like the Apostle Paul. Instead, God placed Jesus in the home of a carpenter, where for eighty-five percent of His working life, He would reveal God’s character as a creator and an entrepreneur, creating new things for the good of others.

In just three years of public ministry, Jesus revealed countless characteristics about His Father. To the five thousand, Jesus showed us that God is our provider. To Lazarus, Jesus showed us that God is the giver of life. And on the cross, Jesus showed us that “God so loved the world” that He would sacrifice His only Son in order to spend eternity with us. If Jesus was able to reveal so much of God’s character in such a relatively short period of time, the fact that Jesus spent twenty years revealing God’s creative and entrepreneurial spirit should stop us in our tracks.

Think back to the first week of this devotional series. What God created in the first six days is astonishing, but what’s equally remarkable is what He did not create. After six days of work, God left the earth largely undeveloped and uncultivated. Then He called you and I to join Him as His co-creators, “filling and subduing” the world. When we create, we are emulating the entrepreneurial and creative character of the Godhead: Father, Spirit, and Son. Your work as a creator is not “secular” or “less than” the work of a “full-time missionary” or pastor. No, you are doing God-like work for His glory and the good of others. Glorify Him through your creating today!