Instrument-4-Christ

I really like these few verses. Verse 24 says, “Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.” Sounds good to me! Eat, drink, and enjoy life while profiting from my labor.

“This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.” Is it true that God’s design for man was to enjoy life and find satisfaction in everything he does? Of course! In Genesis 1:26-28 God created man and told him to be fruitful and multiply and exercise dominion over the earth. Genesis 2:4-8 gives a more detailed description of man’s creation and implies that man has a responsibility to work and enjoy the fruit of his labor (literally).

So in a perfect world, man eats and drinks and works and enjoys life. But this concept is conditional. These things are only possible when God is glorified and given first priority in our lives. What happened when Adam and Eve took their eyes off God in Genesis 3:6-7? They sinned, and eating and drinking and enjoying the fruit of their labor was no longer as promising as it had been.

This consideration of Genesis 1-3 brings out the truth of Ecclesiastes 2:24-26. Life with sin is distressing and painful and work is not always enjoyable or profitable (Genesis 3:16-19). As Ecclesiastes 2:26 says, “For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.”

The man who does good and gives God preeminence in his life enjoys life to it’s fullest. But the sinner works and it profits him nothing. It is pure vanity, and once again, “grasping for the wind.”

To those who do good in His sight
God gives true joy in life.
But those who have no sense of right
Will live a life of strife.

You won’t have reason to be sad
When God is number one.
For God designed man to be glad
In all the work he’s done.

Ecclesiastes 2:18: “Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me.” Wow, it seems like there is both an element of wisdom and and an element of selfishness in that statement. The theme of these next six verses is that of leaving behind your work to someone else.

Verse 19 contains some truth concerning the prior statement: “And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?” So Solomon doesn’t know what will happen to everything that he has done, and therefore he says, “This also is vanity,” and he “despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun.”

Solomon has a good point, but at the same time, he seems somewhat selfish. After all, what can he do with all that stuff anyway after he dies? But to his credit, it is kind of discouraging to spend your life working for something that someone else will just ruin and waste after you’re gone.

All the more reason to do things that last for eternity. First of all, things that are done with an eternal purpose will obviously accomplish an eternal purpose. Not even a foolish person can ruin the things that a wise person leaves behind if those things are eternally focused.

Secondly, is it truly possible to leave something behind if it was done for God? The things that are done for God will count for eternity, and only the temporal things of the earth will be left behind.

I don’t have time to develop this, but the fact remains that we don’t truly have to be afraid of “losing” any of our work to the foolishness of someone else if we do everything to the glory of God. Solomon faced despair over potentially losing the things for which he had labored because many of the things that he did in life were truly pointless and vain.

“For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.” -Ecclesiastes 2:22-23

If you toil today
For things which are vain,
They will all pass away,
All that you did attain.

Leaving your toil
To some other one,
May end up in spoil,
Then what can be done?

But do what you will
With heaven in mind.
Your work will last still
And