Employees, do your work for Jesus.

When I was in high school, I was lifting weights with a Christian buddy of mine. We were bench pressing - the exercise of all males who want to show off - and also the exercise that, if you don't have a spotter, you can trap yourself doing.

I was doing a really heavy set, absolutely failing to get that one last rep out, when my buddy says, "Come on! Do it for Jesus!"

I started laughing and promptly dropped the bar on myself.

But that brings us to an important subject. God says to bond-servants in Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men."

Now, a lot of times this verse is brought up when talking about work - employment - or even school and study. We should work hard, because it's for Jesus!

I always had a hard time with that. I always thought - well, I'm not doing anything 'spiritual' per se, when I study chemistry. Or when I serve coffee at Starbucks. Or whatever.

Here's the key to this whole thing, though. God made mankind in his image. He created this world - he worked. Everything exists to show off his glory. Man, though, explicitly exists to show off God's governing of all of creation. That means work and art and culture in general. It means we use God's creation, acting as God's 'managers' in a sense.

And as we do, we show God off - we show off his dominion over all things by exercising dominion over all things.

So when Paul says to work for Jesus, he means that as we work on earth for our boss, employer, teacher - whoever - we truly are working for Jesus - acting as overseers of the world he created - showing off him as the Great Overseer - and doing so for his glory.

Everything should be spiritual, because everything is God's.