Children need to learn to work. Many feel that work is a result of sin. It causes terrible attitudes at the mere mention of the word work. Adults often are just as mistaken. 

On the mission field, where many have suffered oppression, they hate the very idea of work. Teach them Bible principles and help them learn to work. Teach the following notes in a five-minute devotional. The outlines are super simple. If you do so the five weekdays for a month, you will have taught them for nearly two hours. Little by little, let truth fill their minds.

Genesis 2:15  And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 

• This verse happens before sin has entered the world, the fall
• Work is not a result of sin or the fall
• We do not work because of Adam and Eve's sin.
• We do die because of sin that entered through them
• Work was instituted before sin entered the world
• Work was a gift from God to man
• Man was created a responsible being

• God is in charge
• Man didn't make himself
• Man didn't put himself in the garden
• Man didn't decide what to do 
  
  
• Man is managing what doesn’t belong to him
• The garden doesn’t belong to man but God
• Man is working as an administrator, a manager God's garden
• Man can enjoy all the creation but never forget that it is God’s
  
  
• When man obeys and does what he is commanded to do he is showing that he loves God. John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. 
• When we do what we were made to do we honor and worship God
• When we work as He made us to work we worship
• When we refuse to work we rebel against our Creator

• The negative aspects of work came because of sin Genesis 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 
• Work didn’t change. It is still God's will for your life. It is just not as comfortable as it was before sin entered the world
• God’s will didn’t change
• Sin caused man to suffer when he works

"Work becomes worship when done for the Lord." Author unknown

 Mark Water, The New Encyclopedia of Christian Quotations (Alresford, Hampshire: John Hunt Publishers Ltd, 2000), 1129.

The Dignity of Work

First Mention of Work

There was work before the fall