The Alternative

Dr. Tony Evans: If you are going to have joy and meaning in your work, it’s got to be connected to something bigger.

Narrator (Male): Dr. Tony Evans says when we’re working for more than just a paycheck, it shows.

Dr. Tony Evans: The best workers in any organization ought to be the Christians, because they’re working for a higher standard.

Narrator (Male): This is The Alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Everybody hopes to find their dream job, but Dr. Evans says if yours is more like a nightmare, there’s hope. Today, he explains how turning your career over to Christ can give you a new vision for your workplace. Let’s join him.

Dr. Tony Evans: The purpose of your career, which is more than a job, is to closely align itself to your calling so that it either is your calling or supports your calling because it supplements your calling. Now, of course, to talk about career is to talk about work. And you can’t talk about work without talking about God, because God is the first being in history who ever worked, and He is the one who established work. Now, I know many of us think that was a bad idea, that God could have come up with something other than work.

Well, the Bible declares that work is good because work was created before the fall. That is, before sin entered the world, there was work. God was the first worker. The whole first chapter of Genesis describes God’s work. On the first day He did this, second day He did that. He goes through six days of work. After God did His work, it says on the seventh day He rested. That was so important to God, this Sabbath or seventh-day rest, that it would become a pattern by which the whole Old Testament would operate, and it would even become a pattern in the New Testament, for the book of Hebrews says that there is a Sabbath given to the people of God.

Now, God did not rest because He was tired. In fact, God didn’t work that hard. All He did was speak and everything came into existence. So that’s not like sweating. Why did God rest on the seventh day? God rested because He was finished. And the purpose of resting was to enjoy His own handiwork. I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand, but how many of you here are empty on Monday morning? You work because you have to. Monday morning you hate. You hate your job. It’s empty and meaningless.

Once you connect the Kingdom of God to your career, you no longer have a meaningless problem, because now you are tied into something bigger. If you are in a job you hate, but it’s not connected to something that God is calling you to, you’re going to be 70 years old and you’re going to look back at your life and you’re going to ask, "Why did I do all this?" because it won’t have any eternal value. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes chapter 2 over and over and over again, and in chapter 3, and then chapter 5, he says it is good to enjoy your labor under the sun.

You ought to look forward to going to work, not because you don’t have problems there, but because it has meaning and significance and purpose. If you’re teaching in a public school for a paycheck and three months off in the summer and hate kids—and there are some teachers who do that—then that’s not where you belong, because remember, your calling will always have passion attached to it. It may have problems, but it will be problems with passion. It’ll be a fire. In other words, when you stop doing it, something is missing from your life.

So what should you do? Well, He starts off in Psalm 90 with these words. Psalm 90, verse 17 says it is a prayer. He says, "And let the favor of the Lord our God be on us to confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the works of our hands." Lord, confirm in my life what I’m supposed to be doing. Confirm it. That means legitimize this. Is this what I’m supposed to be about? And then bless it, so that it has significance and meaning and impact.

Nehemiah was the cupbearer for the king. The whole book of Nehemiah is about him. Now, that may not sound like a big job, but that’s a big job. The cupbearer was the chief administrative assistant to the king. He’s an executive assistant. Cupbearer was used because one of his jobs was, in case somebody was to poison the king, he had to sip the wine first, so if anybody went down, he went down first. So that’s a serious job. But he had administrative responsibilities too.

Now, he is working for an ungodly king. So everybody is not going to be in full-time Christian service working for Christians. Sometimes we hire people at the church and they think it’s going to be heaven. Then they discover people work at the church. He gets a message in Nehemiah chapter 1, that the walls of his city, Jerusalem, have been burned with fire. His brother comes and says, "You won’t believe what’s happening back home." And he wept, the Bible says. God gave him a burden, a passion for the problem.

But God not only gave him a passion, he had a job that was able to address it because he worked for the king. So he went into prayer, Nehemiah 1 says, and he says, "Lord, You’re in charge here. You know this mess we’re in. I am willing to use my job to reverse this situation. I just need You to open up the opportunity with the government. I need You to open up the government to get the job done." A number of months passed. The king looked at him one day and said, "Nehemiah, you’ve sure been looking a little bit despondent lately. Anything wrong?"

That’s a Holy Ghost moment. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a Holy Ghost moment. But a Holy Ghost moment is where the sinner asks you the question that you need to get the Kingdom work done. It’s where sinners come to you and say, "Can I help you?" He said, "Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am having a little problem. My people, everything is torn down, and I need some help." He said, "Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a leave of absence. Why don’t you go back and why don’t you oversee the rebuilding of the city?"

"Not only will I give you a leave of absence, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to pay you while you’re gone. On top of that, I’m going to cut down all the trees you need to do the rebuilding of the homes there." In other words, I’m going to create a faith-based program that’s from the federal government. I am going to create an assistance program. And you know the reason why that’s possible is because the Bible says that God lays up the wealth of the sinners in store until the righteous are ready to handle it.

God told Israel to build the Tabernacle. How are they going to build the Tabernacle? These are a bunch of poor, beggarly people. I’ll tell you how they’re going to build the Tabernacle, because on their way out of Dodge, that is Egypt, God told them to pick up all the jewelry they could get their hands on, because He would need that later on. But the Bible condemns us because it says often the unrighteous have more knowledge of how to work the system than the righteous. They know how to work the system for ungodliness, but we don’t know how to tweak the system to promote the Kingdom of God.

And so you find the walls are rebuilt in 52 days, and you read the book of Nehemiah and he has this tremendous revival that breaks out in a city gone bad because he uses his job in politics to maneuver the system. Not only that, but the king says, "And when you travel, I’m going to give you a letter telling nobody they better not bother you. Signed with the king’s insignia." God is able to turn things around on your job when you become a Kingdom worker, rather than somebody just going to make money.

Money is important, you can’t live without money. But the Bible says in Deuteronomy 8:18 that God gives wealth not just so you can be wealthy, He gives wealth to fulfill His covenant. He gives wealth to expand His Kingdom, to promote His program, not just so you can have more money in your pocket.

Narrator (Male): When Dr. Evans continues our message, he’ll turn to the life of Daniel to show us how a God-centered perspective can transform the way we approach our careers. Don’t go away.

Guest (Female): Leave the noise behind and find true rest, where ocean views, quiet moments, and meaningful connection come together. Join Dr. Tony Evans with special guest Priscilla Shirer for a week of powerful teaching, meaningful fellowship, and renewal in God’s presence. Visit Nassau, Grand Turk, Amber Cove, and Half Moon Cay aboard the new Statendam. February 28 through March 7, 2026. Reserve your spot today at TonyEvans.org.

Narrator (Male): Before we get back to our message, I want to tell you about the perfect follow-up resource package for our current series. It includes Tony’s inspiring Called for a Purpose devotional book, specially written to build on what we’ve been learning about your one-of-a-kind, God-given calling. These daily readings will help you stay focused on God’s plan and faithfully pursue the purpose He created just for you. Dr. Evans says there’s no greater source of satisfaction and success than finding and fulfilling your purpose.

And this message is so important that we’d like to send you the devotional as a part of a special resource package when you help support the work of The Alternative with a contribution. Along with it, we’ll also send you all 12 full-length audio messages from Tony’s current two-volume series called Called for a Purpose. You can get all the details on this special resource package when you visit us at TonyEvans.org. That’s TonyEvans.org. Or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our helpful team members assist with your request. That’s 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans is back now with more of today’s message.

Dr. Tony Evans: One other thing I want to point out, and that is the perspective with which you should approach your career. The perspective. And I can’t find a better example of that than Daniel. The book of Daniel. Daniel is one of the great Christians of the Bible. If you’ve not been introduced to Brother Daniel, then you need to read Daniel sometime. He is one of the great, great men. He shows up in a pagan land named Babylon as a teenager.

They have selected certain teens to work for the king. But they’ve got to get them paganized first. So they change their names and give them the names of pagan gods. They sent them to an educational system that taught them evolution, not creation. They Babylonian-ized them. They doused them in all of Babylonian thought, logic, and thinking. They secularized these young men who were born in Israel. Then they came to him in chapter 1 of the book of Daniel and they told him that they wanted him to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

Verse 8: "Daniel made up in his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank, so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself." Now there’s two things you want to see in this verse. Number one is commitment. He would not eat meat offered to idols. See, some of us think if we don’t go out drinking with the boys or the girls, we can’t get ahead.

If we don’t play politics—that is, illegitimate politics—we can’t get ahead, that we have to kowtow to the unrighteousness of the system in order to climb the corporate ladder. And that is bold-faced lack of trust in God. If you’ve got to become like a sinner to make it among the sinners, then you’re saying your God is not sovereign over the sinners. If you’ve got to become like the sinners to make it with the sinners, then you’re indicting God as not being sovereign over the sinners.

So Daniel had commitment. But please let’s not get too spiritual here, because it goes on to say he sought permission from the commander that he might not defile himself and he came up with another plan. See, he just wasn’t a man who said, "I’m not going to do something." He came up with something better. That’s why you always want to pray to God for wisdom, to not just not do what the sinners are doing, but give you something better. Give you a new idea. He comes up with a new idea and his idea is better than the idea that the sinners came up with.

And when they discovered that the Christian’s idea was better than the sinner’s idea and that the Christians were doing better than the sinners, verse 17 says: "As for these four youth, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom. Daniel even understood all kind of dreams." Verse 20: "And as for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers in all who were in his realm." He found them ten times better. God honored it.

So the first thing is commitment, but not the kind of commitment that goes over into a wall, the kind of commitment that gets involved and comes up with something better. And you’ll be surprised at the ideas that God will give you when it comes out of a heart of commitment. Another thing you need to know about Daniel is his generosity, because he was Kingdom-minded, he wasn’t only looking for himself. Look at chapter 2, verse 46: "Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel."

This is the government paying homage to the Christian, giving orders to present to him an offering and fragrant incense. And the king answered Daniel and said, "Surely your God is the God of gods and Lord of kings and revealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery." Then the king promoted Daniel. Oh, we got a sinner promoting a Christian. Let me tell you why, when sinners will promote Christians, when it helps their profit. I don’t care how much they hate the sinner, they love the green more.

He sees this is going to make things better for him. He gives him many gifts. He makes him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief perfect over all the wise men of Babylon. You talk about climbing the corporate ladder? He’s climbed the corporate ladder because he’s blessed of God in the marketplace, and he didn’t stop being a Christian to do it. And it says: "And Daniel made request." I like this. "That he appoint Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over all the administration of the province of Babylon. And Daniel was at the king’s court."

Now notice what he did. He didn’t say, "I got mine, I hope y’all make it." See, Daniel understood something we don’t understand. When you’re in God’s will, nobody can have what belongs to you. When you’re in God’s will, what’s yours is yours. You don’t have to worry about helping Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, because if I help them up here, then it’s going to be four of us, and then I won’t be the only Christian getting all the recognition and credit, so somebody else is going to take my place. Uh-uh. You are very secure, because if God has you there, only God can remove you.

We had a young lady being harassed by her boss. Her boss was harassing her, and he was a very ungodly man, and he was pressuring her because of her Christian values and everything. And she came to me, she was just bawling. And she said, "I can’t take it anymore. I love the job, I want to work here, but I can’t work for this man. But I don’t have an opportunity to transfer, but I don’t want a new job. I’m so confused, I don’t know what to do."

I said, "Well, let’s get on our knees, let’s give this into the hand of the Lord." So we did that, we did all we could do, there wasn’t anything she could do. She went back, she just kept working hard. Two weeks later, her boss’s boss called her into the office and said, "I just fired your boss yesterday because I didn’t like his work, and if you would accept it, I would like to give you his position." So I have seen what this kind of commitment can do.

So, he was generous. He understood the Kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar tried to get Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego to worship this foreign god, this theo-ego, this Nebuchadnezzar-god that he built. And they said, "Our God is able to protect us. But even if He doesn’t—because our God is also sovereign—even if He doesn’t, we will not bow to your system. We will service your system. We will work hard in your system. We will give you the best that we can for your system, but your system will never become our God."

That is what God is looking for in the marketplace today, men and women who are committed. Finally, chapter 6. I like chapter 6 of Daniel because Nebuchadnezzar is dead. Babylon is dead. The whole country has been overrun by the Medes and the Persians. Daniel is doing fine. In other words, Daniel has outlasted the governors of other nations, and when new nations have come in, they kept Daniel. Why did they keep Daniel? It says Daniel distinguished himself, verse 3, among the commissioners and satraps because he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom.

Now what does that say about Daniel? He was excellent. No sloppy work here. No going to work late here. No leaving early because I don’t feel like working today. No calling in sick when he was well here. None of that. It says he distinguished himself, he rose to the top. The best workers in any organization who are Kingdom-minded ought to be the Christians, because they’re working for a higher standard. They do the best possible work given whatever the gifts that God has given them because they serve the Lord.

They don’t do sloppy work talking about "I’m tired." They serve the Lord and so they give the best of the best of the best because they want the applause of heaven and not just the applause of earth. Some people, you don’t even want them to say they’re Christians, because you look at the work that they do and it is an embarrassment to God. He was diligent, he was committed, he was excellent. And it says they could find, verse 5, no ground of accusation against him.

He was honest. He didn’t steal from the company, talking about "they won’t miss it." He was honest. They tried to find what he was doing wrong with the company, and they couldn’t find a thing wrong with this man. And you know one thing they found wrong with him? His faith. It says: "The only thing we got on this guy is his faith, so let’s get him there." And guess what? His faith got him fired. That does happen to Christians. You distinguish one moment, the company doesn’t need you anymore.

He gets a pink slip. and this is a real pink slip, he gets thrown into the lion’s den. So he’s to be eaten up by lions. But the Bible says God was with him in the lion’s den, and the folks who got him fired wound up in the den, and he got re-promoted. Because God doesn’t miss a lick. We’ve all seen the red ants. Those red ants will take over a yard. They get these little mounds going, they will take over a yard. You know why red ants spread?

Because they’re busy serving the queen. They’re busy serving the queen, and the harder they work, the more mounds they build, the more mounds they build, the more their population spreads, the more their population spreads, the more your yard is in trouble. And red ants spread because they’re serving the queen and they serve the queen by serving one another. And as they begin to serve the queen by serving one another, the mounds proliferate. When Christians serve the King and serve one another, the Kingdom proliferates, the Kingdom spreads.

But when Christians do not serve the King in the marketplace and serve the people of God, the Kingdom stays small and it doesn’t expand, it doesn’t grow, it doesn’t demonstrate all that God can do. At an amusement park they have these bumper cars. We’ve all gotten on them. Those bumper cars are a lot of fun. You bump one car, another car bumps you. Those cars—you only have that fun and that’s only exciting because up top there’s this post that’s connected to an electrical carrot that empowers these cars.

It is the connection that makes the movement possible. No connection, no movement, no fun, no ride. If you are going to have joy and meaning in your work, it’s got to be connected to something bigger. And that is the Kingdom of God and the glory of God. And if you’ve not yet figured out what God’s got to do with it—you know we got the song, "What’s Love Got to Do With It?" Nothing. What’s God got to do with it? Everything. When you make that connection and God sees, "Hmm, I can get some glory out this boy, I can get some glory out this girl, let me do something else with them because I know they’re going to take Me with them up the ladder."

Narrator (Male): Dr. Tony Evans, encouraging you to look for ways to connect your career with your calling, part of his series Called for a Purpose. This two-volume, 12-message collection will help you find and fulfill God’s unique plan for your life. As I mentioned earlier, if you make a contribution to help support the work of Dr. Evans and The Alternative, we’ll say thanks by sending you the complete series on CD, USB flash drive, or instantly downloadable MP3s, along with Tony’s inspiring Called for a Purpose devotional book.

You can get the details and make your request today at TonyEvans.org. That’s TonyEvans.org. Or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. That’s our resource center where team members are ready to help 24/7. Again, that’s 1-800-800-3222. There’s a good reason legally blind people aren’t allowed to operate motor vehicles. But Dr. Evans says many people are careening through life without realizing their spiritual vision is impaired. On Monday, he explains how looking at life from God’s perspective keeps us headed in the right direction. I hope you’ll join us.