No doubt you’ve heard and sung the old familiar chorus: I have decided to follow Jesus; no turning back, no turning back. It’s a good song to sing to yourself throughout your day. It reminds you that you have made a choice to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and keeping that in your mind at all times will help you remember who you are: a Christ-follower.

For those of us who are Christ-followers, we need to be aware of what Jesus taught us concerning how we live our lives. Jesus gave us some clear principles as to how we live out our faith on our jobs. The parable of the talents, as given in Matthew 25, is a very strong teaching Jesus gave us about how we manage our time and opportunities. Three people are given differing amounts to work with: one five talents, one two, and one received only one talent.

As Jesus tells the story:The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more (Matthew 25:16-17).Right away, one of the lessons Jesus teaches us in this parable is he expects us to work at multiplying our resources, our opportunities—to make the most of what we’ve been given. And we should get right to it—no lollygagging, no wasting time.

Are you working by this Jesus rule—to do the absolute most with what you have? Maybe you have a job that is not challenging to you; maybe you’ve been doing the same job for years, and you’re just in that old familiar rut. You do what you have to do, but that’s it. If you want to work by Jesus rules, you need to get out of that rut and start finding ways to do more with what you have.

It’s easy to just stay in our ruts, isn’t it? This year we celebrate forty years since this ministry began its first radio broadcast in 1984. Many times, during these years I’ve had to get myself out of a rut—of just doing it the way I’ve always done it. You have to be intentional about getting out of your rut and becoming creative. How about having a brainstorming or strategic planning session with others, to just think about better ways to do what you’re doing? I find that is a really good way to put some fun back in the job and do more with what you’ve been given.