This passage pretty well sums up the thrust of The Kingdom Has Drawn Near, and hearing these sermons in person caused a paradigm shift in my thinking.

But – have you thought of this? – Adam would also have loved God just by being a great gardener! I get excited thinking about this. As Adam went out into Eden every day and tended the garden and cultivated it, he was putting on display in his work the same enthusiasm, diligence, and creativity with which the Creator himself engages creation. Adam put on display, as the “lord” of Eden, the glory of how God loves and tends and engages his creation. More than this, Adam also showed the glory of God, and his love for God, by displaying in his work ethic how one made in the image of God works when he is under the smile of God. Adam enjoyed gardening because God was smiling upon him, and the way he gardened reflected the joy of his heart in the joy of God.

We must see that loving God as Jesus commanded does not mean retreating from any sphere of human life and endeavor. It means rather that we bring the glory of God into every sphere of human life. In every part of human life, we learn how to display God by our thankfulness to him, by rejoicing in his gifts, by our delight in him, by being able to say when we do this or that that we “feel his pleasure,” by our righteousness in playing by the rules (for example, in the sphere of athletics). We bring the goodness and equity of God into these spheres, and thus show forth in them his glory. As redeemed people of God, we have a reason to do everything! We have a reason for business, economics, art, athletics, education, artisanship, science, medicine, law, politics, sex, family life, charitable giving, and charitable service. Why? Because for us who love God, every one of these spheres of human life is a theater for serving him and delighting in him. Could anything be less restrictive? Could anything be less stifling?