Working for God vs. Doing God’s Work
By His Holiness Pope Michael II.
September 15, 2025
In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican ( cf.Luke 18:9-14 ), a person who is really sincere in his love for the Lord would be shocked why in the end of the parable the Lord praised the publican and despised the Pharisee. In as much as if we live in the time of the Lord, we might as well emulate the Pharisee as well as the scribes because they really struggled to apply the mosaic law to the letter. Imagine from the ten commandments, they translated it into 613 laws in order to make sure that they will not miss anything. Yet in the end, it was the tax collector, despised by many jews who got the “cum laude” from the Lord.
It is not enough that we work for God. We must be doing God’s work. That is the secret. Working for God is the mode of expression of devotion of a follower to God by choosing a particular apostolate according to his taste and not according to the taste of the Lord. Whereas, doing God’s work is serving the Lord according to the manner the Lord wishes a person to serve. By simple analogy, Ana would like to give a present to her professor, Mr. Castro, and so she bought a T-shirt with stripes as a birthday gift, yet when Mr. Castro received her gift, he secretly gave it to his brother, for he did not like a shirt with stripes. When another student, Shirley asked Mr. Castro what gift he would like, and Mr.Castro replied, “I want a navy blue polo.” Shirley found it strange for Mr.Castro but since that was the type Mr. Castro preferred, she bought that polo as a gift. In the illustration above, Ana is an example of “working for God” while Shirley is an example of “doing God’s work”.
In our apostolate, we need to be prayerful in order to be discerning. We need to clarify which particular mode of action we must apply in a particular circumstance. It is not enough that we are working for God, we must be doing God’s work so that we can be effective and efficient co-workers of the Lord. That is why Saint Ignatius prayed, “Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous, teach me to serve you as I should, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and ask not for rewards…” Please underline: To serve you as I should or to serve you as you deserved. This reminds us that we need a discernment of what kind of service is really pleasing to God. Because in the end, it is God’s glory which is our goal.
Normally, we choose our own preference then we say it’s for the glory of God but we set aside that since the goal is for the glory of God, we shall ask God first what is his will for us to undertake. It should be : the horse first before the cart and not the other way around
In the parable of the Pharisee and Publican, the Lord praised the publican because of his humility. “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” That should be the attitude of a person following the Lord, “Lord, teach me what you want me to do.” Salvation is actually one percent work of man and 99 percent work of God.