I'm going to say something that might start a war inside you...and may have a little "Gangsta P" attached to it.
What if everything you were ever taught about work is wrong? Not slightly off. Not missing a nuance. Wrong at the root.
Here's what happened on a recent Kingdom Seekers call.... Before I said anything, I asked my community to just be honest with me: "Tell me what work actually means to you."
The chat exploded. Pain. Struggle. A loss of freedom. Exhausting. Not fun. Just a paycheck.
One member said work was the opposite of freedom. She'd been carrying that belief so long that she built a workaround. She stopped calling it work and started calling it "play." It relieved the pressure, she said. Helped her write three books in a year.
So I asked her two questions. Are you making the money you want to make? Are you helping the number of people you want to help? Her answers... No and No.
For ten years...making work play, being productive...but not getting the result she wanted.
Instead of going to God and asking what He actually believes about work, she built a new label on top of a broken belief. The reframe didn't fix the root. It just gave the lie a different name and made it "fun".
Here's what no one ever told us: work as God designed it was never supposed to feel like pain. Before the fall, God commissioned Adam and Eve to work and tend the garden. Was it exhausting? A loss of freedom? Not fun? None of those things. Not one. That only showed up after the fall. That's the curse.
And here's the good news you may never have fully received: we're no longer under the curse. Jesus took all of it on the cross. We got born again. We have the right to be called sons and daughters of God again...back in right relationship with God. Pre-fall....back to God's original design for work...
So what is work, as God originally designed it?
Work is worship. Work is holy. Work is righteous. It is an act of worship and service unto God. And since God doesn't need anything from you, the way you serve Him is by serving the people He loves.
Every person you help, every problem you solve, every gift you bring...that's worship.
Jesus said it plainly: "I didn't come to be served. I came to serve." Then He said something you'll almost never hear preached: "My Father is always working, and so am I." (John 5:17)
Think about that. The most free person who ever walked this planet described himself as always working. Because when you work from your identity and from being settled in who God says you are...you don't work toward rest. You work from rest.
The enemy runs a two-sided deception on this. On one side: you are your work...identity collapsed into hustle, until there's nothing left but the grind. On the other side: work is bad and should be avoided. The enemy doesn't care which one he gets you on. He just needs you on one of them. Because either way, you never discover the truth.
The truth is: it is unthinkable to be a citizen of the Kingdom and not work.
You don't have to change jobs. You just have to change what you believe about the hours you're already in.
The real question isn't how to make work feel less like work. The real question is: What do I actually believe about work… and does God agree with it?
— Pedro Adao, Kingdom Seekers, May 4, 2026