For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” … We work hard with our own hands … Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Yet we urge you, dear friends, … to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. … Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Some people are … like seed sown on good soil … (they) hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown. … Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be … given to a people who will produce its fruit.

Live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work. … Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters … always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. … Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Ep 4:1; 2Th 3:10, 1Co 4:12, Lu 3:9; 1Th 4:10-12, Co 3:23-24; Mr 4:15, Mr 4:20, Mt 21:43; Co 1:10, 1Co 15:58, Mt 19:29

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