Homemaking Matters: Why the Work You Do at Home Matters to God
Inside: The work you do in your home matters to the Lord. God is at work in your ordinary days, growing you more into Christlikeness.
We live in a world that doesn’t always seem to value the work we do in our homes as women and wives and mothers. So my hope in our time together, no matter what season of life you find yourself in, is to remind you of one thing. And if you forget everything else, remember this: the work you do in your home matters to the Lord.
I want us to grasp the truth that the Lord is working out His purposes in the midst of our everyday lives. Our good God is always at work behind the scenes, and what we may see as ordinary or mundane or routine, the Lord is using to sanctify us and grow us more and more in the likeness of Christ. If I were to expand that thought, I would say it this way: homemaking matters because it is one of the ways a good God works out His purposes amid our ordinary days.
This is something I come back to again and again in my own life, and it’s really at the heart of what I share in my book Homemaking Matters: Living for God’s Glory in the Ordinary. Not because homemaking is about the tasks themselves, but because of what the Lord is doing in us and through us in the middle of them. I’ve also shared on this before over on the podcast, and it’s something the Lord continues to bring me back to again and again in my own life.
Homemaking matters because it is one of the ways a good God works out His purposes in our ordinary days.A Biblical Foundation: Titus 2 and Our Calling
I want to begin in the little book of Titus, specifically Titus 2:3–5, because it sets the foundation for understanding what it means to be workers at home, or as I like to say, homemakers. Paul is writing to Titus, a young pastor dealing with opposition in a culture that was eager to criticize the church, and in this letter he lays out how believers are to conduct themselves in a watching world.
In chapter one, he addresses leadership. In chapter two, he turns to the conduct of the church—older men, older women, younger women, younger men. He is calling believers to live lives that reflect sound doctrine, and he begins with this foundation: “But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.” Sound doctrine isn’t just something we believe—it shapes how we live.
In verses 3–5, older women are instructed to teach what is good and to train the younger women. Right in the middle of those instructions, we read that younger women are to be “working at home.” This comes from the Greek word oikourgos—from oikos, meaning home, and ergon, meaning work. It refers to being a “home worker,” one devoted to the care and management of her household.
This isn’t simply about physical chores, though it certainly includes them. It includes loving our husbands and children, knowing their hearts, training them in the ways of the Lord, serving our families, and creating a home that points others to Christ. It’s where we show hospitality, where we disciple, where we model Christ, and where we live out our faith day after day. Home is our primary place of ministry.
That doesn’t mean we don’t have responsibilities outside the home or that we never leave it, but it does mean this is the primary sphere God has entrusted to us. And Paul gives us a sobering reason for this calling at the end of verse 5: “…that the word of God may not be reviled.” We need to feel the weight of that, because this isn’t something to take lightly. When God’s Word is maligned, God Himself is maligned, and our lives either adorn the gospel or distort it. This is not about us—it is about God being honored in our homes and in our families.
Clearing Up Some Misunderstandings
Before we go further, it’s important to address what this passage does not mean. This is not saying that a woman cannot work outside the home. It is not saying she never leaves her home or that her only ministry is within her household. The point here is not that a woman’s place is in the home, but that her responsibility is for the home.
When we look at this passage in context, Paul is emphasizing priorities. The older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, and then working at home. So even if a woman has responsibilities outside the home, the clear emphasis is that her top priority must be the welfare of her family and her home. This must come above any fulfillment she may find outside of it.
Why Homemaking Matters
Our work in our homes and in the care of our families is one of God’s ways of working out His purposes in our lives to mold us more into the image of His Son. And yet, we rarely take the time to consider that, and we can struggle to find purpose amid what feels like the same tasks day after day.
It’s hard to radiate joy when the sink is overflowing with dishes, when you’ve been up all night with a sick child, and when the laundry feels like it’s never going to end. We spend most of our days cleaning, cooking, and tending to the needs of others, and we drop into bed exhausted only to wake up and do it all again tomorrow. Most of the time, it goes unnoticed.
If I’m honest, even after all these years, my thoughts don’t naturally stay fixed on eternal things. I can be self-focused. I can grumble. I can get caught up in the moment and lose sight of what really matters. My joy is lost the moment my focus becomes inward and not upward.
But Romans 8:28 reminds us that God is working all things out for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. The “all” means all—the days that didn’t go as planned, the hard moments, the interruptions, and all the unseen work. God is not wasting any of it.
He is more concerned about what is going on in our hearts than with the actual work itself. The work matters—we are called to be diligent—but the deeper work is happening in our hearts. The Lord is redeeming our character as we go about our daily tasks, and what we see as routine, the Lord sees as His hand molding us more into Christlikeness.
That’s really what led me to write Homemaking Matters. I needed this reminder in my own heart—that these ordinary days are not wasted days, and that the Lord is doing a deeper work in me right in the middle of them.
Homemaking Matters
Living for God’s glory in the ordinary
The Ordinary Is Sacred
There is no separation in God’s Word between the secular and the sacred. If we are in Christ, everything is sacred—cooking, cleaning, running errands, folding laundry, wiping runny noses. We live most of our lives in the ordinary, and it’s in those ordinary moments that our primary ministry takes place.
Many days, you will find my heart struggling in this. And sadly more often than I would like, I can find myself frustrated and with a complaining attitude. But then there are those moments when the Lord opens my eyes—when I find myself praying as I fold laundry or giving thanks in the middle of a hard day, recognizing that He is at work in me.
And in those moments, I’m reminded again that my homemaking does matter—not just because it meets the needs of my family, but because it is shaping me into the image of Christ.
What we may see as ordinary, the Lord is using to grow us more into the likeness of Christ.Our Homes Are a Witness
Titus 2 reminds us that our lives are a witness to a watching world. Paul tells us that the way we live matters “…that the word of God may not be reviled,” “…that an opponent may be put to shame,” and “…that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”
Our godly behavior puts the beauty of Christ on display, and part of that watching world is inside our own homes. Your home is a mission field. Your children are watching, your husband is watching, and the people who enter your home are watching.
Our homes are places where the gospel is lived out in everyday ways.
Identity, Not Performance
One of the reasons we lose sight of this calling is because we lose sight of who we are in Christ. Too many days we look for our identity in what we accomplish, and when we do that, contentment is lost. We begin to measure our days by what we got done instead of remembering who we belong to.
But our identity is not in being a wife or a mother or a homemaker. Our identity is in Christ. We are not something because of those roles, but because we are in Him. As believers, we have been redeemed and given a new heart, and it is God who has made us who we are so we can make Him known.
When we look anywhere else to define ourselves, our view becomes distorted. We begin to feel restless, discontent, and unsure if what we’re doing really matters. But when we come back to what is already true of us in Christ, it steadies our hearts and gives us the right perspective for the work He has placed before us.
This is why we need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. We are a forgetful people. We drift toward a works mentality and forget the goodness of God in bringing us to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Reminding ourselves of the gospel means allowing our thinking, our emotions, and our responses to be shaped by what is true. It brings us back again and again to the place where we remember that our worth is not found in what we do, but in what Christ has already done for us.
A Gentle Reminder
Caring for a home and family is hard, and there are days we are not going to go about our work with the right attitude. There are days when we feel weary, when plans don’t go the way we expected, and when our hearts are more focused on ourselves than on the Lord.
This is why Jesus must be our sufficiency. He is not just our help on the hard days—He is our everything in all of our days.
He is the One who holds us fast. He strengthens us and equips us for every good work He has called us to. He does not leave us to figure this out on our own, and He will not forsake us in the work He has given us.
We don’t need to do this perfectly, we just need to be faithful today. We deal with what is right in front of us, one day at a time, offering our lives to the Lord in the small moments He has given us.
And even when we fail, we come back again to Him. We rest in His grace, we turn from our sin, and we keep walking forward in obedience, trusting that He is continuing His good work in us.
This is where so much of our growth in Christ is taking place, in the middle of our everyday days at home.
Closing Encouragement
If this is something you’ve struggled with—finding purpose, fighting discouragement, trying to see your days through the lens of Scripture—I go deeper into this in my book Homemaking Matters: Living for God’s Glory in the Ordinary, which is available for pre-order now. It’s simply an extension of what we’ve talked about here.
My dear friend, your home matters. Not because it looks perfect or everything runs smoothly, but because God is at work in it. God’s higher purposes are being worked out in your seemingly ordinary days.
So keep your eyes on Christ, find your satisfaction in Him, and remember—Jesus truly is enough.
This message is really at the heart of my book Homemaking Matters
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