Taking It to Work:
I’ll be honest, sometimes I envy those who are not held to God’s high standards. They’re just people living for themselves, and doing whatever they deem necessary to make things work out for them. I’ve known supervisors and coworkers who have done some pretty shady stuff, but it doesn’t really bother them, as long as they don’t go “too far” to where things backfire on them. You wonder sometimes how they sleep at night. I asked a program manager that very question one time. “Like a baby,” he said.
For us, living foremost for God, unfortunately we don’t have that kind of latitude. We may know what would please our boss, or what might please our customer, but we also know what would please our Lord. Depending on the industry you have been placed in, those choices present themselves far too often: promises to meet dates that are impossible to meet., delivering parts that are out of spec or defective, or billing for work not yet completed.
The calling of the workplace is cut-throat at times. Hard decisions with blurred lines between right and wrong are very real obstacles for the Christ follower. Sometimes we are forced to look long and hard at the temptation to do things, that we know are wrong in God’s eyes. His Law is on our hearts. We can feel it, but the pressure of the outside world can drive us into the non-Christian’s shadowland or gray area.
Sometimes, with the pressure to conform, it may feel like we have little choice . . . but we do. At a personal level, professional level, and at a corporate leadership level, we are to think and meditate on God’s Word, that our choices and actions would reflect His ways and project His character to those around us. More and more, that includes being stubbornly strong to not do the things that we know are against His ways.
If we want God’s blessings, if we want to maintain His light in the world, if we want to show our thanksgiving for His sacrifice for us, sometimes it is by our sacrifice of not going with the flow by telling the truth, standing for what is right, and anchoring on His Holy ways, as His Word works in us, today.
Joshua 1:8 (ESV) – This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Psalm 32:8 (ESV) – I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Proverbs 14:12 (ESV) – There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Listening to the Holy Spirit:
The conduct of a child is a reflection of the parent. He who calls his Father Lord must reflect the heart of He who has called him to repentance. The law of the Father must be on his lips, rising from a heart within. Full in the Father’s ways are the hearts of his children, given as law, but received in the obedience born of thanksgiving. The law is a delight to the tongue of the redeemed. He who claims the blood of the Son, desires greatly the obedience to the Son. When I walked the dust of creation, there was no chore in the following of the Father, nor did I despise the asking of direction. Bowing to the will of He who sent Me was My delight. Even the great suffering for the blessing of many, in it there was great joy. The Law was given that the Father’s heart would be known among men; that in the ways of He who creates in perfection, through the begotten, that His creation might prosper in the countenance of the eternal good of He who knows all. Prosperity of life is in the ways of God, given that you might have success in all you do, and give praise to the glory of He who was sent. Be holy as I Am holy, as He is holy.
