Guest post by Jeanette Andrade
The Rise to the Top January 24
Scripture Selection: Psalm 24:3-6; Proverbs 24:24-26; James 4:4-7, 10
Food for Thought: James 4:10
Everyone wants to succeed in life and be “at the top,” and many—including some Christians—are willing to do anything to get there. You might scoff at that, but even some Christians have been known to bend rules or compromise their standards for their job. How many sacrifice church attendance or valuable time with the family so that they can climb the ladder of success? Even in the ministry, it can be a temptation to try and hurry the process and place ourselves in authority over others, or show ourselves to be “spiritual” so that people will take notice, be impressed, and instantly assign us to some important position in the church. Impatience and pride are what’s behind that, not God’s directive hand.
The Bible says that the right way to the top—the real top, the one where God floods you with favor—is to maintain clean hands, a pure heart, remain humble, and be willing to stand up against the wicked. The key to gaining true success in any endeavor is to just remain faithful and walk in righteousness, dependent always on the blood of Jesus, and He will place us in the perfect position.
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This to my mind is a complicated area. On one hand you have the parable of the rich young man:
On the other hand you have Romans 14:
The common theme is the attitude of the heart and conscience. So in my mind I am cautious about those Christians who seek positions of power, as God gives gifts of ability to people which they can exercise if their conscience allows it. Having Christians in positions of power is generally better than having non-Christians, and safer for me personally, in my view as an admittedly biassed Christian. But at the same time power and money are such huge, gigantic traps which trip up so many people. And so from Mt 6:24, closing the circle with the rich young ruler as he walked away sadly: “You cannot serve both God and money”.
They are traps. And, BTW, those are great scriptures for this post! It is the heart God looks at. He’ll place us in the positions He wants. When we try to position ourselves, we’re working against His will.
I agree, Bruce, with the statement that it is safer (and preferable) to have a Christian in positions of power. Absolutely! The problem is only when –in any walk of life– people are ambitious to the point of stepping on others and disregarding their principals to gain some level of authority (again, the motive of the heart is wrong). It is particularly problematic when it happens within a Christian congregation. Fortunately, those cases are not that common (I would hope). I thank God that the people who serve in the same church as I are humble and people of integrity. However, occasionally throughout the years, this problem has manifested itself because of human nature. In fact, as I reflect on my youth, I can remember having that mindset for a time, until the Lord corrected me.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.