Someone once said, “Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers”. The truth in this statement is what gives my actions purpose. These actions, furthermore, are all what I hope will reflect the light of Christ through me. The three core values I seek to uphold are all Biblical concepts that I pray the Lord will establish in me to reflect Him. These values are commitment, integrity, and accountability.
The word commitment refers to the purest of all promises. Commitment is a pledge to the highest involvement, meaning that if I commit myself to a project, I promise that I will work my hardest to get the job done. Matthew 25:14-30 illustrates this concept through the parable of the three servants. In this parable, a man gives a large sum of money to one servant, a slightly less amount of money to another, and the smallest amount to the last servant. When the man returned, the first two servants reported that they invested the money and were able to present profit on the money. The last servant, however, had buried the smaller amount of money in the ground because he was afraid of losing it. The man was proud of the first two servants, but he was upset with the last one’s foolishness. This story represents how God gives His people gifts and asks us to develop them, committing our time and treasures to Him in order to grow them for His glory. God promises that when we follow through with our commitments He will bless us further. Commitment is important to me because I want to stand before God one day and be able to say I used my gifts for the Lord and committed my way to Him.
Integrity goes along with committing my way to the Lord as it is a pledge to consistently walk in Him to please Him. Colossians 3:23 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord, and not for men”. The concept of working with all I have comes up again in this passage. This is because the Lord asks his followers to continue to serve Him throughout all we do. Integrity means I want to live a life of honesty, not just one day, but to strive towards being honest every day I am alive. Being honest every day is not easy, which is why this verse says to work with all your heart. Daniel, in the Old Testament, sought to please the Lord above men. He was even willing to give up His life in order to please God. Daniel 6 describes the people he encountered saying in the second part of verse 4 that the administrators “could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent”. Living with integrity means that I will seek to please the Lord every day consistently, pleasing Him above any one I encounter.
Though my goal is to please God above people, accountability is important to living a life for Christ in a secular world. This concept can be studied in Galatians 6:1-5. In this chapter, one is encouraged to share the burdens of his brothers and sisters in Christ. Each person should examine his or herself and challenge others around him. Being accountable to God is what I do as a Christian in serving Him and being accountable to my business I work for, my family, and my friends is a system I choose to follow for my life. This value ties the other two values together as I am held accountable for my actions being in the like of Christ Jesus.
As can be seen through this writing, the deepest importance to me is to please God through my life. As Paul, writer of Philippians, says in verses 7 and 8 of chapter 3, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider a loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ”. My worth in Christ is my purpose, my treasure, and my greatest importance.
I like to say that I am a restored treasure in Christ. I have many examples in my past of my lack of commitment, absence of integrity, and my failure to be accountable to my God. One example, for instance includes a work experience I had in high school. I worked in a sandwich shop where I was not allowed to eat anything without paying for it. Everyone I worked with did it. They felt like no one would notice. so one time I did it too. Though I did not get caught by the company, my actions were seen by the Lord. I was not focused in this moment on being accountable to God. I have had to decide since this experience to bring Him glory whether other people are watching or not.
On a deeper level, a certain experience in my past has challenged me greatly as an individual. I spent many years asking why God would allow bad things to happen, but as I’ve gotten older I have had to see how God uses bad things for His good, rather than dwelling on asking why God allowed it to happen. God calls His followers to faithful prayer of thanksgiving. I can’t say I never get upset about the past, but I can see things in my life to be thankful for. I can point to things to be upset about, but I can also see where God’s hand was protecting me. My focus has to shift from my own disappointment to my great expectation in Jesus.
Before I started college, I was very immature in my faith. I was seeking God to meet my needs rather than giving Him my life for His glory. I let myself cling to my past as an excuse for why I held on to bitterness and as the reason why it was difficult for me on certain days to follow Christ. What I’ve learned, especially in the last year, is that I am not on this Earth to be a victim. I am here to be victorious! Just as Jesus Christ. Events in my past push me to sensitivity in certain areas, but these experiences teach me of my desperate need for my Savior and the One worthy of my deepest commitment.
Sometimes I feel pretty week in my faith, but when I dwell on that I realize I am not allowing God to use me. I’m not sure how I’m going to make a difference in my life as a whole, but I believe God can use me as long as I continue to be defined in Him. My Bible study leader once used the illustration of taking a piece of paper and a Bible. He placed the paper inside the Bible and closed it. Once He closed it, one could no longer see the piece of paper. I am striving toward being that paper, that when people look at me they will no longer see me but Christ who has bought me and restored me with His precious blood. I guess now that I’m thinking through if I am going to make a difference in my life I have to say no. I don’t want to make a difference. I want Christ to make a difference through me.
The philosophy of ethics I live by is through the grace of Christ. This philosophy includes submission of self to the work of Christ, reading His Word in the Bible to determine right living, and doing these things through commitment to God, integrity of a life of Christ, and accountability to the God of the universe. I am not here just to be saved by Christ, but to love Him in every aspect of my life.
If I were to encourage high school kids to live ethically, I would challenge them to think Biblically about everything in their lives. I would challenge them in the same way my pastor encourages me, telling these kids that everything in their lives should reflect Christ. As he recently told us as a congregation, the Christian life is fairly simple. It’s the living out of faith that is the difficult part. If students felt they weren’t worthy of living a life for Christ, I would challenge them to allow God to use them from this point forward. If God is the Creator and Savior of the universe, He is more than capable to use us, His most beloved creation, for His glory.
Many people don’t choose this way of life because they want to do life on their own. Many people seek physical satisfaction rather than the Lord who made anything that can satisfy. Think of the parable in John 6, when Jesus feeds five thousand people. He works a miracle by feeding all five thousand of these people with simply five loaves of bread and two fish. The people, after they were fed, wanted Jesus to be their King, even if they made Him King by force. Their reason in wanting Him as their King, though, was to meet their physical needs. They saw the miracles Jesus could perform and they wanted the miracles rather than Jesus Himself. These same people, later, praised Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem. They shouted “Hosanna!” which means “Save us now!” These people were so focused on Jesus saving them from their physical depravity that they couldn’t even see the Spiritual depravity Jesus was capable of saving them from. The reason for sharing this story is that many people I encounter are looking for a Jesus that will bless them when they’re looking to be blessed and a Jesus to leave them alone when they think they can do things on their own. That is not the reason Jesus gave His whole life to save the sinners of this world, to make people happy. He died to restore the lost and make them His greatest treasures.
In this world, I hope to live a life of commitment, integrity, and accountability. These are the standards Christians are held to in living a life for Christ. I pray that the Lord will be honored in every decision I make in my home and work, as I set aside any physical benefit in this life to serve the One in which my hope belongs, the One in which I submit to in order to seek His will above all. Proverbs 16:9, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps”.
