Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to
light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet
with bitter.(Isaiah 5:20)
What the world needs now is a little bit of Integrity. Honesty. Truthfulness. Honour. Reliability. Uprightness.
I could go on, and the list would never end. In summary, the world needs good people. There are too many bad people in the world and the balance is tipping in favour of the bad people. They out-number the good ones X to 1.
And here's the thing. A lot of the bad people are Christians. Not all of them, but a fair number.
Let me give you a recent example. We've needed a tradesman to come and do some urgent work. We checked a number of websites, and phoned and e-mailed a number of them. Some never bothered to contact us despite advertising "No job is too small or too big for us". Others said they'll come to see the work that's needed and give us a quotation as to cost. They never turned up, or had the decency to phone saying they will not come.
Apparently, the norm these days is for a plumber, electrician, or other tradesman, to accept every offer for work that comes his way and say he'll turn up on a given day. And on the day only take up the job that is most profitable. They don't bother to contact the others who have waited in vain all day for someone to call.
This is the modern way to do business. It is called work smart not hard. Accept all work and then choose the most profitable at least effort.
And I repeat. I wouldn't mind betting that some of these people consider themselves Christian. They probably go to church too. Christians on Sunday and business people the rest of the time.
Years ago when discussing work issues a priest said to me, "You don't work for XYZ Multinational. You work for God. Whatever you do, God is always watching so do your job to the best of your ability. Christ was at one stage a carpenter. You would not expect Him to make a wobbly table or chair. So why should you make a bad job of what you do?"
Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us. (2 Corinthians 5:20)
So when we behave badly whether in business or in personal life we are being bad ambassadors for Christ.
When a non-believer does something bad, people do not say, "Look what a non-believer did!"
But when a Christian does something bad, they say, "And he is Christian also, what an example!"
Christians must set the example. Christians must be excellent. There's no two ways about it. One bad Christian gives the rest of us a bad name.
How can we tip the balance from bad people to good people if Christians behave so badly?
Be excellent and let people admire you. See you as different. Having something special that they too would love to have.
The love and peace of Christ in their lives.
