How should we act in the workplace? P. 3 of Randy Kilgore interview.

Over the next three days, we have been privileged to interview Randy Kilgore, the author of Made to Matter, Devotions for Working Christians. (part 3 of 3)

How should Christians act in the workplace?

We Christians should live lives that bring honor to the name of Christ. How?

First, we must practice the kind of humility that comes from a constant awareness we don’t deserve to be in relationship with God. We stop being humble the moment we forget how stained we are by sin. The moment we congratulate ourselves on how closely we’re obeying God is the moment we’ve started believing we’ve got a part in our own salvation.

That’s why the idea that people are basically good is such a terrible thing to believe. Our default, Scripture says, is to rebel against God. None of us are worthy of His presence, and we’re only made worthy because we’ve been granted the opportunity to become one with Christ. That way, when God sees us, He sees us adorned in the robe of Christ’s righteousness, not the self-mended robe of our own best efforts. This kind of humility reminds us we’re fellow travelers in this journey to eternity, even with the most distressing of overt sinners, and it can give us a heart for seeing them meet Jesus.

Second, we must accept the idea we won’t be perfect this side of heaven, and that we need help learning to love God, need help learning to love others, and most of all, need help learning to love ourselves. That help comes in the form of reading God’s word, and in fellowshipping with others who’ve also met Jesus. Every person in Christian history who sought to live a life of faith in isolation always ended up also being heretical; we need each other not only for moral support, but to test our learning of what we’ve read, and to hone the rough edges off the things sin lets creep into that thinking.

Third, we must understand that until we get to heaven, we’re to live lives of service and sacrifice; that this life is no longer our own. Romans 12:1-2 and Galatians 2:20 speak to this magnificently. In return for an eternity without pain and sorrow, where work has meaning, joy and fulfillment without any of its drudgery or inequity, and where we get to walk in the garden with God, literally; in return for that eternal joy, God asks of us a life of surrender to service while we’re on this Earth. Then, to spice the deal, He offers us contentment as we offer that service, and makes it productive, sometimes even supernaturally so, just so we know the relationship part of eternity has already begun.

Then, just when we start to congratulate ourselves for how well we’ve appropriated these lessons, and how much we’ve surrendered to God, we must remind ourselves of just how stained by sin we truly are, so we can start the cycle again by practicing the kind of humility it brings.

Scripture is right when it teaches us God loves the humble, but it’s also right when it teaches us that other humans love us when we’re humble, too. Only people abandoned to evil don’t admire humility.

Read the book review here.
Next week we’ll pose your questions to Randy.
E-mail your question, “How can I make a difference….”. If we use your question, you’ll get a free copy of the Made to Matter book.