By population, we probably have more Christians in the workplace than any other practice of faith, at least in the part of the world I come from.
One would expect that this should be a strength through which many lives will be impacted positively for Christ.
Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Many times the bad testimonies that come from people who are supposedly Christians are worse than that from unbelievers.
Why is this so? Is this what Christianity is all about?
Definitely not. They were first called Christians because they saw in their character that they were like Christ. So we take it that a Christian in the workplace is someone that exhibits the character of Jesus.
In answering the question I posed earlier, we need to understand the foundation of what makes us a Christian. It is not by going to church, it is not being a worker, paying tithe and giving generously. It is not being a prayer warrior or bearing a Christian name.
We are Christians simply because we have faith in God and we live by this faith (Rom 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38, 2 Corinthians 5:7, 2 Corinthians 1:24).
The Christian talk is the word of God and until we have an absolute trust in it, we cannot walk the talk.
If we do not reckon that the things we see are temporary and lay hold on the things which are not seen, the word of God, we cannot walk the talk.
The point here is that the word of God is our mirror through which we see everything we do.
For example, if you want to grow in your organisation, one sure way to do that is to be diligent according to God’s word.
“The hand of the diligent will rule, But the negligent and lazy will be put to forced labor.”
Proverbs 12:24 AMP
The question is, are we diligent or lazy, alluding grace to non commitment to work under the guise of serving God in our churches or some other avenue of ‘worship’.
Would we rather not believe the word, practice it as a principle and expect the growth to follow?
Why should we be praying to God for promotion when He has already laid down the principle to rising in the organisation? We would rather pray and fast than just obey the word and expect it to do what it says it will do.
If we truly want to let our light shine as Christians in the workplace, we must only live by what the word says.
We know we have faith in the word of God first when we believe it without any doubt. In other words, I must believe that if I am diligent, I will bear rule as stated in the scripture.
The second thing is I must act on what the word says. We understand that faith without works is dead (James 2:17-26, 1 Thessalonians 1:3).
Going back to Pro 12:24 for example, supporting my belief with work means I must;
- find out what diligence means at my place of work
- Develop the spirit or the mindset of diligence
- Know the areas where I should be more diligent
- Serve at work diligently without expecting anything in return because your faith is in God who said the word.
If we follow these simples steps, we will truly walk the Christian talk and become a light that shines forth His glory.
God bless you
Akindele Afolabi
Christian Employee Series