THE PROBLEM WITH DECEIT

 The most lethal form of deceit is the one brought about by personal sin.  Sin is like a powerful drug.  After the initial jolt you become progressively addicted until you lose the ability to break free.  This in turn leads to dangerous rationalization.  You tell yourself that sin is inevitable and that it will not hurt you.  Nothing can be further from the truth!  The wages of sin is death (see Rom. 3:23).

 The most lethal form of deceit is the one brought about by personal sin.

You would never work for a person if you knew that instead of giving you a paycheck he would shoot you dead.  That is what sin does.  It is serious, dangerous and lethal.  If there is sin in your life, repent, renounce it and return to the Lord right away.  God will not bless you until you have dealt with it because God is holy.  In fact, there is no surer way to give the accuser of the brethren (Satan) an opportunity to make a motion requesting the appointment of a spiritual receiver than to try to hide sin (see Rev. 12:10).  God will grant Satan’s request because He knows that once we reach this level of deceit, we will not be willing to renounce our own sins.  This, in turn, calls for a firm hand.  In fact, this is what Paul did in Corinth to a person who insisted on justifying sin (see 1 Cor. 5:1-5) and later on to two other individuals (see 1 Tim. 1:20).  Because sin is so destructive, God will use whatever means necessary, including Satan, to bring us to a point of repentance.   

If a corporation is in trouble because of deceit and it is able to hide the truth from the court, the reorganization plan will not succeed.  Deceit is like a cancer.  The sooner it is exposed, the better the chances of survival.  If there is sin in your life, God wants you to deal with it.  He will do anything to get you to that point.  Your current spiritual bankruptcy may be His way of dealing with you.  He will not permit you to hide your sin any longer, because He knows that sin will ultimately destroy you.   

Sin is never acceptable.  Daniel and Joseph understood this.  Joseph went to jail rather than succumb to sexual immorality.  Daniel and his companions turned down the king’s food on one occasion and faced the fiery furnace on another rather than compromise their convictions.  How much God can entrust in you is determined by how much sin you refuse to take from the devil and the flesh.  The reverse of this is also true:  Yielding to sin drives you away from God, His love and His provision.  The farther you get from God, the closer you get to the devil.   

Corporate Sin

Sin committed in the context of business is as bad as personal sin.  Corporate sins may take the form of broken relationships, contracts and agreements among coworkers or outsiders.  Quite often in the competitive atmosphere of the marketplace the fine line that separates persuasion from manipulation, or due diligence from abuse, is overlooked or ignored and people are injured.  Marketplace Christians must also deal with this.   

A businessman who owns a large company was convicted by the Holy Spirit of taking advantage of a competitor by using unethical practices to win a bid.  This happened many years ago, but instead of rationalizing it he called the competitor, apologized to him and sent him a check for the profit he had made on the deal.  

This had an immediate positive impact.  The competitor, who at the time was a backsliding Christian, came back to the Lord.  Since then both men have worked together on business deals that have benefited both of their corporations.  

James makes a very important point about unpaid wages, another corporate sin (see Jas. 5:1-8).  He writes that those wages testify against the debtor.  If such is the case, you are staring at the source of your current troubles.  Stealing at work – from a competitor, a partner, an employer or an employee – is as bad as stealing from the offering plate, because your job is your ministry.  Make restitution and begin to walk in the spiritual freedom that will come about as a result of it.   

Other forms of deceit are more subtle but just as damaging: to believe that secular work is less spiritual than religious work, that God’s power and presence cannot manifest themselves in the marketplace as they do in church meetings, or that to be able to hear God’s voice and instructions we need to withdraw from the marketplace. 

Every instance recorded in the Bible where someone met with God, he or she always came out of His presence with specific instructions about something that God wanted done on Earth.  In fact, with the exception of Paul, who was transported to the third heaven to receive revelations (see 2 Cor. 12: 1-4), God was always the One doing the traveling.  He must like it down here; otherwise why would He come so often?  The idea of removing ourselves from daily routines in order to be spiritual has no biblical basis.  Spirituality in the Scriptures is when we implement God’s will on Earth, rather than try to subtract ourselves from it and its problems.  

Many marketplace Christians face spiritual bankruptcy today because they do not believe that they can hear God’s voice at work.  They need to expose, renounce and remove such deceit.  Then they can and will hear God’s voice in the marketplace!  Be encouraged by the fact that every revival listed in the Old Testament was a marketplace-centered revival. 

The Temple and the altar may have played key roles, but revival always touched people in the marketplace. 

SUPERNATURAL EFFICIENCY

Inefficiency is the next factor.  This can be defined as “not producing the desired effect, incompetent – lacking sufficient knowledge, skill or ability.”...

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