Arguably, the pedestrian view of the gospel of Jesus today is simplistic. It is the good news about how to avoid hell and go to heaven when one dies. The gospel is, therefore, viewed as spiritual truth that has little to do with life in the physical world. If one is saved, one can then live as one wishes. Professing Christians who embrace this idea live self-centered lives seeking pleasure, comfort, and convenience. This lifestyle, however, is not Christian but secular.
Those who profess to be followers of Jesus but embrace a secular lifestyle bifurcate their lives. They presume to know Jesus as Savior but do not live submitted to his lordship. A Christian lifestyle embraces Jesus as Savior and Lord.1 Those who live bifurcated lifestyles are hypocrites who are inherently narcissistic. Their agenda is self-glory and self-exaltation.
Christians are those who live under the lordship of Jesus out of a deep sense of gratitude for the grace of God. They are selfless servant leaders; they seek to promote, glorify, and exalt Jesus. They are progressively maturing and understand that their sanctification is empowered by the grace of God working in their lives through the Holy Spirit.2
Christians can, however, fall into the error of the Galatians who reverted into thinking that sanctification was entirely up to them. In Galatians 3, Paul warned against this danger of backsliding. The grace of God in sanctification is a gift of the Holy Spirit, who is the empowering agent in the process.3 When one loses sight of this, one can regress into the error of legalism.
Legalism is an attempt to please God based on human strength alone. This is evidenced by narcissistic pride. Everything is about them—being right, looking good, and winning—all seemingly in the name of Jesus but unsubmitted to the lordship of Jesus. Consequently, legalism is not efficacious. Legalists will never be excellent workers. They will never sacrifice to serve others, and they will never work for the good of the whole. Legalism is a deadly error that debilitates and produces dysfunction individually and organizationally.
Freedom to work with excellence—sacrificially serving the purpose of God in others—comes through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. This is the correct lifestyle of a Christian, one who lives under the lordship of Jesus. Professing Christians who don’t submit to the lordship of Jesus live under the curse of legalism.
Here is your business tip. Management must build organizations with stakeholders who live submitted to the lordship of Jesus and, therefore, are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Attempting to build with legalists is building with people who are under a curse; the end will be judgment as happened at the Tower of Babel.4 A true Christian lives under the lordship of Jesus submitting to his will and ways. Wise management understands that to build a God-honoring organization requires building with humble, submitted, and teachable people. Therefore, management must identify the legalists in the organization and seek to remediate them. If they cannot be remediated, they must be replaced.
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1. 2 Peter 3:18.
2. Galatians 2:20.
3. Philippians 2:12-13.
4. Genesis 11:1–9.
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