God Requires Us To Respect One Another

A commonly observed problem that happens with position of authority, is it reduces empathy for others, and this should never be the case for the Christian.

God is 100% in control, where the Purpose of All History is to show His great Love.  In God's Purpose, the realization that comes with our maturity, is recognizing God in all things.  Many outstanding leaders come to know this, but unfortunately it appears that it is not the case for the majority.  As a Christian, the rhetorical question can be asked on how any of who are in charge of others in a business, and responsible for our family, not take care of those who are depending upon us for their job and well-being?

The Book of Daniel has many great prophecies that speak about world powers that gain dominion for a period of time, where their power was given by God even with any acts of evil, which history showed.  The main point is God exists outside of all Time Domains, so He knows everything in advance, so the evil done still serves God's purposes for

1. God's Glory, and
2. All of us who suffer to have rewards now and in Eternity.

God's purposes will have all unrighteousness and evil done by Lucifer, Fallen Angels and human-beings against those of us who have Salvation, end up accomplishing blessings, rewards and the opposite affect that evil had intended.  All of this will be discovered at both Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Thrown of Judgment.

God rules everything and power is given to whom God pleases.  When God appoints all of us to a job in our lives, then that job in the viewpoint of God is as important as all other job regardless of prestige and income. 

Five Points Framing this Topic

1. In a 2014 movie called "Exodus: Gods and Kings", which has great cinematography and acting; but, is actually a very disappointing movie because it does not follow the Bible account, has a remarkable quote: "The men that crave power are the best fit to acquire it but the least fit to exercise it."
2. In the military there has always been a similar expression: "Screw-Ups are promoted up".  The military interpretation:
   (a) The Military always looks for ways to use personnel who are incompetent to handle skilled positions by putting them into management positions so that no one gets hurt.
   (b) The Military personnel always look at supervisors and officers with suspension because they might be reporting to someone who is incompetent. 
3. In 1969 there was a book published that was followed up by others which stated there is a "Peter Principle" which according to wiki is "The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as that of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach the levels of their respective incompetence."
4. According to statistical data presented about the employment of people in the most successful countries, the employment is done overwhelmingly by small businesses that are primarily solely owned by one individual.  The person owning a small company and the CEO of financially successful companies have a commonly observed problem which can be almost equated to a legalized ponzi scheme in the sense of employees are exploited without fair sharing of profit based on their investment of work.  The comparison:
   * A Ponzi Scheme is monetary investment fraud that people are told incorrect information to get monetary investments that are stolen by the person running the Ponzi Scheme.
   * While rewards of profits for a small business should absolutely be received by the owner, the problem is fair with adequate sharing through distribution of capital rewards to all employees for their investment in efforts, which seemingly does happen but a very small scale.  In the corporation world, there are often CEOs, Boards, Executive Directors that are making bonuses that are at an exponential scale of most employee's yearly salaries along with being larger than their yearly salary.  The bonus for employee is usually in the range of five to ten percent of a year's salary.  This is not ethical or moral as easily proven by so many scriptures.
5. "Incompetent and Narcissistic Managers always promote personnel who act in a worship type of manner" which is a very negative comment that means managers will surround themselves with people who will do everything for their manager and give complements all the time to their manager.

To be fair with these four quick points, these are not axioms and most people can be successful in the eyes of God if they use the principles of the Bible in their lives.  Success, fame and fortune without God is temporary, fleeting and is vanity according to the eventual wisdom of King Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. 

In two of Jesus Christ's parables, about rich men with power, the message is clear about using wealth and power wisely.

Haughty and Arrogance

With reluctance, it has to be said that the unsaved world and even those who profess to be Christians will always contain people that are devoid of any sense of a virtuous morality and believe there are no consequences in life, where the only thing that matters is what can be gained for themselves.  People who are like this, often will work very hard to rise higher and higher into positions of power to try to satisfy their lust for power, financial gain, prestige and carnal pleasures.  In this author's opinion, while these types of people may have different physiological disorders that may be narcissistic, there are still those people who become eventually in a state of complete desensitization that nothing can be done to change their dispositions other than a Work of God.

It needs to be also said that if someone believes that the wealth and pleasures in this world are worthy of sacrificing eternal rewards with God then this shows they have a great deal of misunderstandings of the promises that God has given us in His Word.  Rhetorically, how could our God pass up on giving those who He Loves with riches, glory and happiness in this life while those who live debaucherously, gain riches unless God has promised to give those who trust Him something far better? 

We all need to realize that the temporary earthly rewards will be pale and in no comparison to what is eternal.  It is like someone rising to power in a garbage heap when compared to heaven and especially when we learn that God will wipe every tear (Revelation 21:4) at the Judgment Seat of Christ, which means we all will have regrets on what we should have been doing   This does not mean we should not strive for excellence in business and seek rewards like the Parable of Talents teaches but we need to recognize the principles of God in the our administration.

Management Must Guard Against

The three major problems that every manager at the lowest level to the highest Executive will have to contend and ascertain against:

1. Everyone that reports to the Manager is going to always report positive information concerning activities and hold back problems unless they require assistance.  This creates an atmosphere where people in management can be making decisions based on bad or partial information.
2. If there are problems that a person is responsible for then they are not necessarily going to take the blame for the problem.  This exasperates the problem in item #1 even more with decisions being made with bad personnel that will cause the problem to persist or perpetuate it.
3. The Manager must always try to keep the correct perspective in all matters so that any situation can be handled or left alone.

At the Executive levels, these three common problems can cause significant issues involving financial loss and of personnel productivity. 

Thinking They Know how to get Something Done

There are numerous warnings to those who are confident in their positions when they should not be and those who should be confident and are not:

• Paraphrasing the Dunning-Kruger Effect - It is a biased belief by someone with average or below average skills believing they possess greater abilities than they really have.  Then there are those who have better than average skills, who believe they still have more to learn where nothing is as simple as it looks.  The person who learns more, if they are smart, will eventually realize that the more they learn points to the fact that there is much more that is not known along with tasks can always have hidden complications.
• A military quote that applies to business, which has been used in many variations, was first attributed in January 1933 to German General Kurt von Hammerstein Equord and it states that he divided his officers into four categories
  (a) the Brilliant (Clever),
  (b) the Stupid,
  (c) the Industrious and
  (d) the Lazy. 
  "Those who are clever and industrious, I appoint to the General Staff.  Use can be found under certain circumstances of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts.  He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.   
  (Note: This is not meant as Biblical Advice but for those in management to consider.  From a Biblical Perspective, the best choice in business is always someone who holds themselves to accountable to a God first which will always translate to doing everything correctly because God is with person.)

Employment Benefits Changed

As many of us, who are employed in the business world for multiple decades can testify and remember the people who worked in the 1950s and 1960s, the ethics and code of conduct standards that were so evident in the years after World War II are tragically mostly gone or nonexistent.  Reading Business books written in the 1950s through the 1960s in today's business environment are almost laughable because people have changed unfortunately for the worse.  What is missing is:

• The Golden Rule of do unto others as you would have done unto you.
• The atmosphere of a business is an extended family of people.
• Executives were employed to have a business grow with security for all employees.

Below are a few examples of the benefits that use to be for all employees of many mid to large size companies.  

• Pension and/or partial salary for life after retiring.
• Partial Funeral Coverage payment.
• Insurance payment to direct beneficiaries upon death, even if the person is still employed or retired.
• Partial or Full Medical Coverage for life.
• Being assured of a job even if the position being held is eliminated, knowing other opportunities will be sought.
• During downtimes, a job position will still be kept because there is money in reserve and the job position is still needed in the future.

In Business Articles, these benefits are now largely only available to Directors, Vice Presidents, Presidents, CEOs and Board Members of mid to large size companies.  Today, the additional bonus payments to the highest executives in companies, dwarf the bonus structures for executives of 30 years ago.  Previous generations of Executives exercised a different philosophy with financial income of the company as money was used for reinvestment, reserves to retain personnel during economic down times and so much more.      

While most countries, such as the United States, have the statistical estimation that over 90% of employment is provided by small companies, the United States in the past had a fair taxation and Social Security retirement system.  Social Security no longer secures a stable retirement because of the Socialism that masquerades as Democracy which has destroyed this possibility.

Current Employment Environment Sickness

Many motivational speakers are speaking about the dilemmas that are affecting and causing productivity, profitability, loyalty and retention to be lost in many companies.  Here are just a few questions to understand the problems:

• Do we keep personnel who are no longer required in one area when they could be retrained for productivity in other areas; or, fire them and hire new employees that already possess the required skills?
• Do we risk holding personnel when their job positions are temporarily not profitable or risk losing them to the competition?
• Do we risk distributing higher salaries and bonuses to others besides the highest executives when the highest executives will most likely force out anyone that does not participate with the ongoing very generous rewards to their executive peer group?
• Do we reinvest income to acquire resources, patents and cliental from other companies and then scuttle/dismantle them to enable very generous bonuses to the executives, instead of providing a larger employment opportunity?

How God Intended

We learn in the Book of Revelation that God will be wiping our tears away.  The answer to the possibilities of why God is doing this is most likely for the lost opportunities we had to:

• Act as God would have wanted us to act.
• Failed opportunities to witness and be Ambassadors for God.
• Not being more kind to others.
• Not helping our family and friends have a better life.
• The realization that excessive pursuit of money, power, fame, titles meant nothing if it wasn't used for the Kingdom of God.
• Loss of rewards that we could have obtained in Eternity by our earthly obedience, Faith and behavior.

The Godly principles that we must always remember are the importance of treating everyone with respect, love and guidance.  This applies to our enemies also, albeit there are times to act in other ways.  Managers need to always know that the employees look to you for guidance, protection, wisdom and providing monetarily so that they can in turn provide for their family. 

Rhetorically:

• How can we expect God to take care of us if we do not take care of those whom God has put under our management (Matthew 25:44-45)? 
• How do we expect God to react to any of us who takes more wealth and financial gains that are deserved and doesn't reward those who are due financial gain (Matthew 18:32-35)? 
• How can we be so arrogant to believe that our success is due solely to efforts made by ourselves?   Did God put us in positions of authority and power for His greater Purposes (Matthew 18:32-35)?
• How can we not recognize that when we gain much power and wealth that we may be actually losing Eternal Rewards in Heaven and in the Eye's God seen as wretched, naked and poor (Revelation 3:17)?
• How can we stand in God's presence having caused others to stumble and not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior because of abuse of power, position and title when everyone knows we have said we are a Christian (2 Corinthians 8:9)?

Correct Perspective

There are many, many scriptures that give the correct perspective for all of us to aspire and accomplish in our lives.  To many naive Christians and non-Believers, they have assumptions that if they succeed in obtaining Titles, Wealth and Power then God will reward them with the equivalent in Heaven.  This is certainly God's prerogative but God has given us His Word on what will obtain Rewards in many Scriptures such as:

Unfortunately, we do not often hear or read about great Christians in the News, who are:
(a) Captains of Industry,
(b) In Positions of Power, or
(c) have Great Wealth
that are using their money and influence for God's Kingdom because the very nature of a maturity in a Christian Walk is to not be Prideful, Lustful, Arrogant, Act in Self Serving Ways and be Ostentatious. 

The following two graphical pyramids will help visually in understanding the responsibilities of every person in God's kingdom on this Earth in relation to our business and family life. 

• In "The Satanic World View", everything revolves around us and God is at the lowest level. 
• In "The Correct Perspective", we all rely on God and others rely on us, which is why the pyramid is upside down.  God is number one in importance and He is supporting all of us!  Our role is then to support everyone else that we have the privilege to help in our family and business life.

Note that "Janitorial and Cleaning Crews" is put at the lowest level to reflect the men and women who are usually at the lowest pay level.  It this author's belief that many of these men and women will more than likely have more rewards, titles and privileges in Heaven then most CEOs of major companies.  This belief is based on the scriptures that point out that the more wealth people have then the tendency is to push God out and the less money that people make, then those people tend to rely heavily on God and will have a loving and trustful relationship with Him.

Warning to the Powerful

Social Media Graphic to Emphasize

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What to read next?

The role of Sex.   What is Abuse of Power?  What is Salvation?  Is it possible to lose Salvation?  We have eternal life.  Evolution is not real.  When a Christian suffers is there benefits from it.  Rewards in heaven.  Do we Tithe?  What does the 3rd Commandment tell us?  What is Grace and Mercy?  Is there an Age of Accountability?  Is there a place of unending punishment and exile form God?