By: Richard Gazowsky
This weeks Monday morning blog is – The Wealth Of The Wicked Is Laid Up For The Just – Click here to subscribe
I distinctly remember the first day I read this verse in the Bible: “The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” I had been in the midst of dealing with some pretty serious situations in my own organization. I felt the circumstances required decisive and quick action lest the organization’s reputation be tarnished. Even worse, my own reputation was being made to look like I was covering up sin. The Scripture seemed so glaring to me that I took it to prayer and began to meditate on it.
I spent nearly an entire day of prayer wrestling with what God was really saying in this verse. Those of you in leadership roles know the dynamics I was dealing with. Those who love righteousness and want to live holy before God, often make the mistake of quickly assuming that someone who delays rendering judgment over an obvious wrong is seeking to cover up a sin. Or, that “someone” was afraid of the confrontation that the exposure would cause and choose a life of compromise. None of these last two options applied to the circumstance I was dealing with. Rather, I wanted to immediately judge the person involved in this situation and the Lord was restraining me.
This was a totally new type of scenario I was facing, and it caused me to spend a lot of time in biblical research. I wanted to find out God’s opinion from the Bible, not man’s ideas on the subject. My question was, “What was the underlining reason why the wrath of man doesn’t work the righteousness of God?” As I continued to study and pray I uncovered an amazing truth concerning this area. It’s actually God’s will for me to cover up sin! Furthermore, it’s not even God’s perfect will to expose sin Himself. It’s really more of a case of last resort.
The blood of Jesus was designed to cover, purify, and remove sin. God’s intention has always been to cleanse us from inevitable failures, and not to expose and destroy us. Man’s intention, when he seeks his own righteousness, usually is to expose and destroy, because he feels his actions will lead to him being promoted. This way of thinking is more like the culture of the Italian Mafia than Christ. The Mafia, Communists, and other oppressive groups gain control over people by finding out their hidden secrets and threatening to publicize them. This is a form of bondage that Satan has been using since the beginning of time.
On the one hand, the covering of sin can lead to the oppression of the person committing the wrong. But on the other side, the side of justice, the covering of sin can actually lead to the person’s freedom. The dynamic that makes this work is God, the only one who has the ability to erase sin and cast it into the sea of forgetfulness. So where does your role fit in as a leader? How do you stay away from the oppressive spirit of covering sin that takes advantage of the person, and instead use the realm of freedom and honesty to cover sin for the purpose of allowing for God to free the person from sin? Remember, in the last situation you are sitting at the reins of a thousand horses of judgment, and in a position to pounce on the person who has done the wrong.
As you gain authority you will face this kind of situation more and more. Now is the time for you to make a decision that is really very simple: Is God going to handle judgment and correction, or are you going to handle it? The choice to make God head of your leadership is a big one, because you will probaly face ridicule and temporary moments of resentment. But most likely the hardest thing for you will be waiting for God to judge the situation. That’s because He is so wonderfully merciful.
I’ve had to wait for God a lot in my leadership position. But undoubtedly the most difficult thing for me has been to teach this concept to my subordinates, because it means the control of the organization I’m running is being twice removed. In other words, not only am I waiting on God to judge, I’m also waiting on my employees to do the same thing. This whole thing really bothered me ~ until I came to the obvious conclusion that God works more efficiently through the entire organization when those at every level also let God run it.
Some of you might ask the question, “Are you telling me to do nothing?” No, I’m not. I’m actually telling you to do something that is greater than protecting those people who are under your authority. I’m asking you to let God protect them. There are, however, some requirements for this principle to work. If you just forget about your responsibilities and go out on a golf course every day, you will abandon your obligations to your organization and it will fall into the hands of the enemy. But if you, as a leader, develop an intimate relationship with God that is active all day long, you will suddenly begin to hear His voice directing, and protecting, you daily. He’ll give you both dreams of warning and visions of blessing. He’ll speak to you, guide you, and His word will become alive to you ~ directing you through every difficult situation. It’s His leadership replacing yours.
As I mentioned earlier, now is the time to birth a new vision, and not to enter into conflicts with our fellow man. It’s just like a woman who is pregnant with a child. She must focus only on her baby, not on the difficulties that may be going on around her. In the same way, each one of us must let the Lord both fight our battles and also judge those who do us evil. This means that God is in complete control of everything. After all, isn’t this why we choose to make Jesus “Lord of all”?
The beautiful thing about the subject of judgment is that it will probably only comprise about 10% of your activities with God. The other 90% is going to be spent working on the incredible visions that God is going to give you concerning your organization’s future. Now that is downright exciting! The subject of next week’s blog is: “How To Hold On To The Ten-Thousand Horses Of Success That Will Be Driving You Into Your Future.”
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