“And now dear children, continue to live in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns, you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame.”

As we grow our businesses we decide what we do, how we do it, and who will be doing it, all with the litmus test of how proud we will be with the outcome. Each business has their own line that they decide to cross or not cross. There are certainly a large number of businesses that most would consider “seedy”, but for those organizations they have decided that they are doing something that they are proud. For others, if they were working in those businesses, they wouldn’t be proud, they instead would be ashamed to tell someone else that this is what they were doing for a living. Each business, the people who run that business and the people within the business, all have to know the line between being proud and being ashamed. This line can also be over areas like quality of the product, level of service, or even pricing or terms of service. What is important is that we know the line between proud and shame and then we also know what the definition of “doing the right thing” is to influence that line.

As we go to work today, we will be challenged in some way to decide what is our line between being proud of our work or would we be ashamed if our work was exposed or evaluated? This line goes from the big to the small. If we need to be someplace today, at a certain time, with a certain level of preparation, are we doing all the right things to live up to the expectations of our boss and others? I know it can feel like we are being challenged to live up to a higher set of standards. Let’s face it, that is true and we have to live up to the standard that God has put before us. For us to bring glory to God in our work, then we need to be sure that we are doing all that we can to do the right thing snd to never bring shame to Him! Let’s think hard on this today!

Reference: 1 John 2:28 (New Living Testament)