BYM ONLINE DESK May 2018 English Emagazine | Page 4

May 2018
Honesty and transparency are related to one
another. Transparency leads to honesty. There
cannot be any intimate relationship without honesty
and transparency. It is our transparent lifestyle that
will deepen our fellowship. Note what Paul says in
the following verses:
Romans 12:9 - “Let love be genuine.”
Eph 4:32 - “Be kind to one another, tender
hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ
forgave you.”
God expects a deep fellowship among the
believers. Genuine love can only be experienced
through transparent living. We need to speak the truth
with one another as we are the members of the body
of Christ. Let us be open. Transparency is a powerful
unifier that binds us. Pretending is very dangerous.
Sometimes, we pretend to be supportive to our
colleagues but privately we slander them to our
immediate bosses or leaders. When we pretend and
act, people lose the trust. But when we are
transparent, people believe in us. Sometimes we talk
favourably when a person is in front of us but at the
back we speak ill of them. We should never forget
that we are the children of the living God. It is better
to talk in front of the person than to back-bite.“Better
is open rebuke than hidden love” (Pro 27:5).
We find another incident in the New Testament
involving Paul, Peter and Barnabas. When a group of
Jews came to Antioch, Peter withdrew from the
Gentiles. Because of this, Paul opposed him face to
face (Gal 2:11-14). Imagine what would have
happened had Paul behaved courteously in front of
Peter and started to slander Peter and Barnabas in
their absence. We find later Peter endorsing Paul in
his epistle (2 Pet 3:15). That is spirituality. Let us not
be angry when somebody openly rebukes us.
When we talk of transparency, we might have
questions regarding the subject of 'confidentiality.'
We should understand that maintaining
confidentiality is different from being transparent.
When God burdened Nehemiah to build the
wall, he first made an inspection of it without telling
anyone.
Neh 2:17 -Then I said to them, “You see the
trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its
gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of
Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.”
Now Nehemiah shared the God-given burden
with the elders of Israel. Transparency means
sharing. It is neither keeping within ourselves nor
planning individually. Transparency means taking
the team alongside with us. Only transparent people
can build teams based on trust. When we share God's
burden, people whose hearts are stirred will join us.
Today we find that leaders do not share God's burden
and there is a lot of communication gap. It is because
of this lack of transparency among leaders, that the
Kingdom of God is suffering. Let us learn to be
people-oriented. Let us be frank. Let us not only be
men of law (holding on to rules and regulations), but
let us also be men of grace. Law and grace kiss
together.
In Proverbs 20:6 we read, “Many a man
proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man
who can find?”
Many today blow their own trumpets. In the
early days of our ministry in Sitheri, we used to walk
from Harur to Sitheri, a forest trek of about 25 kms.
R
O F I N T E G
2.Transparent With Our Colleagues
*2018*
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