Inspired Christian values
Michael House Pregnancy and Parenting Support Services
Providing shelter and support to pregnant and parenting women and their children in need
I wanted to start with some values you might not have expected me to start with and end with those you probably did expect to see here.
Maybe I should list them here to give you a bit of an agenda. Those values would include integrity, humility, courage, respect, creating a safe and caring community, a place where individuality is celebrated and a space where aspirations are achieved. The three key values are faith, hope and love.
I wanted to remind you these are operating values to living out our mission. These are happening here at Michael House while we are working. The average employee is awake 17 hours a day: one hour to prepare for work, 30 minutes each way driving to and from work, and then 8 hours of work. That is 10 out of 17 hours. Most of our life is invested in preparation for work and in doing it. That is why Christian values in the workplace matters. The workplace becomes the place that we offer our values to and provide great opportunities to build up on the foundation of those values that started Michael House in the first place.
One will notice that we do not outwardly express our Christian beliefs very well, even so, we consider ourselves to be ambassadors to the values of the Christian life. We reflect the character of God in both our lives and our work. Do not be surprised with the various quotes I will be using throughout this article.
?In all the work you are doing, work the best you can. Work as if you were doing it for the Lord, not for people. – Colossians 3:23
Depend on the?Lord?in whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. – Proverbs 16:3
We recently had a seminar in which the staff defined what were traits of healthy and unhealthy relationships. Cheekingly, I tried to score some points listing the various values found here:
?But the Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,?gentleness, self-control. There is no law that says these things are wrong.?– Galatians 5:22-23
The fruit of the Spirit is the result of the Holy Spirit’s presence in the life of a Christian. Being a follower of Jesus should, in turn, yield noticeable changes, with these values having a presence in their lives.
Let’s start with an inspired Christian value – integrity.
The honest person will live in safety, but the dishonest will be caught. – Proverbs 10:9
I am sure there are lots of examples where we have seen a lack of integrity, that is why policy handbooks are filled with boundaries. Let’s not list any of those negative examples, let’s instead define it.
Integrity connotes a?deep commitment to do the right thing for the right reason, regardless of the circumstances – even when no one is watching.?Integrity includes a sense of honesty, dependability, and consistency of character. People with integrity adhere to company policies. They own up to their mistakes. They are honest and don’t tell untruths. They are trustworthy and dependable.
The word?integrity?evolved from a Latin adjective?integer,?meaning whole or complete.?So, integrity is an inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistent character.
I ask myself these questions when I want to self-assess my personal integrity.
It is crazy to note just how often integrity is tested – most of the time on a daily basis by a culture that has made falsehood and dishonesty a norm. Here are some noted benefits of living with integrity:
The root of King David’s integrity was his relationship with God – as it is for us as we live out our mission.
Lord, defend me because I have lived an innocent life.
????I have trusted the?Lord?and never doubted.
Lord, try me and test me;
????look closely into my heart and mind.
I see your love,
????and I live by your truth. – Psalm 26:1-3
How can I be sure that my integrity guides my actions - keep my word, tell the truth, don’t gossip, work hard and act consistently.
Another inspired Christian value is humility.
?In the same way, younger people should be willing to be under older people. And all of you should be very humble with each other. – 1 Peter 5:5?
Humility is important because without it we are proud, and God is against those who are proud. In fact, God gives grace to the humble. God finds ways to lift the humble up.
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We are inspired by the Christian value of courage.
Imagine the courage required to face new challenges. Having courage and strength to carry on is linked to faith in God’s promises – promises of His presence, protection, and power. When I encourage others, I am helping them find courage. I believe the phrase ‘don’t be afraid’ is found 365 times in the Bible – once for every day of the year.
A key inspired Christian value is respect.
This is where I am conscious that God has created all people in His image. My response to this is that I will show respect to all.
Show respect for all people: Love the brothers and sisters of God’s family, respect God, honor the king. – 1 Peter 2:17
Providing a safe and caring community comes from an inspired Christian value.
That means that a safe, caring community actively welcomes, supports and encourages – inspiring hope and transformation for everyone.
In all that activity, an inspired Christian value would mean that we celebrate individuality.
I make my own decisions about my destiny, I alone stand before God, no one can make those decisions for me. I have a sense of personal identity and responsibility. As a Christian value, it means I see wise and thoughtful behaviour as I mature and grow in life.
I think it is wise to point out that we did not say individualism. Individualism is a proud unwillingness to accept a place in a team of peers and to be bound by group consensus. This is very disruptive in the life of our family.
Another example of an inspired Christian value lies in the desire to see aspirations achieved.?
Our goal is not to show that Christianity is true, but to articulate that when it is properly understood, people should wish it were true. Tragedy, beauty, and freedom make the most sense in a Christian worldview and that only Christianity fulfills our deepest desires.?
We all aim to navigate life in the best way we can. We navigate life with some notions of what it is good to be and to do. These notions are widely shared among people, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack of them.
Each of these areas makes sense in the Christian story. God, the most fundamental reality, is personal. He is good and made a good world for His own good reasons. We are not surprised to find the world to be beautiful because He is a master artist. God created us to embody certain virtues, and we find our own freedom as we experience these.
Most people do not care whether Christianity is true. They are already convinced that it is a story that hinders human flourishing, rather than a story that secures and promotes flourishing. What is startling is the fact that the things most human beings care about fit better within the Christian story than they do in the various atheistic stories. Once we see this connection, we see that we want the Christian story to be true. Of course, the fact that we want it to be true does not show that it is true. But once a person wants it to be true, the objections to the truth of the Gospel seem much smaller.
Even we fail to see the Christian worldview’s intrinsic relevance to the deep aspirations of every person. Our own appreciation of the Christian story will be enriched as we reflect on how it provides the resources to capture the most common human aspirations.
When we encounter suffering, we long for meaning. We want our suffering to be meaningful or to contribute to a meaningful life. Horrendous suffering has the potential to crush a person’s soul. Unless our meaning is securely grounded in the God who brings good out of evil, who experienced evil, and who gives us His presence amid suffering, we may find it impossible to experience a meaningful life amid suffering.?
Now we enter the world of the three key elements of inspired Christian values – faith, hope and love.
Faith in God gives us a contentedness that produces joy, even in the midst of chaos and difficulties. Jesus alone is enough and is the one core value that sustains Christians in their time of need.
Hope is something to look forward to – there must be a good outcome. When I set out to do something, I need to have hope to keep going. Without hope, I give up. There is no life without hope.
Hope is a complex emotion, made up of a desire for something, and an expectation of obtaining it. It is not a wish or a desire.
?There was no hope that Abraham would have children. But Abraham believed God and continued hoping, and so he became the father of many nations. As God told him, “Your descendants also will be too many to count.” – Romans 4:18
Experience gives us hope because we learn that hope is not a fairy tale kind of wish. I noticed that of all the other gods I know, none offer hope. What one might find fascinating is that troubles, limitations, hardships and even failures are not the enemies of hope. ?
God proved that there is hope for anybody because He reached down to the hopeless. He completely forgives and without complete forgiveness there can be no hope.??
Hope is a desire for something with a promised expectation of obtaining it. Without hope, we get cross, grumpy, anxious, frustrated, and defeated.?
Who through our faith?has brought us into that blessing of God’s grace that we now enjoy. And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God’s glory.??We also have joy with our troubles because we know that these troubles produce patience.??And patience produces character, and character produces hope.??And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts. He gave us his love through the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to us. – Romans 5:2-5?
God is hope and He is the One we trust amid troubles. No matter how bad I feel or how failed I am – hope will not shame me.?
Love is a critical inspired Christian value for Michael House. Love underpins everything we do. It is very much ‘the why’ of who we are. Love is evident in our relationships with each other and in our actions to support our community. We see it in our interactions in our home, feel it when we are together, and experience it through how others act towards us. We can grow and learn together because we know that God loves us. ?
What makes love such a distinct Christian value? Christians recognise that God is love, and love comes from God. While love is important in almost every culture and religion, we approach it understanding that God loved us first. We can love in the true sense of the word because God loves us. As we receive and experience God’s love, which is unconditional and for everyone, we can then love others. Christians believe that it is by understanding God’s love for us that we truly love others. It is with this in mind that Michael House choses love as an inspired value.?