Who sets your STANDARDS????

So, the Lord laid it on my heart to ring a certain friend and ask her a couple of questions.

These days, I’m tryna be a faithful member of the MIND YOUR BIZ ministry, of which Sarah Jakes Roberts is our CEO and Founder, so I really pressed in to be sure the Lord wanted me all up in her biz like so.

He did!!!

You see, as Christians, we need to know where to draw the line between minding our biz and being in obedience to God, especially where precious souls are involved.

I knew this was God so I rang her.

Thankfully talk went well and well, but she said something that made me think of the source of my standards, good and wrong.

You see, WE ALL NEED A GOD.

Someone outside of us and definitely BIGGER and WISER than us as the source of our standards of living.

Let me drive it home.

But first, let me define standards, in the way that I mean it…

Morals, ethics, habits, actions etx established by almost every authority available as ACCEPTABLE or right.

So, who is the SOURCE of your STANDARDS?
Why do you do the things you do?
Why do you give your best, or whatever you give at work?
Why don’t you steal, or have sex outside of marriage?
Why don’t you beat your wife? Or husband?
Why do you respond to an evil word with silence?

Now, track with me, I am talking about the GOOD and MORAL things you do ooo, not the bad.

If, per example, you don’t tell lies because you are just a good person and really hate lies, YOU ARE IN SERIOUS DANGER!!!

If the reason you don’t have sex outside marriage is because you are a GOOD GIRL or really LOVE your husband, YOU ARE PLAYING WITH FIRE.

If the reason you give your best at work is cos you fear your boss, or love your job, or NEED the money it brings every month or week, THAT IS NOT SAFE honey.

Why?

Cos one day, you are bound to meet something WAYYYYY BIGGER than YOU!!! Then you will see just how weak we all are!!!

You see, as a Christian, a CHRIST FOLLOWER, the source of our standards has to be GOD!!!

Simples!!!

Nothing else will do…

Even worse when the source of your standards is YOU!!!

ME?

Like really, who am I? Who the heck am I to define what good and bad should be in my life?

Me?

Dust? Here today gone tomorrow? I laugh!!!
With an emotion and will so weak and actions so ungodly some days that I wonder why I bothered to get out of bed?

How can EZIAHA be the reason why EZIAHA gives her BEST to her job?
Why EZIAHA will not commit adultery?
Why EZIAHA will not respond to people the way that they deserve?

Ah!!!! I no reach.

I am TOO SMALL and TOO FLESH to be my own standard source.

What happens the days when I don’t feel like keeping to the standards I set?

What happens the day that I get spoken to in a certain way and I am already out of sorts and my flesh that day has ABSOLUTELY ZERO standards?
What happens the day I meet some dude who LIKE LEGIT sweeps me off my feet, the atmosphere is right, and nobody will ever know if I commit adultery?

That is when I will realize that SELF, and in fact anything outside of God can NOT and SHOULD not set the standards for my good deeds.

Let’s quickly take it to the story of Joseph.

I LOOOOOVE what He said in Genesis 39v9 when his Oga’s wife wanted to sleep with him…

No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a WICKED thing and SIN AGAINST GOD?

Dang!!!

Talk about someone who knows where the source of His standards unmistakably lies.

He wasn’t going to commit this sexual sin because he was a good man.

Neither cos he liked his boss, cos I am sure Potiphar would have upset him a coupla times, and wham, he vexes and sleeps with his wife.
He clearly tells us WHY he was NOT going to do that and it was BECAUSE OF GOD!!!

Yawl, WE NEED A GOD!!!
WE DEPSERATELY NEED A GOD!!!
Anything else, especially if WE are our own SOURCE for our STANDARDS is PRIDE!!!!!!!!! Ho ha!!!!
I challenge you this week Hun to give the reins back to Christ and allow Him be LORD OF EVERYTHING including your STANDARDS. He is a ROCK and so is immovable. Unlike you and I

*insert REAL TEARS*

It may be harder to live this way BUT IT IS SAFER and guarantees a REWARD from God. And I will rather act out of obedience to my SOURCE than defer to myself as the STANDARD when I know I can’t reward myself SHINGBAI!!!

NADA NADA NADA!!!!

I thought about it in the Gym today. The Gym owner has suddenly started to see me as a threat and said that I couldn’t take pictures in the gym if it featured anyone else. I mean the story is long and frankly unimportant, but the idea is that maybe I am undercover for another gym, or maybe I wanna start my own Gym (AMEN ooo) so literally everything I do is monitored. He didn’t say I should not take pictures, he said I should make sure no one shows or something ridiculous. My flesh was like

D’UH… I will snap however I wanna snap. People can clear from my path,

Then God told me NOPE, not only should I NOT take pictures that feature others, I should also NOT TAKE ONE MORE PICTURE in the Gym OR AROUND IT…

I am like HUH God??? You of all people KNOW that my heart is absolutely pure and I have referred A NUMBER of people to this Gym. Why do I have to get home when my sweat is dry to snap?

But then, HE IS THE SOURCE OF MY STANDARDS, not even the Gym dude, or worse still, myself!!!

So, I obeyed.

(Snapped this at home lol)

Recently too, a Preggo Squaddie had been acting up and all my attempts to reach out were rebuffed. Now, she had paid and I had been doing my part. She was the one not doing her part, and here I was trying to desperately reach her cos I really LOVE my Preggos squad and she would read my personal chats and ignore.

I HATE BEING IGNORED. I DETEST IT!!!

At that point, I shouldn’t have even bothered but somehow God told me to KILL THAT FLESH and continue to. I did. At some point she said she wanted to drop out. God told me to ask her to stay even if she would be silent, I didn’t mind, but she could still ask me questions.

Now note that at CoachE’Squad Ltd, there are NO SILENT SQUADDIES. I take you out. It is the rule and everyone knows. But here God wanted me to flip it.

I did and she agreed.

Now a couple days later, she comes and thanks me for my patience and explains what she had been going through. Somehow my love and patience were what broke and helped her.

If I was the SOURCE of my Coaching STANDARD, she would not be in the Squad anymore, but God is, and all I had to do was OBEY!!! Then see what happened?
How amazing?

Many many more examples I have but let me go and do my work this beautiful Monday after I buy a new Spectranet and fix my work phone.