Giving Answer to God
Looking forward to that performance review?
If there is anything in the business world that generates more unneeded tension than the boss suddenly promoting his new, under qualified girlfriend to be your supervisor, it is the dreaded annual employee review.
An employee review is when your boss, holding your fate in his sweaty hand, sits down with you and measures your performance and production against expectation and goals. The anxious dread of such an interview has driven people to suddenly resign, to drink, and in a few tragic instances, to suicide. The thought of giving an honest account for ourselves can be terrifying.
In our Everyone-is-a-Winner and blessed Tolerance-is-the-Supreme-Virtue oriented society, we don’t generally know how to receive constructive criticism. Not understanding how to successfully win and lose in life makes for relationally retarded, ill-adjusted, neurotic adults.
Sadly, not all criticism is constructive. Here are a few quotes from frustrated managers taken from the pages of employee reviews done at a major US Corporation:
- Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom…..and has started to dig.
- His men would follow him anywhere, ……. but only out of morbid curiosity.
- I would not allow this employee to breed.
- Works well under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
- This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
- He doesn’t have ulcers, but he’s a carrier
- It’s hard to believe that he beat 1,000,000 other sperm to the egg.
- The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Reviews are the staple of life. If it’s a driving test, cooking a meal, or succeeding in marriage, sooner or later we are called to give an account for our performance that lays our lives open for scrutiny and review. WhyGodWhy? seems the preferred mantra of Job, my personal patron saint, yet he also posed other more chilling questions in (NIV) Job 31:14. “What will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account?”
As a manager, I used to dread employee reviews more than my employees until I learned that if anything I brought up during the review process was a surprise to my employees, somewhere along the way I did not do my job. There should be no surprises if I have fully set forth my expectations, reasonable goals and objectives. As God is the CEO of Creation, would he be any less fair-minded?
God placed an innate knowledge, a witness of Himself, in the very fabric of Creation. While our minds may babble countless conflicting philosophies, our hearts intuit eternity. Even the godless know there is Something Out There. And Yes, there is an accounting coming when we will each face the fulfillment of Jobs’ dreaded question.
God confronted humanity at the Cross. If we believe, we are then sealed and forgiven by the shed blood of Christ. According to Colossians 2:14, “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements (writ of offenses) that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” If we reject this freely given offer of payment for our offenses, we then stand in devilish rank with the unforgiven, utterly and eternally condemned.
How shall we answer his call to account for our lives? By pointing to Jesus, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, as our perfect sacrifice. Point to his cross, to his blood, and profess your faith in his death and resurrection as perfect payment for the writ of offenses that spoke against us. By the shed blood of Jesus, God is wonderfully for us, so who can speak against us?
Christians, those who already forgiven and secure in the faith, will also an additional review at the Judgment Seat of Christ where we will give an account for how we lived out the Gospel we received with joy. There should be no surprises on this day for all that God requires he has set forth in his Word, yet it will be a day of grieving and weeping over what could have been for those who did not fully follow hard after the Lamb wherever he goes.
Will you be one of those who causes grief to the Master Reviewer, or will your Final Review be a source of joy to God where he can say, as in Matthew 25:23, “Well done, good and faithful servant (what a great performance review!)… Enter into the joy of your Lord!?”
Bryan Hupperts © 2003 -2009
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