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Key Bible Verse: I hate all crooked dealings; I will have nothing to do with them (Psalm 101:3). Bonus Reading: Psalm 101:1–8

One night God spoke to Charles Olcott, a successful businessman and conventional churchgoer. "For the first time," he says, "I took my hand off the wheel and turned it over to God."

Shortly after, Charles was appointed executive of a fast food chain and turned the company around financially. But then the chairman of the corporation that owned his company asked him to build a mathematical model to project an unrealistic level of future earnings. The idea was to increase the value of their shares so they could sell the business at a handsome profit but at the expense of the company, its employees, and shareholders. Charles said he couldn't do it.

"Then you're off the team," said the chairman. Twenty years on the corporate ladder were gone.

I asked Charles what difference it would have made if this episode had happened before he made a commitment to Christ. "I'd still be at that company," he said. "I'd have found a way to bend the figures, because then I was living by earthly values." Now in a new business, he's a wounded but contented man who knows he did what was right—but at significant cost.

—Leighton Ford in Transforming Leadership

My Response: Have I been wounded like Charles? Am I as content?

Thought to Apply: God is more concerned about our character than our comfort. His goal is not to pamper us physically but to perfect us spiritually. —Paul Powell

Adapted from Transforming Leadership (InterVarsity, 1991) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Righteous Father, give me the strength of character to live by Your code.

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