Sharing My Thoughts on Priorities and Loyalty

John 12:44-50 Then Jesus said with a loud voice, He who has faith in me, has faith not in me, but in him who sent me. And he who sees me, sees him who sent me. I have come as a light into the world, so that no one who has faith in me will go on living in the dark. And if any man gives ear to my words and does not keep them, I am not his judge: I did not come to be judge of the world but to give salvation to the world. He who puts me on one side and does not take my words to heart, is not without a judge: the word which I have said will be his judge on the last day. For I have not said it on my authority, but the Father who sent me gave me orders what to say and how to say it. And I have knowledge that his order is eternal life: so that the things which I say, I say them even as the Father says them to me.

There was a time in my life when I was a young 26 year old executive Vice President of a major corporation on the fast track to success. All the so called important people in the amusement business nationwide knew who the young boy wonder in the amusement business was. The president of the corporation I worked for loved my loyalty, drive and dedication to building the amusement business. There was no doubt that I was well on the way to becoming a millionaire before I reached my 40th birthday.

During those times in my life I had to make what I thought were some tough decisions regarding my priorities, my loyalty and what I thought was best for my family. First of all you have to understand that I came from across the tracks and from a family that bought their clothes from the good will. I had to roll my paints legs up and grow into them, and then my little brother got them after I grew out of them. Coming from a childhood of having very little and a stepfather who never let me forget that I would never amount to nothing, I was determined to succeed in my life for my family's sake. I wanted to give my family everything and make sure they would never want or hurt for anything. When success did come the Lord knows I truly did love the power that money brought to me, or I should say bought for me. I thought I had everything, when in reality I had nothing. My wife and children had everything that money could buy. One morning I was getting ready to leave on a three week business trip when Tina sit down at the kitchen table and started crying. She told me that she and the children were willing to give up everything and live in a card board box just to have me home with them every day.

I thought she had really lost her mind, I thought to myself there was no way I could ever give up everything, why should I? We had everything in the world. Note I said everything in the world! At the time I just could not understand that my priorities and my loyalty were misdirected, they were geared towards making more and more money. As a rule loyalty is considered to be a very noble virtue for a person to possess. Everything I did in my life proved that I was very loyal to the corporation I worked for, even to the extreme most of the time. Loyalty to any person or organization is not intrinsically wrong, but at times it can be misdirected and dangerous to our families. In my case there was only one thing I could do. I had to walk out after twelve years of hard working dedicated service, and give up everything in our lives that I had thought was important. Why? Because I finally understood my priorities and loyalty were misdirected. First of all I was gone from home three weeks out of the month every month building a multimillion dollar corporation. My children were growing up and I was not there, we can always make money, we can not buy back time we loss with our families. I knew about God as a child because God is the only father I ever had to turn to, He was there when I got beatings, which was often. He was there when I was scared and crying my heart out as a child because I had no one to defend me. When I ask my mother why, I was told she had more than one child to worry about. He was there with me when I was a 17 year old Marine lying in my own blood and mud in Vietnam. Folks there is no way I should be here today with the wounds I had. I took an AK-47 round in my left leg, and scrap metal from a mortar in both my legs, right ankle, chest, both arms, and my right hand was almost blown off. He was there when I was a police officer stopping cars on dark roads at night with no hope of any backup. He never left me or let me down, I was the one who had let Him down in every possible way.

After I became successful I never gave Him much thought, I was too wrapped up in drinking and my success. Then I started to take a good look at those within the corporation who were considered to be people of power. I had trusted these people, I believed they would always do the right thing and take care of me and my family. These people were taking advantage of and abusing the employees who had worked so hard to build this corporation. These men and women had been loyal; they had given everything they had in hopes of building a better life for their families and themselves.

There was a lot that became clear to me that I had never taken time to stop and look at or even think about. It broke my heart every time I thought about how Tina had cried that morning telling me that all she and my children wanted was for me to be at home with them, I thought to myself, my God what was I thinking. Then there were all these really great people who worked so hard, at one time or another they had told me of their hopes and dreams for a better life for them and their families. I could not stand seeing them being cheated out of what they had earned, abused and mistreated out of greed. I was a man that thought he had everything; I thought that my priorities and loyalty were in the right place. For the first in 12 years I started to realize just how wrong I had always been. So I walked out and we lost everything, I have never looked back and have no regrets. The Lord has always provided for our needs, He has watched over my family and I ever since and blessed us in so many other ways than money. The Lord blessed me with the wisdom of knowing what is truly important in life, and where my priorities and loyalty really belonged. Abraham Lincoln is attributed with the following words of wisdom: "I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." President Lincoln believed that there is a limit to human loyalty, as chaplains we must also understand this simple fact. The apostle Paul believed the same thing centuries earlier. He wrote in Galatians 1:10 - "For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."

As disciples "Chaplains" of the Lord, we must ultimately be faithful to the Lord, His word and His ministry, not men, and this is what the apostle Paul means here. He had no intentions of allowing his priorities and loyalties to any individual or group supersede his devotion to the Lord. In the ultimate sense, his intent was to please God, not men. However, that is not to say that Paul did not try to please men as much as possible. He most certainly did labor and sacrifice much in an effort to appeal to men (I Cor. 9:19; 10:33), but these efforts were always guided by his overriding loyalty to the Lord. Paul was loyal to certain men; he stood with those who were right. But, this did not stop him from rebuking these same people when they were wrong. In Galatians 2, for example, the apostle Peter was involved in the sin of being partial to the Hebrew Christians. His hypocritical behavior toward the Gentile Christians was simply wrong. Paul certainly had loyalty to Peter, as a friend, a brother and as a fellow apostle, but he did not let Peter's actions and behavior lead him into committing the same transgression. He confronted Peter face to face because he was to be blamed" (Gal. 2:11).

It would have been easier for Paul to keep quiet and simply honor his loyalty to his brother and apostle, but by doing so he would have been wrong. Paul understood as we must also that there are limits to our loyalty to man. Had Peter and the others not repented of their sinful behavior, there is no doubt that Paul would have certainly parted company with them. Another example of such can be seen in the case of Demas. Initially, Demas was a faithful servant of God and a co-laborer with Paul (Philemon 24; Col. 4:14). However, he later forsook the truth "having loved this present world" (II Tim. 4:10). Did personal loyalty to Demas lead Paul to likewise turn his back on God? Absolutely not folks, for his primary loyalty, as is ours as chaplains, must be with the Lord. When people are kind to us and treat us nice, most of us want to believe in them and we have a desire to be loyal to them, and there is nothing wrong with that (as in my case as a young executive vice president), as long as we remember where our primary priorities and loyalty must always lie, and that is with Almighty God and the ways of righteousness. Matthew 6:33 - "...seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness..." Our loyalty to those in need, our friends, our families and even our employers must always be subordinate to our devotion and love for the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 10:37 - "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." He who loves anyone or anything more than the Lord is not worthy of Him.

We must ask ourselves who are we loyal to, where should our priorities and loyalties be, we all know the answer, and Paul made it very clear, it must be in the word of God and the service of our Lord. There are no short cuts, excuses or gray areas. There have been so many times in the ministry that I find myself pulled between wanting to believe in what some people tell me, and knowing the way they always have been and who they really are. These same people will promise you everything in the world to get what they want, or need out of you. Bless their hearts they have no idea what a high price they will have to pay one day for their actions.

Paul made it very clear, just talking the talk is not good enough. True faith in God and the love of Christ in our hearts means we must talk the talk and walk the walk for His name sake. My message to everyone is simply. There are times in our lives in the Lords' ministry that we must make sure that our priorities and loyalties are in the right place. We cannot always make some people happy; if we are to be loyal to the word of God and the service He has called us into as chaplains.

There will be many times when we have to put aside our human feeling and do what we know is right, just as the apostle Paul had to do. Folks we have choices in life, we must keep in mind that those choices determine our destiny. The decision is up to each one of us, it is called free will. There are many people in the world today that have allowed their free will to seal their destiny. The ministry is not something to play with, or something to be taken lightly. The Lords' ministry is serious and comes with responsibilities that demand hard work, loyalty, honesty, integrity, suffering and sacrifice. I hear a lot of people now days say, it is what it is, nothing could be truer.

Please do not let anyone stop you or discouraged you from following your calling and doing what you know is right. There is only one way, and that is the Lords' way. As His disciples "chaplains" we must stand strong in faith and never forget why we were called into His service. We must never forget that being chaplains is not just a title, something to brag about, or a way to get rich of His blood, suffering and sacrifices. It is a way of life and we have to be honest with ourselves, we must get our priorities and loyalty in the right place. We must accept nothing less in the Lords' ministry!

Then and only then will the Lord come into our lives and bless us with His love, understanding, compassion, mercy and grace. As always comments are welcomed, just keep in mind it has always been the policy of Chaplain Fellowship Ministries to never keep anything from our members, so we reserve the rights to share all comments with all our members. These thoughts and comments are my thoughts and comments. I am not asking anyone to believe what I believe, nor do I expect them to. Oh yea..I am 60 years old now and never did become a millionaire, but because of my relationship and love for the Lord first, and my dear wife an angel of soon to be 40 years, my dear daughter Shannon, my son In-law Todd, my grandson Little Man Drew, and some of the members of Chaplain Fellowship I am one of the richest men in the world. God bless you and thank you! Chaplain Don Gibson

In a world that couldn't care less, chaplains must care more. Chaplains are nondenominational by the very nature of their ministries which is a ministry of presence. Chaplains come from many different ethnic, educational and denominational backgrounds. Chaplains are only human and do make mistakes, please help us by keeping them in your prayers! © Chaplain Fellowship Ministries International Inc. All rights reserved.