Responsibility can be many things: personal, community, child to parent, and parent to child.
What about the responsibility of a Christian? What are we responsible for as Christians? Are we doing everything right, and what should we pay attention to? Read the opinions.
Valentyn Orya, coaching consultant, (Lviv, Ukraine):
Unfortunately, believers are more encouraged to wait on the Lord, rather than the other way around, to do and still believe the Lord.
What is the danger of this kind of behavior and attitude? When a Christian waits for God, reads the Bible, attends meetings, but does nothing to improve his life in his family or job, then he can later find himself in a hopeless situation and drag his family into it. Does it please God that such a Christian, who wants to do nothing, brings his family into poverty, should glorify Him? I don’t think it pleases God to glorify a slacker, a lazy man.
And yet, why do we shift responsibility to God? Because if we expect God to help and solve a problem, then we will blame God and not ourselves for the failure to fulfill our desires. The easiest thing is to rely on chance, luck, what someone will do…
It is easier to wait for help from above than to take responsibility for ourselves and our family, that is when in difficulty and resistance, our faith makes sense.
The devil has so distorted the thinking of Christians that people don’t think for a moment that they are already serving the wrong “God.” God does not encourage laziness, unbelief, fear, and carelessness, because that leads a person down the wrong path.
Unfortunately, in many Christian sermons, there is little call to simply wait on God, little call to the responsibility God placed on man back in the Garden of Eden. Read the first chapters of Genesis and you will see that man must have a purpose in life, make plans, and yet, trust God!
Friends, trust in God is tested by doing, not by sitting!
Alexander Velichko, pastor, bishop, director of Slavic External Mission, (Boguslav, Belarus):
Passive waiting is much closer to us than active action. It is easier for us to murmur and accuse than to correct and create. That is why the choice is quite obvious and predictable.
A mature person takes responsibility for resolving a problem, even if he or she is not at fault.
I want to give you one important axiom, which once changed my worldview. I’m sure it will help you too if you want to listen. Remember, you are always responsible in all situations, even if it’s not your fault.
I’m not even talking about the fact that some of the blame is on you anyway, either as the source of the problem or as the person who doesn’t know how to respond correctly to pressure.
I’m not talking about admitting guilt, but taking responsibility for fixing or resolving the situation. This is important. Many people are convinced that it is up to the person who is wrong to resolve the situation. We constantly hold the guilty party responsible for fixing the situation without even thinking that they are the weakest link in the chain and likely just incapable of fixing it.
God has clearly shown us that the responsibility for dealing with the situation is on the strong, right side. We have sinned, we are guilty, and the situation was handled, corrected by Him. I hope you understand what I am saying to you. Arm yourself with Christ’s example and act in the world as He did. Take responsibility for yourself.
Frans Thiessen, pastor, chairman of the Baptist Union of Kazakhstan, (Saran, Kazakhstan):
It turns out, as to the cross – so Christ, and as to command others, we do not mind. I understand that when they say, “You’ll be responsible”, it means that you will be demanded. A responsible person is one who will have to give an account of his actions. And when people see that such a person takes his business seriously, they say that he has a very highly developed sense of duty. Such a person actually understands that he is responsible.
When I see what’s going on in the world right now: twenty people commit suicide every day, one person dies every five seconds and so on, I think about it. And a shiver runs through my body: are we really going to be responsible for this? Is God really going to ask me for this, too?
What does God mean when He talks about responsibility?
The Bible tells us, “If you are weak in the day of trouble, your strength is poor. What is a calamity? It is a day when something must be done urgently when one is expected to take decisive steps when one must not take long to reason, but boldly, perhaps risking one’s well-being, one’s life, to act actively. It takes a risk and it takes courage. To do nothing on the day of the disaster, to be safe yourself: this is cowardice.
Sergey Khudiev, publicist, theologian, author of books, host of the weekly radio program “Christianity: Tough Questions,” (Moscow, Russia):
Our world was created by God – it has purpose and design, hope, and destination. Man is endowed with authority-that is, his decisions have real consequences for himself and the world. We can destroy and create, save and destroy. We are endowed with freedom and responsibility.
Our freedom means that we are the authors of our decisions. Of course, we are influenced, for good or bad, by people or circumstances – but it is always us who decide. Not our genes, not the weather, not our neighbors, not the state, not the Church-we make our own decisions and choose our own path in life-even when we do not admit it and attribute our actions to other people or circumstances that “drove” us or “left us no other choice. This is not true; the choice is always ours. We can accomplish a feat or a crime; an act of nobility or meanness, loyalty or betrayal.
