The Sunday Mail
Dave Broom
Lack of transparency is an issue that has plagued the church for many centuries, and it is pushing many people to reject Christianity. An aversion to transparency has been fueled by the current philosophy captured by the Bon Jovi hit entitled “It’s My Life”. This philosophy teaches that a person’s life is his own and nobody has the right to question his words or actions.
Sadly, satan has influenced the world’s thinking such that many of God’s children, church leaders included, have adopted Bon Jovi’s idea.
In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve are naked in the garden of Eden. Their nakedness symbolized the fact that nothing in their lives was hidden from God.
Because of this transparency, Adam and Eve were able to enjoy the presence and blessings of God in the garden. These blessings included food and water and everything else they needed, until something happened. They had to cover their bodies and hide.
Their sin of eating the forbidden fruit put an end to their nakedness, purity, clarity and transparency. They now had something to hide and cover. God had to bring His judgement down upon them and banish them from the garden because of this.
The moment we have something that needs to be covered or hidden, our transparency is gone, and we stand guilty before our Lord.
As we study the scriptures, we discover that even God is transparent. For example, we Genesis 18:17& 18 says the Lord asks, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed?”(NASB).
Also, in Ps. 25:14, “The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will show them his covenant” (KJV).
God allowed such examples of His transparency to be put into writing so that every person born into the world can read and know about it. This is transparency in its highest form.
Jesus Himself exhibited the same level of transparency in His life by never doing anything without His Father’s knowledge.
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus did not hide His anguish and pain, even to the point of showing the universe that He did not want to go through what lay ahead but would nevertheless submit to His Father’s will (Lk. 22 : 41 – 44). Oh, what transparency!
In all of this, we see that transparency is an absolute essential if we are to win the respect of people and walk in the blessings of God.
Another side benefit of living a life of true transparency is that one never has to employ defensive mechanisms, patterns of behavior, or schemes of craftiness and deception to hide what is inside. This is immensely freeing in one’s life.
Fellow follower of Christ – whether a Pastor, Bishop or not – what is it that we have in our lives that is preventing us from being truly transparent to everyone around us, from family to ministry and business associates? Let us deal with it today.
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