For the love of Jesus, not profits

I'm currently reading a book called "Transforming Leadership: Jesus' Way of Creating Vision, Shaping Values & Empowering Change". On p. 260-261, there's an excellent story of a man named Charles Olcott choosing the honest way:

Charles Olcott was a successful businessman and a conventional churchgoer when God seemed to speak to him one night and say, 'All this stuff you own is not yours. It is mine. I have a purpose for you to use these things for me.'

This led to a new commitment to Christ. Shortly after, he was appointed as the chief executive officer of a large franchise fast-food chain. He was able to turn the company around and improve its financial condition. 'For the first time I took my hand off the steering wheel and turned it over to God,' he says.

But then he faced his own crisis. The chairman of the corporation which owned his company asked him to doctor some figures, to build a mathematical model which would project a level of future earnings which had no relationship to reality. 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 could not do it. 'Then you are off the team,' said the chairman. It was a harsh sentence. Twenty years on the corporate ladder were gone. When he told me this story, I asked him what difference it would have made if this episode had happened before he made a commitment to Christ.

'I would still be at that company,' he said. 'I would have found a way to bend the figures, because then I was living by earthly values.' Now in a new business, he is a wounded but contented man who knows he did what was right but at significant cost.

Olcott's choice took serious courage and commitment.