One of the most vital characteristics of a true Christian is loyalty. Even in the secular realm, loyalty is a highly valued trait of character, yet one that is often abused. How loyal are you to God? To your husband or wife? To your nation? To your employer or boss? Obviously, God tells us that if there is a direct conflict, “we ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
But unless this kind of spiritual conflict exists, God wants us all to learn to be loyal. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines loyalty, in part, as “faithfulness” or “faithful adherence to a person, government, cause, duty, etc.” God’s Word tells us, “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct” (Heb. 13:7). And the Apostle Paul was also inspired to write, “Follow me just as I follow Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, KJV).
Certainly if a religious leader becomes an out-and-out heretic as many of us witnessed in the Church of God several years ago, then a faithful Christian should obey GOD rather than such an apostate leader. However, once you have proved to yourself that God is using a man to faithfully preach His Word and do His Work, then you should follow that man as long as he continues to do the Work and preach the Truth. Anything less than that is DISLOYALTY.
Some may say, “What if the leader has problems?” What if he seemingly makes certain administrative mistakes or errors in judgment? “Should we continue to follow him?”
A good analogy to help us understand this question would be to consider a wife whose husband makes many mistakes. He is faithful to her, but is perhaps weak in leadership, in decision-making and in other areas. Should she leave him? Should she subtly undermine and subvert his authority within the family? Should she try to “overthrow” him as head of the house?
The answer is obvious. What does God’s inspired Word say? “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:22-24).
It should be clear that God wants all of us to learn and to practice LOYALTY in the home and family, within the Church of God and certainly toward God Himself! Proverbs 24:21-22 tells us, “My son, fear the Lord and the king; do not associate with those given to change; for their calamity will rise suddenly, and who knows the ruin those two can bring?” If we associate with those “given to change”—those people who are grumbling and murmuring against the head of the company or the human leader of the Church— God is NOT pleased! He says that “calamity” will come suddenly.
Of course, there are always going to be excuses or “reasons” to try to undermine or overthrow any leader in the minds of some. Except for Jesus Christ, no man on earth has ever been or is now perfect. Even King David, the “man after God’s own heart” was far from perfect as we all know. If you had lived back then and seen David’s humanity— his over-eagerness to go to war, his lust for another man’s wife and his subsequent murder of her husband and the attempted “cover-up” until directly confronted by Nathan the prophet—would you have remained LOYAL to King David or not?
“But David lived back in Old Testament times,” you may say, “and he made the kind of blatant mistakes no New Testament Christian should ever make!” That is only partially true, as many genuine Christians can testify from their own experiences.
Consider the example of the Apostle Paul, the man God used to raise up many churches and write more books in the New Testament than any other person. Surely he didn’t leave himself open to this kind of criticism! Really? Paul himself tells us, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells, for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Rom. 7:18-19). We also find that Paul had a number of critics who thought he didn’t look very impressive and felt he was a poor preacher: “‘For his letters’, they say, ‘are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible’” (2 Cor. 10:10).
So if you can only be loyal to a virtually “perfect” person you will end up NEVER being fully loyal to anyone! Yet it is obvious that God wants to build within all of us the vital trait of LOYALTY.
Herbert W. Armstrong often cited a reflection on loyalty written many years ago by the American philosopher and author Elbert Hubbard—a reflection we can meditate on and use in our daily lives: “If you work for a man, in heaven’s name WORK for him. If he pays you wages which supply you bread and butter, work for him, speak well of him, stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents. If put to a pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage—resign your position, and when you’re outside, damn to your heart’s content.” As we learn to practice the trait of loyalty—toward our nation, our bo ss, our spouse and the human leader of God’s Church whom we have seen by the “fruits” that God is using—we will be letting God build within us an absolutely VITAL character trait that will serve us for all eternity! For God does NOT want any potential Satans to “sneak” into His Kingdom. Through our practice of loyalty now, we will be demonstrating to God that we can be “counted on” to stand with God for all time—even when the whisperings and accusations of Satan become intense.
By showing God in this life that we are LOYAL, even in the midst of political intrigues and plotting, we will be demonstrating to Him that we really do have a genuine awe and Godly fear of our Creator and that we will trust HIM to correctly lead His Church and His Kingdom— now and forever.