Work With Righteous People
You can't serve multiple masters—so why do you keep trying to build God's kingdom with people who serve themselves?
The world doesn't operate on truth; it operates on leverage and power. This brutal reality means that working with unrighteous people will inevitably corrupt your mission, no matter how pure your intentions start out.
I've learned this the hard way—projecting my morality onto others, assuming they shared my heart for the mission rather than just seeing an opportunity for money and power. You can't build something righteous with people who are fundamentally oriented toward serving themselves rather than serving God.
The solution isn't to become cynical about everyone. It's to become wise about building your own platform of independence so you never have to choose between your principles and your paycheck.
The Corruption Pattern
Every compromised organization follows the same pattern: it starts with good intentions, attracts talented people who believe in the mission, then gradually exposes itself as serving power and money rather than truth and righteousness.
I recently met a Wall Street veteran who came to Christ after seeing corruption at the highest levels of finance. He spent years at firms managing billions, watching how the pursuit of scale and efficiency inevitably led to moral shortcuts. He told me that when you're successful, it becomes less about building something great and more about deploying capital and making compromises.
He saw illegal activities at the highest levels, witnessed how money and power corrupt even well-intentioned people, and realized that working within these systems meant becoming complicit in their corruption—no matter how much good you thought you were doing.
His solution was radical independence—something he's implemented in his life and believes all believers should strive for. The idea is to structure your life so you can be truthful: build a box so that when you stand on the box, it is your box.
The Projection Problem
My biggest mistake has been projecting my good intentions and truth-seeking nature onto others. I've repeatedly assumed that people shared my heart for the mission when they were actually motivated by money, status, or power.
With a recent client, I spent weeks developing improvement proposals because I got buy-in from the public face of the company and encouragement from other employees. But none of that mattered when the actual decision-maker was in a bad mood and dismissed everything. Most organizations are dictatorships, not democracies—and if the dictator doesn't share your values, your mission is doomed.
Don't repeat a pattern I've fallen into again and again: I identify real problems, find people who seem aligned with solutions, pour energy into advancing their cause—while neglecting to properly assess whether they're actually committed to righteousness or just using righteous language to advance their own agenda.
Build Your Own Platform
When you depend on other people's money, approval, or platforms, you become subject to their values—not your own. You can't speak truth to power when power signs your paycheck. You can't maintain kingdom standards when your livelihood depends on compromising them.
This doesn't mean isolation or refusing all collaboration. It means building your own foundation of independence—financial, operational, and spiritual—so you never have to choose between doing what's right and keeping your position.
My finance friend described his approach of using only his own capital, avoiding external investors who might push back on righteous decisions. For him, maintaining top-to-bottom righteousness is critical.
The goal is creating a platform that increasingly extends goodness rather than trying to change corrupt systems from within. You build something pure from the ground up, demonstrate its effectiveness at small scale, then expand from that foundation of proven righteousness.
The temptation is always to work with existing powerful people or well-funded organizations because it seems faster. But speed without righteousness leads to corruption. Better to build slowly with people who share your commitment to truth than to scale quickly with people who will compromise at the first sign of pressure.
It's easy to idolize a comfortable job that pays well but requires you to compromise your values. See: Reserve the Pedestal for God for understanding how career success can become a false idol that enslaves rather than liberates.
Building Righteous Organizations
Start with righteousness at the unit level. Every person, every system, every process should be oriented toward truth and service rather than power and profit. This is harder but creates a sustainable foundation.
Maintain independence. Structure your finances and operations so you never have to compromise your principles to keep the lights on. This might mean starting smaller, but it ensures you can say "no" without fear.
Test people by fruit, not words. Anyone can speak Christian language or claim righteous motives. Look at how they treat people when no one is watching, how they handle money, and whether they keep commitments when it's inconvenient.
Build slowly, then accelerate. Focus on quality first before speed. Better to build something small and pure than something large and corrupt.
Choose truth over leverage. The world operates on leverage and power, but kingdom work operates on truth and righteousness. This puts you at a disadvantage in worldly terms but gives you supernatural backing.
Reflection and Practice
Ask yourself as you evaluate potential partnerships:
- Do my collaborators serve God's kingdom or their own advancement?
- Am I building on a foundation of righteousness or just hoping to influence corrupt systems?
- Would I rather be independent and truthful or dependent and compromised?
- Do I have the financial and operational independence to walk away if principles are threatened?
You can't serve multiple masters. The choice isn't between working with perfect people or working alone—it's between working with people oriented toward righteousness versus those oriented toward power.
Build your own platform. Start with righteousness at every level. Work with people who demonstrate kingdom values through their actions, not just their words. The world needs more islands of righteousness, not more people trying to fix corrupt systems from within.
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." — Matthew 6:24