Solomon, the wisest man in all the world, once asked himself- "What does a man gain from all his toil?" There are a lot of us who ask the same question. We find ourselves dealing with a lot of thorns and thistles as we pursue our role in the marketplace. Sure, we get a lot of satisfaction and rewards from our efforts, but with many men there lies deep within their soul the burning question- "Is there anything more?" Men come home every day tired and weary of fighting the battle to keep their principles. resist all kinds of temptations, and just meet somebody's expectations and requirements. We just need someone to assure us we are on the right course and we have done a good job.

Which brings up the question  - to whom should we look to for an account of how we are doing?  Or, to state it another way, to whom are we accountable? All of us, as businessmen, are accountable to someone. It may be our boss, a Board of Directors, or just to ourselves. But as we have considered, God has certain requirements and expectations of us in the marketplace, therefore, we are accountable to Him as well. It may be the boss or our own unmet expectations that causes us to feel stress, but it may also reside with our position on being accountable to God.

"So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God", Romans 14: 12. Hopefully, we can all agree there really needs to be more accountability in our world today, and in particular, the marketplace. But we don't like accountability. We like our own way  and we are very loose with our own accountability. I believe there is a tendency to not realize our accountability to God since we do not have to come face to face with him.  Oh, we appreciate the blessings from God and we are ready to give him the credit, but we must also ask ourselves - do we really hold ourselves accountable to God? I think part of the reason we may not is because we want to know the truth about God, but deep down we sometimes don't like the truth God reveals. We question some very basics. Did God create the marketplace, does He really own us, are we to honor him in our business as well as our personal life, are we to use our business as a platform for ministry, are we really accountable to God in the marketplace?

In the 25th chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. The owner of the business has given a certain amount of money to each employee and asked them to be successful with what has been given them. When the owner returned, he asked each one to give an account of their investment. The ones who took some risk and did well were rewarded well. But the one who took the least effort was called lazy, everything that had been given him to invest was taken away, and he was fired.(my words)

God's requirements are  to honor Him in all we do. This we do in both our attitudes and conduct in our business. God has also called us to reconcile the world (business relationships) to Him. Our holy calling is to reflect the life of Christ in all we do. We also are human, and as such, we are not always that perfect light and salt in our business world. We get distracted, or we may never have bought into the plan in the first place. But we can rejoice in the fact that God does require us to be accountable to Him. For in that, we can find His loving grace, mercy and forgiveness. We serve a God whose light shines brightly upon all of us. Our accountability is to let that light shine brightly on a marketplace that desperately needs His light