03.05.04 The 2nd Practice for Avoiding Corruption

2. Wear Your Client’s Shoes

One of the most effective ways to refrain from corruption is to ask yourself this question when serving customers: “If I were the client, how would I prefer to be treated?”  That is what Jesus meant in Matthew 7:12 when he said (AMP): …, in everything treat others the same way you want them to treat you, ...  This is called Empathy.

Putting yourself in the feet of a customer is not difficult.  As already said elsewhere, you just need to ‘love that customer (and others) as you love yourself’.  This is one of the two ‘love rules’ that Jesus gave His disciples, the other one being that we should love God above all else (Mark 12:30-31). 

However, amidst the rampant moral decadence that has taken the world by storm, loving others as ourselves coupled with putting ourselves in their feet requires divine transformation.  That is what a relationship with Jesus does; because not only do you get access to His life but His nature too.  To be more exact, your old degenerated nature gets replaced with His nature which amongst others, capacitates you to provide a selfless service to stakeholders.    

With God at the helm of your life, you can now easily display purity and morality instead of moral decay, be it at your workplace or out there in the community.  Not only that, you are divinely empowered to refuse to become a victim of that degeneration, as you can now guard your morals diligently and jealously. 

By the way, loving others is a command, meaning that it has to be obeyed even when one is so hard-pressed that demanding for a bribe or engaging in any other form of corruption would be an understandable temptation.  Look at what 1 Peter 1:22 says (AMP): …[see that you] love one another from the heart [always unselfishly seeking the best for one another].  Notice that it is you ‘to see to it’ that you love a stakeholder.  It is a deliberate step you take.  If Daudi had committed to living according to that principle, how could he have ever asked a client for a bribe or kickback? That would have been totally impossible.