HOW DO WE APPLY IT?

All these above are the foundation of excellent thinking. But what can we do practically to change the way we think? How we do it to ensure that our right thinking will lead to right behaviour and methods?

When we think correctly, our methods will be correct. It is crucial for you to know that excellence is not the same as extremism. Just because God expects you to be excellent, He doesn’t expect you to be an extremist. Setting high standard for yourself is good but demanding perfectionism is being extremist. Perfectionism is different from excellence. Perfectionism does not allow for mistake. Each time, it is not good enough and you blame yourself for not getting it right. Being an extremist can lead to depression, being suicidal and low self-esteem. This is not excellence.

The bible gives us a lot of contrasts. Don’t go according to your flesh; go according to your spirit. Moses came before the people and said, “I lay before you life and death. Therefore, choose life.” There is always a contrast. I want to show you ten different contrasts for our life. These ten contrasts can be applied in the context of church or even from a business or workplace standpoint.

1. Laws versus Liberty

In an environment, instead of building it by Law, build according to Liberty. In developing your team, don’t do it by law. Create an environment of liberty. Instead of telling people you have to do this, make them want to do this. An environment of love and liberty, promotes creativity. It makes people want to do this for it makes them feel free. Galatians 5:13-16 say, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serves one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” I say then: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”  It says we are called to liberty. The law is already summed up in one thing – love your neighbour as yourself. Create this environment, a motivation for service, a motivation for people to work which is love. Love for people. In the context of the church, it will be love for God and for one another. In your context as a businessman, it will be love for the company, the people and the customers.

2. Systems versus Service

In your delivery, don’t deliver because of a system but for service. Not do it as a system but to serve people. Not bureaucracy all the time but it is really genuinely meeting the needs of the people. You have someone who comes to you and he has a need. You have to present this to your superior. Your superior looks at it and says he has to go up another higher level. And the request went up to higher levels. By then, six months have passed. The guy has already died. If everything is done by system and you are more loyal to the system then serving the people, you have a problem. Jesus says this in Matthew 20:25-28, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” One of the things you find is that Jesus was healing on a Sabbath Day, while the Pharisee was saying on a Sabbath Day, it was a day of rest and no one worked. It was the system. But Jesus said that the guy has a need right now, even if it was a Sabbath Day, He would heal the man. Jesus was doing good. He was serving the man.

Jesus asked the Pharisee that if a guy has a donkey and it fell into a ditch on a Sabbath Day, would he not rescue the donkey from the ditch. Jesus broke all the hypocrisy by telling them to focus on serving. Similarly, organizations got to remember your purpose. Your purpose of your existence is to meet the needs of the society. Employees, who are hired, are hired to accomplish a purpose. You must be careful not to be distracted by the system that you forget we are here to serve. But where do you get the source from to serve? It is not self but from the spirit.