{"id":265890,"date":"2016-10-26T04:36:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T04:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/"},"modified":"2016-10-26T04:36:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T04:36:33","slug":"january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment?"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J. N. N. Ng\u2019ang\u2019a \u2013 Meditations for\u00a0 9-15TH Jan 2012 \u2026 what keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment ?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

DAY 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ezekiel37:23<\/a>
They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Christain life is more of marathon than 100 meter dash.we must serve god not just when we are young but all the days of our ;life<\/p>\n

What I believe is my secret for remaining involved in Christian work all these years\u00a0 is as seen above ,remaining connected to the Christian fellowships. Look for the fellowship even if with your juniors who are Christians.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Secondly, in order to remain fresh in God\u2019s service as a professional, you need to be aware that\u00a0 you will never get so senior that the devil will\u00a0 stop tempting\u00a0 you to sin. There is a song that was popular in the seventies, which\u00a0 used to say,\u00a0I have gone too far to look back again.<\/em> I think it is no longer a top ten but in the seventies it was in the top ten. It was sung by a group that used to be called, the\u00a0Explosion Choir<\/em>. I have gone too far to look back again, is\u00a0 trying to imply you can get so saved, there is no way of backsliding.<\/p>\n

Later I realized how unbiblical it was. It is not in the scriptures. You will never be too far to look back.<\/p>\n

A Christian professional must\u00a0 be wary of the arrival mentality that makes it easy for the devil to pull him into sin<\/p>\n

But who is a Christian professional ?<\/p>\n

. It is a person who is working excellently but he \u00a0also works as \u00a0for God. Additionally he will be distinguished from others not only by the very fact his performance is excellent but also he verbally shares his beliefs . In order to pursue excellence, it will be important that you do it for God and\u00a0 \u00a0with God. Realizing that God is a God of excellence ,you want to copy him, not to copy human beings. We\u00a0 said there will be many challenges along the way but each one of the challenge will be met with God\u2019s help. When you don\u2019t work for human crowd, you are not discouragable, if that is English? You have something from within that keeps you encouraged , passionate and motivated. You have God.<\/p>\n

Let us go into some detail on this<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/p>\n

Matthew 5:22<\/em><\/h3>\n

22<\/sup> But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[a<\/a>]<\/sup> will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, \u2018Raca,[b<\/a>]<\/sup>\u2019 is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, \u2018You fool!\u2019 will be in danger of the fire of hell.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To remain fresh spiritually, we must hate and avoid sin\u2026any similitude of sin .We must know that the God we serve not only hates sin but has prepared hell for those who refuse to repent of sin.Because he loves , he has sent Jesus to die for our sins but because he is holy and just, he must punish sin.<\/p>\n

We saw earlier that\u2026. both of employer and employee \u00a0will\u00a0end in\u00a0\u00a0 hell<\/strong> for \u00a0not serving God, employer \u00a0for not paying, employee for not working well.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Yes, the bibles tells us anyone who lives in \u00a0sin will end\u00a0 up in hell .<\/p>\n

I am aware there is theological position that: once saved always saved\u2019 but\u00a0if this means that once you accept the lord as your savour , you will still go to heaven even if you live a sinful life,\u00a0I do not see it backed by the bible. Let us see what the bibles says about a Christian and sin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

1 john 2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

19<\/sup> They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here the bible talks of people who backslide<\/p>\n

but they did so because they were never really Christians all the while although they belonged to the church .<\/p>\n

..so\u00a0 how do you know whether you are His and therefore going to heaven or are you going to heaven just because you claim you are saved? \u2026 Read 1 john 2 on this<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

3<\/sup> We know that we have come to know him\u00a0if we obey his commands.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

4<\/sup> The man who says, \u201cI know him,\u201d\u00a0but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

5<\/sup> But\u00a0if anyone obeys his word, God\u2019s love[b<\/a>]<\/sup> is truly made complete in him.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is how we know we are in him:\u00a06<\/sup> Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However God is forgiving God so, once the bad employer accepts it is sin to underpay or fail to pay his worker or employee admits it is sinful to fail to work diligently, then he is forgiven. All of us sin but the issue is if you are Christian you are made \u00a0sensitive to sin by the Holy spirit in you, and hence regret it and repent .In the end the people who go to hell are those who did not repent since even those who go to heaven will have sinned also but repented<\/p>\n

1 john 1:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

8<\/sup> If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.\u00a09<\/sup> If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.\u00a010<\/sup> If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If a professional or employer \u00a0thinks it is just a small matter that cannot take him to hell then he will not repent and then above \u00a01john 2:4 verse will apply<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/p>\n

1 Kings 11:4<\/a>
As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even when you are a man after God\u2019s heart like David .. you need to warch out so that you do not fall into temptation . Those of you who have read my book,\u00a0Leadership King David\u2019s Style<\/em>, will know\u00a0 David really impresses me. You will notice in my book,\u00a0 I argue that\u00a0 the reason why David finally backslade, was self confidence. If you go to the bible book of Second Samuel, in the beginning david has\u00a0 good life, but somewhere in the middle of his story ,he starts going downhill. Why, what happened?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three things brought king David\u00a0 down. What is the first one? Success.<\/p>\n

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Failed to Handle success carefully<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

He succeeded in\u00a0 getting to expand the kingdom of Israel to the extent it could not be recognized with the former borders. He was very\u00a0 successful, in fact he killed so many enemies, captured so many others that God told him he could not\u00a0 build His temple. By the middle of the book of Samuel he must have wondered: surely what is remaining, what are other borders to conquer?. At that point, the Bible says, it\u00a0 was a season for expansion, season for enlarging the borders of Israel. But\u00a0 he must have\u00a0 felt :surely, I am already so successful..why go to war! He sent the army without him. That was the first problem that brought David down; to feel he has gone too far to look back. At the time you are supposed to be expanding your spiritual borders\u00a0 you say but God where to? What haven\u2019t I done for you Lord? The day you reach that level, please understand it may\u00a0 not be the end but the beginning of your spiritual\u00a0 end. It is important to get in your mind that you never go too far to look back. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That even after you have been in the Lord for a long time, the devil can\u00a0 still\u00a0 get you. And that\u2019s one of the things that David actually missed. The end is only when you overcome at death or when Jesus comes. If you are not on the offensive the devil will put you on the defensive. If you do not go for him , he will come for you .If at work, you are not looking for ways to get others to know Jesus, they will get you to leave him<\/p>\n

David was trying to retire when he still had strength and hence ended feeling idle. Have you heard of people who say they want to be so successful that they retire at forty?. Of course it has come from a book which is very popular in churches and yet it is totally un-theological. It has no biblical basis yet it\u00a0 is very popular with parents who want to motivate their children.. But just look at its philosophy\u00a0 and look at the bible.\u00a0 The bible does not have examples of retirement at all. Just go through the whole bible. Moses worked until he died, Samuel worked until he died , Jacob worked until he died. They\u00a0 never, ever retired. And when David tried to retire early, he ended up not only becoming an adulterer, he became also a murderer. You know what I am talking about? So that idea that you are going to reach a time you are so successful, you don\u2019t require to work anymore\u00a0 is the way to lose your way to heaven. Of course you can stop working for pay and start working just fulfill your call. We do not work just to make money. But we will work until we die. Of course as we become older there are\u00a0 tasks we cannot do but there will be others we still can do.<\/p>\n

Of course you are going to argue, but you yourself\u00a0 are retired. It is true I retired from Shell. But for me it is like a transporter giving his vehicle new tyres. That\u2019s when I got an opportunity to get new\u00a0tyres<\/em>. So I am nowre-tyred<\/em>. I have new tyres. And when you fit\u00a0 new set of tyres for your lorry, it is so that\u00a0 it\u00a0 goes for a longer journey. It gave me an opportunity to change from being employed to self-employment.\u00a0 By the time of writing this, I have been actually busier after the day I left Shell. As an\u00a0 example: I began my business consultancy, also\u00a0\u00a0 I am able to speak to groups during office hours whose invitation I used to reject. I now have a website\u00a0 with reasonably big following who follow my daily meditations. I write books. I have done an MA in leadership. I had told myself, the day I retire I will be able to write\u00a0 books in shorter periods .Unfortunately, there is a book I have been writing now for the last three\u00a0 years. I am so busy that I am not able to writer it as fast as I had hoped. So if I had idea of retirement as resting ,the Lord has taught me it is actually a\u00a0 busy time. So you need to kill that idea of resting from the age of forty and leaving the money you got by age forty to work for you. Good financial investment must be encouraged but that will not be excuse for you to be idle. Someone said that\u00a0idle hands are the devils workshop<\/em>. However if you change your job at forty, that\u2019s ok, but be busy fulfilling the mission for which you were born until your budy cannot allow you to do it anymore.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0 David ,feeling you are too successful to fall ,or too rich to need to be busy, or just being idle will be your spiritual undoing . Of course you can also be busy doing the wrong thing. You must seek the lord on what your should be busy doing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 4\u00a0\u00a0 .<\/p>\n

2 Samuel 11<\/em><\/h4>\n
David and Bathsheba<\/h5>\n

1<\/sup> In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king\u2019s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have a good reason to do the job you do<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other reason why great King David fell,is because he lacked motivation to continue with war of expansion. The other day a micro finance organization gave my consultancy firm\u00a0\u00a0 a chance, to go throughout the country talking to the staff about why we all work. It was\u00a0 a way of motivating staff to higher performance. I told them that\u00a0 you don\u2019t work just to earn a salary, you work because you are created to work. And they said, aai do you mean it? I referred\u00a0 them,\u00a0 to the book of Genesis. A lot of us believe we work as a curse. And even in the church it is taught we work as a result of a curse. That\u2019s why we are looking forward to Jesus\u2019 coming so that we stop working. But this view is because you haven\u2019t read the bible. Just go to the book of Genesis. In Genesis 2 man has not\u00a0 fallen yet.\u00a0 In chapter two verse fifteen\u00a0 we are told, he was\u00a0 put in the garden to do what? To work. Then in chapter three Adam\u00a0 fell. So before the fall, what were they doing? Working. But you know, we used to sing, a song about the joy of going back to Eden, meaning if you went\u00a0 back to Eden you will stop working. It is simply wrong .Man worked even before the fall.\u00a0 God\u00a0 created us to work. Genesis\u00a0 1:1says , in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then a little later He created us in his own image. What is his image? A creator, a worker. So how are you expecting to stop working if you are created in the image of a worker? And Jesus said, I work and my Father works. So that the idea that you are going to reach a time when you have enough money and so\u00a0 you stop working,\u00a0 is a fallen\u00a0 man, unbiblical idea and many of us have fallen into it.<\/p>\n

Work is not a curse. Every time you appear at work you wonder , oh God another cursed day, why did it have to be this? Now, what you don\u2019t know is that, even in heaven we shall be working. When read about\u00a0 the twenty four elders in Revelation , what are they doing? Going\u00a0 Up and down in worship , that is their work. So that the idea of idleness in heaven\u00a0 is simply not biblical.<\/p>\n

Realizing that work is not a curse will help you live an active Christian life in all areas . You should\u00a0 not have \u2018 arrival mentality\u2019 where you feel that now you have reached the\u00a0 seniority you had hoped for .So what else can motivate you? That thinking\u00a0 is a killer to motivation and encourages idle time that is the devils workshop.<\/p>\n

Be aware that as a Christian professional you are going to work as you serve God and man until you die. The retirement day is\u00a0 the death day. So if you say, oh God I want to retire, you mean that I want to die because the only way of retiring is to die. But change of type of work might\u00a0 happen many times in your life time. For example, there are tasks\u00a0 you used to do\u00a0 that you need to change and do others as you grow older .I might not run,but it doesn\u2019t mean that I can\u2019t do something else. It is only that running is not the type of job I will do. So what changes is the type of work you do, but you must always work. And if you actually don\u2019t work you will soon be dead. I think it is Dr. Gatere the Kenyan psychiatrist whom I heard talking in radio saying\u00a0 that in Kenya people retire at fifty five, and then many\u00a0 of them are dead a few years later. For some three years is all they require to be dead. Why do they die? You see, what keeps you alive is the desire to wake up and do something. So when you retire and you used to be a manager in Nairobi, you join your wife in the rural home , you might become idle. Then you go to the village market , nobody knows you and yet in the office you used to be called boss. What happens? Within no time you feel unimportant, frustrated and you could\u00a0 be dead within three years.<\/p>\n

Now, what will keep you alive is if you do something that has meaning, something you feel you are confident in\u00a0 doing. And why is that necessary? Because we are created by a creator so that we are\u00a0 creators by nature . Work is not a burden, it is not a duty, it is an opportunity to create. Obviously if you are reading this\u00a0 and the job you are doing is destroying, you need to rethink. That cannot be what God called you to do. God created us to create. So you need to ask yourself, why do you do the job you do? What does it contribute to human kind? If you are destroying (for example, you are involved in selling drugs or cigarettes and creating addiction and cancer), you need to ask yourself, is that useful, is it creative or destructive? We are not created to destroy, we are created in order to create. But in as long as you are doing something you feel contributes to society it keeps you motivated.<\/p>\n

You have heard of\u00a0 Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs,? You seek to reach a level of self-actualization. And that self-actualization is where you don\u2019t work for money, you work to contribute to human kind. And that\u2019s where everybody wants to reach, isn\u2019t it? And that\u2019s really what will help you to keep alive . So it is important that you reach to that level where you do not behave like David who\u00a0 felt he had\u00a0 arrived. You need to be\u00a0 somebody who feels there is something important\u00a0 to do. Human needs are perpetual, and hence your contribution to human solutions will always be welcome.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 5<\/p>\n

Ecclesiastes 3:14,<\/p>\n

14<\/sup> I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Christian professional , must be an excellent professional\u00a0 for Work that satisfies is work with excellent results<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u00a0 work because you feel God has called you to actually contribute to society . If you are working as a call from God you cannot do shoddy work for him. But what is excellence?\u00a0Excellence is a quality which is unusually good and so surpasses ordinary standards<\/em>. So when you say that your work is excellent work, it means that it is so good that\u00a0 it surpasses ordinary standards. If I ask you to jump and you jump a height that a normal human being can jump, we just say that is good. But if you do better than the average human being we say that is excellent. So excellence is something that is beyond the normal standard.<\/p>\n

For example in management we talk about operational excellence as a\u00a0\u00a0 philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization. That is what is called operational excellence, where you are continuously improving, When you hear a company is ISO9000 certified, one of the requirements is that it commits itself to continuous improvement. ISO certification\u00a0 seemed to imply that company produces the best\u00a0 products in the industry , but that is not ISO9000 claim. ISO9000 does not say that your product is the best in your industry. It only says that the quality it is consistent. When I promise to give you a\u00a0 product, it will be produced\u00a0\u00a0 the same way consistently. It will never be worse than it is the first time you test it, but it could be better. At least what I promised you, you will always get. Because ISO90000 requires that you have procedures and you follow those procedures , you can be sure the product which was produced in January is similar to the one produced in June. It doesn\u2019t mean the product is better, it means the product is consistent. However, there is\u00a0 a commitment that even if it is not the best\u00a0 product in industry you will keep improving it continuously . A company that is not ISO9000\u00a0 certified may actually be producing better products but they might not be\u00a0 consistent. One that is ISO9000 certified at least promises you ,if you find it\u00a0 good it will be consistently good.<\/p>\n

So when we talk about excellent professionals ,we are talking about professionals who have given themselves to offer work that is above the normal standards, and in addition to that to commit themselves to continuous improvement to meet the needs of your customer or client . Also you are always,\u00a0 focusing on the needs of the customer or client. In other words it is not you saying the thing is good, it is actually the customer who says\u00a0 what you are doing is good. Whatever you produce must always be good. Excellence should not\u00a0 be measured by you. If you say something you have made is good, it doesn\u2019t make it good. After all Kikuyus say,the people who don\u2019t go around say their mother is the best cook<\/em>. And you can\u2019t blame them, they might never have\u00a0 had another type of food.<\/p>\n

So you need to understand that if you are talking about being excellent, you must give other people opportunity to give you feedback on your work. In management we call it measuring \u2018customer satisfaction index\u2019. It means that you allow an independent party to research among your customers what they feel about your service or\u00a0 product. So professional excellence, requires that you are going to operate above the standard, number two, you are committed to continuous improvement, and number three you are committed to hearing what the receivers of your service or product have to say, feedback. So if you don\u2019t care what clients\u00a0 say, then you are not committed to excellence because excellence has to be measured by receiver of the service.<\/p>\n

As an employer\u00a0 you must be\u00a0 committed to empowering your team, your employees. You are committed to helping them to keep doing\u00a0 better and optimizing the activities so that\u00a0 the organization achieves the excellence we are talking about.<\/p>\n

We are talking about professional excellence but you\u00a0 need to be aware\u00a0 how God defines excellence in Ecclesiastes 3:14 . The first thing is, if you are a person committed to professional excellence, it is not that some of the things you do will be good and others bad , all things that you do are going to be excellent. The verse also says that your product will not be\u00a0\u00a0 only excellent , it will also endure. Are you getting the point? If it is made by somebody excellent, it is so good that you cannot improve on it.<\/p>\n

Let me just spend a bit of time looking at this. When I first read this verse\u00a0 I said what! If that\u2019s the nature of those who are excellent it is very difficult for anybody to call themselves excellent. But remember the bible also\u00a0\u00a0 tells us to be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.. Thus if you are truly\u00a0 born again the way to show you are born again is that the job you do will be an excellent job. And you will not be doing it in order to just\u00a0 get a salary or a\u00a0 promotion, but it is\u00a0 your way of life.<\/p>\n

I heard somebody explaining about the characteristic of cheese. That if\u00a0 it mixes with the liquid water, what happens to cheese? It comes up to the top. Now, and you can\u2019t do anything to change this . Immediately you put cheese in the water, it will always come to the top. Don\u2019t congratulate it. It has no alternative than to come to the top. That is its nature. It is the issue of density. So it always floats on top. What we are saying is, a Christian nature of working needs to be the nature of excellence. You should\u00a0 work excellently, naturally. That\u2019s what you do, that\u2019s your nature. So that you don\u2019t expect anybody to congratulate you foe it .<\/p>\n

We\u00a0 need to come to where Christian professionals are excellent by nature so that you don\u2019t require anybody to supervise you or motivate you to be excellent. One of the things that is bad is the fact that a lot of us will do better under supervision. If you actually do better under supervision, chances are you have a problem spiritually and not just at your place of work. If you truly start understanding that your nature is a nature of excellence, then whether the boss is there, or the boss is not there you will be doing something that is excellent just like cheese will go to the top.<\/p>\n

So when you don\u2019t work excellently , you need to see it is not just an issue at work, you need to see it as a spiritual issue. To be excellent means to work like God. So you must ask yourself, I am a follower of Jesus. Do I follow him in the area of excellence? Do I work like God? For example, the kind of work you do, does somebody have to repeat it? As a secretary ,your typing speed is may be a hundred words per minute but equals eighty mistakes per minute .Are you at a level where what you do has to be checked by somebody else and the boss cannot take it\u00a0 to the board because he doesn\u2019t want to embarrass himself. Do you know there are other employees e where the boss signs the report without looking. They\u00a0 have given him the confidence so\u00a0 that he feels he is wasting his time checking. He has checked it on the last three years, and he has never found\u00a0 anything to improve.<\/p>\n

The verse above says what God\u2019s work\u00a0 cannot be improved. If you are not working like that, then I think you need to ask yourself: what\u2019s wrong with me? Do\u00a0 you regularly make\u00a0 careless mistakes?. You do things that clearly show if only you could have been more careful you would have sorted them out. How come shoddy work doesn\u2019t bother you, may be it is a spiritual problem you have.<\/p>\n

However ,remember you are not doing that so that you get a promotion, you are doing it because you are a Christian. Because you are following the nature of God. What you do, the product endures, it is not shoddy work, it is not shoddy service.<\/p>\n

However it does not mean that if you are born again you are going to be the one necessarily with the highest IQ in your organization. It is true that Christians are not necessarily the only\u00a0 ones who get A\u2019s. What it means is that as a Christian, given your level of work knowledge and experience , that you will do your very, very best. The one comment a Christian student should\u00a0 never get on his report form is,\u00a0can do better<\/em>. That\u2019s an insult for a Christian. Because what the teacher is saying is you are lazy . If only you had put more effort you would have done better. Do you know the comment a Christian should get?..good effort . There are people who\u00a0 get just a B and\u00a0 the teacher writes, wonderful, keep it up! Then somebody else gets a B+ and the teacher writes..\u00a0 could do better . Why? Because they are A material getting a B+ because they\u00a0 are not doing your\u00a0 best.<\/p>\n

Thus ,I am not creating the impression that because you are a Christian you will be the best in the department. What I understand from the scriptures is that you will be doing your very best. You will be trying your very level best. And when they employ you, knowing\u00a0 what you are capable of, they know what level of performance to expect, and you will not disappoint them. They know they cannot give you something higher because your capacity is not that high. All they want is that\u00a0 you are doing your very, very best?<\/p>\n

Your best is not to be compared to somebody else best . I like using the example in the book of Revelation which is talking about the church. God\u00a0 says of the church:\u00a0 you are neither cold nor hot. You better be one or the other. This church\u00a0 has three alternatives. Either be\u00a0 hot, lukewarm, or cold. And what does Jesus requires it to become? Hot. But then He says that if you are not hot and he is left with the other two alternative, between lukewarm and cold, what\u00a0 would\u00a0 he rather have? Cold. It sounds very funny because to us lukewarm is better than cold but He is saying you had better either be cold or hot. Not lukewarm. So in his way of measuring, it is hot first, cold second, lukewarm last.<\/p>\n

What complicates this\u00a0 further is that you are not supposed to measure the temperature\u00a0 by comparing yourself to others. Why ? Hot for water is its boiling point ,a hundred degrees centigrade. Hot for milk must be a lower temaparature, I don\u2019t know what temperature it is but it must be a lower one. Can we assume\u00a0 fifty? Yeah, at fifty milk is already boiling. So when we\u00a0 say, milk is hot, it is only fifty because it is already boiling at fifty. At that time brother water may be\u00a0 at ninety. You know at that time water is a whole forty degrees above sister milk but the Lord is saying :water is lukewarm\u2026. I will spit out of my mouth. At that point brother water is saying: aaah! God compare me with her! But God is not\u00a0 going to compare you because he\u00a0 made milk to boil at fifty and made you as water to boil at a hundred. And if you are not a hundred, what are you? Lukewarm. So lukewarm is not the same in everyone. God created you different. And that\u2019s one of the things that goes wrong with us even spiritually where we are always comparing ourselves with others.<\/p>\n

But if you are brother water please be aware that even if you are ninety you are still lukewarm. So do not say, but you see God, in all this group who has performed\u00a0 like me? But you are not supposed to have performed\u00a0 like them, you are not them, isn\u2019t it? According to you their performance\u00a0 is very low, according to God ,he says to them as low as they are\u2026. well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into your master\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n

It sounds quite unfair, isn\u2019t it? When you are\u00a0 much better than others but God knows He created you to be much better than you are performing, He says he will not accept your work. You are not supposed to be professionally comparing yourself with others. It is a waste of time, it is unscriptural. Even in the area of witnessing, you feel like the way you witness is the best in your group and you wonder\u00a0 , what could they do without me. But the question is, whereas it is true you have done a lot of work, God knows you would have done even more. So when He looks at you He says, you are lukewarm. You say, but who in FOCUS can compare to me? But He says, \u2018you could have done more. I created you with capacity to do more. So the people you are laughing at, are people doing very little but\u00a0 I have given them capacity to do just that much. So I will tell them \u2026 enter into your Father\u2019s presence yet they did\u00a0 little compared to you\u2019.<\/p>\n

So excellence is\u00a0 not assessed by comparing yourself with\u00a0 others. It is\u00a0comparing yourself with yourself<\/em>, and then seeking to improve continuously. Most of the men of God have been destroyed because\u00a0 of comparing. One should be involved in the area he is called and do his best on that area without wanting to be like another person. For example I have spent the last many years\u00a0 involved in student ministry in addition to my employment . At one point in order to be like others , I also bought land\u00a0 and a cow and started planting potatoes in\u00a0 Nyandarua, the county I came from. Within no time I discovered I am being irresponsible in my farming because\u00a0 when I am invited on weekend by Kenyatta University at the time I am supposed to go to look after potatoes . I would sit and wonder, will I tell Kenyatta University no, just\u00a0 because I want to look after my potatoes? Where is\u00a0 the Lord calling , potatoes or students? I realized there is no way I would\u00a0 go to the potatoes gardening when I have opportunity for ministry. So what happened? I could see I was putting more money in the farm than I was getting out of it. At one time I had cows ,then during one of the February dry weather they died. I discovered this is not the thing I am called to do. There after I planted trees because trees don\u2019t require my involvement yet over time\u00a0 can give a reasonable return. I then can go on\u00a0 preaching and the trees\u00a0 will still grow. It is very important to understand that I am not asking\u00a0 another person to do like me but I also should not copy others.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Knowing\u00a0\u00a0 my life\u2019s calling\u00a0 helps me to evaluate various\u00a0 opportunities that come my way and only do what helps me fulfill God\u2019s calling in my life . Initially I thought that I will only be involved with students when I am in my twenties, in my thirties, up to\u00a0 may be my forties , then pull out of youth work to deal with older people. When I was in the university we assumed anybody over forty was so old we wondered what the CU was doing bringing such an old man to minister to us . So I thought by the time I reached forty I would no longer be relevant\u00a0 to university students or high school students. That\u2019s why I was preparing to start using\u00a0 my non employers hours in\u00a0 farming.<\/p>\n

But I am now around\u00a0 sixty, and yet\u00a0 my diary is as full\u00a0 or more full of speaking engagements\u00a0 to universities , colleges and schools, than it was in my earlier days. This must be God opening the way to fulfill his call on my life. I understand my call is not about growing potatoes and rearing cows. That does not mean that there is something wrong with Christians who spend their weekends looking after cows and potatoes. It is important that each person hears the call of God in his life and does only those activities that help him fulfill his life\u2019s purpose. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are people called and gifted to make money to fulfill some money needs in God\u2019s kingdom. The other day I was mentoring somebody and I said, please don\u2019t look up to me as an example of how to\u00a0 make money. I have a business degree and should\u00a0 know what to do to make money but\u00a0 I have\u00a0 not invested most of my time in it. So if you are looking\u00a0 for somebody who has made\u00a0 money, I am a bad example. I have had many ethical opportunities to make money but I haven\u2019t utilized\u00a0 many of them. When I look at other people who retired in top management in\u00a0 multinational organizations\u00a0 and what they are able to do in retirement, I know I am not a good example to young people who want to hit it rich\u00a0 . But this is a consequence of the decision made earlier in my life\u00a0 that although I still\u00a0 invest in areas that have a high return ,The investment must not require my time. Most of my\u00a0\u00a0 time\u00a0 I use in my speaking ministry that may not have monetary returns. However\u00a0 God has been faithful in giving me enough money to meet my daily needs and live a contented, fulfilled life. I am not bothered by how rich others become. My success will not be measured by comparing me with others. It is by comparing myself with myself, given my calling. How far I have gone in fulfilling my life\u2019s purpose matters .That is also what will matter on the day of judgment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Knowing your purpose in life early helps you to align every area of your life to that purpose. Of course what you hope is that you marry a girl who understands that purpose for her\u00a0 task is to be your helper as Genesis 2 says..to help you fulfill your life\u2019s purpose. You also must know her purpose so that you help her fulfill her life\u2019s purpose . My joy is that I married a girl called Rebecca who understands this and this has helped both of us to realize our potential.<\/p>\n

But all I am saying is, life\u00a0 is not a matter of comparison, what God has called you to do, stick to it\u00a0 and He will, on judgment day say: well done, good and faithful servant. It is not how you did compared with others. God says, be hot but He doesn\u2019t tell you one\u00a0 temperature because all of us have different boiling points.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 6<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hebrews6:11<\/strong><\/a>
We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Thus\u00a0 working excellently, working like God, is producing products or services that endure, and\u00a0 that cannot be improved . In other words,\u00a0 services at the best and as far as you are concerned\u00a0not improvable,<\/em> if that is good English. This is what you need to ask yourself. Do you produce a product or service\u00a0 that could have been better if only you had put more effort? Then there is something wrong with you. You are supposed to produce\u00a0 something which\u00a0 even if you repeated the process, it could not be\u00a0 better, with your current level of competence. That\u2019s what you need to commit yourself to.<\/p>\n

You need to ask yourself, when\u00a0 your boss, your employer or your customer looks at what you are doing, does he really think there is something you could have done better? One of the reasons why this is so important is that when you give an excellent service to clients, it becomes the opening for evangelism because immediately they see you as an excellent\u00a0 kind of a person, they want to know who you really\u00a0 are. They also open up, they want to talk to you more than just do business with you. I have realized if they know you are mediocre, someone who does things in a mediocre way, and then you tell them, why don\u2019t you become a Christian\u00a0 like me,they will just laugh and answer, become mediocre like you?<\/p>\n

Thus , one of the reasons why it is so important to be excellent in the work you do is because your message as Christ\u2019s witness will be hindered if you don\u2019t do excellent work. One of the best ways of witnessing is by how you work. For example if you are a teacher, and you are the one who doesn\u2019t mark pupil\u2019s work on time, the student will loath you\u00a0 and cannot accept your witness.When all the teachers have returned the work to students , you are the only one not having returned. Then you tell a young man, you should be saved like me. You expect him to get saved? Many Christian teachers\u00a0 say ,\u2019I am doing a wonderful ministry in my school\u2019 because they preach in the fellowship. But you might be\u00a0 the kind of a teacher no student wants to emulate. Can you see you are hindering ministry? It doesn\u2019t matter how much you keep testifying, telling them to get saved. They will respectfully listen to you while you are there but after you go they really laugh about it.<\/p>\n

But if you are the best chemistry teacher ,and every student wants to be like you, what happens? They seek you as a mentor. Those of you who have gone through catholic schools, the biggest impact is from\u00a0 the nuns\u00a0 and brothers who have worked in those schools . Sometimes when it is a government\u00a0 kind of a school that allows protestants children, they don\u2019t actually preach. They just become good teachers. But by form four, several protestants have become catholic. But they didn\u2019t go out of their way to witness to the children at a\u00a0 personal level. Every girl wants to be like sister. Of course when they come to sister, sister tells them to be like me, do the following things\u2026.. .<\/p>\n

In my consultancy we also do training. When I left Shell I asked myself, in consultancy, what are the opportunities of influencing people with the gospel? First of all you have to quote for business, and that in itself is something new to me. Then you wait until you are allocated the business. You need to do this in a way that becomes a witness for Jesus. Then when you are finally doing the training there, how do you witness since you are being paid per hour? If you start witnessing they will deduct it from the bill. Are you getting the point? You are being paid for the time you spend on the job you have quoted to do. So I wondered how do I do ministry here? I said, God I know how I have done it in\u00a0 Shell but I don\u2019t know how to do it in consultancy.<\/p>\n

I was wondering when a young man after a workshop\u00a0 came and asked me, \u2018could I see you after the course?\u2019 I said, yes it is okay. Then when we met me he said, \u2018I just wanted you to mentor me\u2019. Mentoring like this\u00a0 is a new word. In our days as youth we never used those words: Would you please mentor me? We would have to know each other first. So I asked him to book an appointment so that we get to know each other . I bought him tea to tell me exactly what he wanted. You know in his own mind, since it was a petroleum course and he hears I was in top management of the then biggest oil company in Kenya, he wanted to know how he can also go up in the oil industry. I told him,\u2019 I never told you the whole story\u00a0 about who are I am.The reason I am who I am is because of whose I am<\/em>. I am a Christian. What I do is not just as an employment, it is not just about the salary, I do it\u00a0 as unto God. And if you truly want to be like me, to be honest, I have to tell you to\u00a0 belong to the same\u00a0 One. You need to\u00a0 belong to the same one that I belong to\u2019<\/p>\n

To my surprise, as we talked like that, by the second meeting he said, yes ,I would like to get saved. I prayed for him. The mentoring continues .Several young professionals have got saved in similar manner when they on their own have approached me after a consultancy in their place. Recently\u00a0 I rang one of them who got saved immediately after I retired and he told me he had now joined a big Pentecostal church where I initially recommended he goes for a new believers class for follow up. In another course where I was a trainer, a young man came to me and similarly said, \u2018I would like you to mentor me\u2019. I said,\u2019 okay we will meet\u2019. We agreed where to meet. The day we were going to meet he rang to say that , another person who was in the workshop also said he would like to come. I said, no, no, no. Let me meet you alone I can meet him separately later. I knew he didn\u2019t know what I was going to do when I met him,and tow would be crowd . I was going to witness to him. Obviously for him he just wants to know how to go up the career ladder and since the other one wanted the same thing and they were friends ,he did not see any problem of them meeting me together . However , I thought if they are two it will bring confusion. So I told him, to tell him that I am also available to meet him on his own. On the actual day he rang, and\u00a0 said, \u2018he asked me whether what we are discussing is confidential, and\u00a0 when I told him it is not confidential, he said he wanted to join me in seeing you. And since it is not confidential why can\u2019t you meet both of us at the same time?\u2019. I reluctantly told him, I didn\u2019t mind. Now, I was in trouble .I realized my strategy might\u00a0 fail. So they came both of them but I still did what I wanted to do, concentrate on trying to preach to this first guy. I was\u00a0 trying to show him that if he really wanted us to go\u00a0 together up his\u00a0 career ladder , it was important if he was \u2018owned\u2019 by the one who \u2018owns\u2019 me. Instead of the one who consulted me first replaying first , the one who was supposed to be disturbing us said he wanted to get saved. Finally\u00a0 both of them got saved. Remember I did not witness during the workshop. I had been paid to talk about petroleum but somehow they formed an opinion that they would like to be like me. By now\u00a0 I can\u00a0 count quite a number\u00a0 of people who have gotten saved since I retired in this way .<\/p>\n

I have discovered that\u00a0 if you do your job well, that is the first opening for witnessing. If you do it badly, that\u2019s the first blockage to ever witness. Witnessing is not a mouth exercise\u00a0 about Jesus, it is initially simply doing work that can be called excellent. If where you are employed you are not regarded as somebody excellent, you are already a\u00a0 blockage to the flow of the Spirit to that company. Are we together? And that\u2019s the reasons for\u00a0 excellence in your performance. So I don\u2019t know what your area is but I can tell you, you will not be able to do much unless you actually start taking the issue of working as for the Lord so that you work in excellence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 7<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Col 3<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

17<\/sup> And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, again ,do not misunderstand me and start thinking I am telling you not to use words to tell\u00a0 people about Jesus, because actions speak louder than words. As people become senior at work, they seem not to talk about Jesus very much. Am I right? Even though they\u00a0 are saved they don\u2019t talk about it except when they go to their church. At work you have to do a PhD on him to discover he is actually born again. So that one day in function in his church you hear him giving a testimony and you say, \u2018haiya! you mean my boss is saved? But at work you can\u2019t tell he is saved\u2019. And what his argument? His argument is , you will know I am a Christian through my actions. Have you heard that kind of an argument .Like I have said elsewhere,not even one person has ever gotten saved because of only good actions. Even after my emphasis on performance, know it is only for\u00a0 opening the door for you to witness. If you say nothing about the Lord, do not ever expect anybody to know the Lord. The best they can do is say, you look like a Christian. Does that bring them to the Lord? It might attract him to go to see a Christian friend if he has one or go to church if there is one but of itself it will not save.<\/p>\n

. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The point I want to emphasize so that you don\u2019t miss it, is that if you try to talk without good excellent work, your talk will be interfered with by your bad actions and so no good witnessing will happen.Actions speak louder than words. Why? Because they amplify the words. For example, if you are talking via a mike with an\u00a0 amplifier. If you say nothing, \u2026. Do others\u00a0 hear anything? No . Because if I say nothing it amplifies nothing. If I say something, it amplifies something. So the reason why actions speak louder than words is because actions amplify words. If you say nothing the amplifier will amplify nothing. So it is important that you understand that although my emphasis is on actions, it is not divorced from words. You must have both words and actions. Not just actions ,and not just words. You need both of them.<\/p>\n

I am saying a professional is one who does his part with excellence or can be regarded an expert, a specialist, a qualified person, a proficient person, a keen person, a trained person, a certified person, a licensed person. Can you be regarded as that in any job you do or you will be regarded as an amateur. An amateur is somebody who is learning. Even if he does it wrong, he is forgiven since not\u00a0 yet a professional. What are you?Are you a professional who works excellently.<\/p>\n

So if you want to be an effective Christian professional we have said you need to do what is within your calling . I have written a book,\u00a0A Leaders Source Of Influence<\/em>, that tries to answer the question, how to discover your mission in life. For example you admire preachers and you try to be a preacher but you are not gifted in that area. Will you become excellent? No. And the problem is simply that you are not within your area of call. So one of the things then, if you really want to be excellent in your work, try to work within your area of calling. Your mission and vision statement need to be clear. Just like any organization needs a mission statement, you need a clear mission statement. If you want to look at one not so that you copy but just to see an example go to my website, www.johnnganga.org<\/a><\/span>. I got the website through a young woman who is mentoring me on IT. You know normally it is the older who mentor the younger, but on IT I had to be mentored by somebody who is below thirty. And she kept working on me until I had a website. If you go to my website you will see what my vision and mission statement are.<\/p>\n

The reason I am able to operate the way I do and even allow loss of\u00a0 financial opportunities is because I enjoy what I am doing whether it give money or not ,for it is the reason I was born. When you invite me to come to speak in a\u00a0 dinner far away from my home , I will cancel even a consultancy, I will cancel my work, because it excites me. I am operating within my mission and vision.<\/p>\n

So if you continue trying to operate in something so that\u00a0 you get money, but that\u2019s not where you are called, then you will keep frustrating yourself because you will never work to the level of excellence that really God expects you to work in. So it is important to find as early as possible what your mission\u00a0 is.<\/p>\n

Of course related with that is that, if you are single, it is important for you to notice that for you to really work excellently, it will be good that you marry somebody whose mission and yours don\u2019t contradict each other. I keep telling young people, it is not people who marry, it is their missions. So if her mission and yours are not together, please understand you require my sympathy on the wedding day because there is going to be trouble all the days of your life until death do you part.<\/p>\n

So it is important to understand that I am very clear myself. I would not be who I am if I never married Rebecca. No way. Not many women would allow me to do what I have done.If Rebecca was not having a similar vision and mission with me, I would have had to slow down. So when some people say, Ng\u2019ang\u2019a I wish I was like you! I say, then marry a Rebecca. It is very important to understand that who you marry can interfere with the possibility of you becoming a man or a woman of excellence.<\/p>\n

For the married,I am not suggesting those who are married to such people divorce. You are not allowed. And I am not suggesting you kill her. You will be a murderer. It is important to understand, the above suggestion is addressed to the single not to the married . So those of you who are married close your ears. But for you who are single please understand, do not marry a girl because of the size of her nose. Noses don\u2019t matter. It is the inside. Just like one day you will stay in a house in Milimani, having moved from another one in River Road but house will not make you different, isn\u2019t it? So the girl, how she looks is totally irrelevant. It is who is occupying the inside. And you know the body is the tent for the inside person. So if she is beautiful but the girl inside is ugly, please be worried.<\/p>\n

Find out, what is her or his call in life. For example, if you marry a girl who is talking about getting a green card to settle in America from Africa and yet the Lord is talking about the possibility of you becoming a missionary in Saudi Arabia, please stop the wedding. Within a year, she will be doing the green card\u00a0 rotary, isn\u2019t it? And there will be trouble in your marriage. It is important to understand that if you want to be a girl of excellence, don\u2019t marry because he is driving a Mercedes, marry a boy who can support your mission. And that\u2019s what you need to discuss as you court her or him. Don\u2019t just talk about sweet nothing during courtship, talk about even bitter\u00a0 something\u2019s. If a\u00a0 boy is interested in you, ask him, before we go any further, who are you, what has God called you to do? As soon as you discover he wants to go to Saudi Arabia and you want to get a green card, don\u2019t waste his and your\u00a0 time. Tell him, God bless you as you go to Saudi Arabia. Don\u2019t allow any further discussion. So it is important that you understand that who you marry is\u00a0 a very critical thing if you are going to be somebody of excellence.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see how you will you operate at your best if you are not operating within the area you feel God has called you to.<\/p>\n

Secondly , you must operate within the message of\u00a0 Colossians 3:17, where we learn that\u00a0whatever you do, you do it as unto the Lord<\/em>. Whatever means whatever, isn\u2019t it? It means that whatever the task is, you must see it as working for God. I can tell you, if you work for your mother, sometimes it will frustrate you because you expect to be please but she is not. She is already comparing you with somebody else. She says, okay you have done well , it is true you have a PhD but are we going to eat your PhD? You, you expected your mother to be excited that you got a PhD. So and so has no degree but has built a house for his mother. So please don\u2019t work in order to impress human beings. Work to please\u00a0 the Lord. Not even your boss. You worked very\u00a0 hard but then he promoted the lazy one. Have you heard things like that? So if you work to please such , you will be in trouble.<\/p>\n

Thus\u00a0 if you want to be somebody who has excellence, you must remove the issue of working for a human being. Then you must have God as the one you seek to please . I only worked for two employers: A development bank and Shell. However I did very many different jobs. For about six, seven years, I worked in the regional office covering about ten countries from Madagascar, Mauritius, to Djibouti, Ethiopia.\u00a0\u00a0 So it is true I did many jobs. I want to tell you it therefore means I know may types\u00a0 of frustration: an Ethiopian type of frustration, a Madagascarn type of frustration, I know about all of them. But the important thing, the thing1 that allowed me to continue was the fact that I never did just to please\u00a0 bosses , I did it for the Lord. And because I did for the Lord, when it is the lords time even if someone wants to block it ,once in a while they would say, eeh, we want to promote you. That happens at times\u00a0 , but that\u2019s not what I am working\u00a0 for. I am working\u00a0 to honour God. Chances are ,even when they don\u2019t want to promote you, sometimes even if they don\u2019t like you they have no alternative than to promote you. Are you getting the point? So even that will come but that\u2019s not your aim.<\/p>\n

So I am saying if you want to be a man of excellence it will be important that you actually work in such a way that you work as unto God.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We saw that competence also matters . If you want to be an accounting professional then you must pass all the CPAs.But ven those who have not finished their CPA I am regarding as professional. I am talking about anybody who is employed in order to give\u00a0 a service. That you earn your daily bread by selling a service. That\u2019s your professional area. Now, may be the registration engineers have not registered you yet but to me you are a Christian professional, if\u00a0 you are paid for giving\u00a0 a service. If you are a teacher, you are a professional because you are paid for teaching, isn\u2019t it? You are an engineer you are a professional because you are paid for engineering service . You are an architect, you are a professional because you are paid for designing what is changing the face of the earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJanuary 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment? - John Ng'ang'a<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment? - John Ng'ang'a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"J. N. N. Ng\u2019ang\u2019a \u2013 Meditations for\u00a0 9-15TH Jan 2012 \u2026 what keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment ? \u00a0 DAY 1 Ezekiel37:23They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God \u00a0 Christain life is more of marathon than 100 meter dash.we must serve god not just when we are young but all the days of our ;life What I believe is my secret for remaining involved in Christian work all these years\u00a0 is as seen above ,remaining connected to the Christian fellowships. Look for the fellowship even if with your juniors who are Christians. \u00a0 Secondly, in order to remain fresh in God\u2019s service as a professional, you need to be aware that\u00a0 you will never get so senior that the devil will\u00a0 stop tempting\u00a0 you to sin. There is a song that was popular in the seventies, which\u00a0 used to say,\u00a0I have gone too far to look back again. I think it is no longer a top ten but in the seventies it was in the top ten. It was sung by a group that used to be called, the\u00a0Explosion Choir. I have gone too far to look back again, is\u00a0 trying to imply you can get so saved, there is no way of backsliding. Later I realized how unbiblical it was. It is not in the scriptures. You will never be too far to look back. A Christian professional must\u00a0 be wary of the arrival mentality that makes it easy for the devil to pull him into sin But who is a Christian professional ? . It is a person who is working excellently but he \u00a0also works as \u00a0for God. Additionally he will be distinguished from others not only by the very fact his performance is excellent but also he verbally shares his beliefs . In order to pursue excellence, it will be important that you do it for God and\u00a0 \u00a0with God. Realizing that God is a God of excellence ,you want to copy him, not to copy human beings. We\u00a0 said there will be many challenges along the way but each one of the challenge will be met with God\u2019s help. When you don\u2019t work for human crowd, you are not discouragable, if that is English? You have something from within that keeps you encouraged , passionate and motivated. You have God. Let us go into some detail on this \u00a0 \u00a0 Day 2 Matthew 5:22 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[a] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, \u2018Raca,[b]\u2019 is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, \u2018You fool!\u2019 will be in danger of the fire of hell. \u00a0 To remain fresh spiritually, we must hate and avoid sin\u2026any similitude of sin .We must know that the God we serve not only hates sin but has prepared hell for those who refuse to repent of sin.Because he loves , he has sent Jesus to die for our sins but because he is holy and just, he must punish sin. We saw earlier that\u2026. both of employer and employee \u00a0will\u00a0end in\u00a0\u00a0 hell for \u00a0not serving God, employer \u00a0for not paying, employee for not working well." Yes, the bibles tells us anyone who lives in \u00a0sin will end\u00a0 up in hell . I am aware there is theological position that: once saved always saved\u2019 but\u00a0if this means that once you accept the lord as your savour , you will still go to heaven even if you live a sinful life,\u00a0I do not see it backed by the bible. Let us see what the bibles says about a Christian and sin. \u00a0 1 john 2 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us Here the bible talks of people who backslide but they did so because they were never really Christians all the while although they belonged to the church . ..so\u00a0 how do you know whether you are His and therefore going to heaven or are you going to heaven just because you claim you are saved? \u2026 Read 1 john 2 on this \u00a0 3 We know that we have come to know him\u00a0if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, \u201cI know him,\u201d\u00a0but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But\u00a0if anyone obeys his word, God\u2019s love[b] is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:\u00a06 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. \u00a0 \u00a0 However God is forgiving God so, once the bad employer accepts it is sin to underpay or fail to pay his worker or employee admits it is sinful to fail to work diligently, then he is forgiven. All of us sin but the issue is if you are Christian you are made \u00a0sensitive to sin by the Holy spirit in you, and hence regret it and repent .In the end the people who go to hell are those who did not repent since even those who go to heaven will have sinned also but repented 1 john 1: \u00a0 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.\u00a09 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.\u00a010 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives If a professional or employer \u00a0thinks it is just a small matter that cannot take him to hell then he will not repent and then above \u00a01john 2:4 verse will apply \u00a0 Day 3 1 Kings 11:4As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been \u00a0 Even when you are a man after God\u2019s heart like David .. you need to warch out so that you do not fall into temptation . Those of you who have read my book,\u00a0Leadership King David\u2019s Style, will know\u00a0 David really impresses me. You will notice in my book,\u00a0 I argue that\u00a0 the reason why David finally backslade, was self confidence. If you go to the bible book of Second Samuel, in the beginning david has\u00a0 good life, but somewhere in the middle of his story ,he starts going downhill. Why, what happened? \u00a0 Three things brought king David\u00a0 down. What is the first one? Success. \u00a0 Failed to Handle success carefully \u00a0 He succeeded in\u00a0 getting to expand the kingdom of Israel to the extent it could not be recognized with the former borders. He was very\u00a0 successful, in fact he killed so many enemies, captured so many others that God told him he could not\u00a0 build His temple. By the middle of the book of Samuel he must have wondered: surely what is remaining, what are other borders to conquer?. At that point, the Bible says, it\u00a0 was a season for expansion, season for enlarging the borders of Israel. But\u00a0 he must have\u00a0 felt :surely, I am already so successful..why go to war! He sent the army without him. That was the first problem that brought David down; to feel he has gone too far to look back. At the time you are supposed to be expanding your spiritual borders\u00a0 you say but God where to? What haven\u2019t I done for you Lord? The day you reach that level, please understand it may\u00a0 not be the end but the beginning of your spiritual\u00a0 end. It is important to get in your mind that you never go too far to look back. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That even after you have been in the Lord for a long time, the devil can\u00a0 still\u00a0 get you. And that\u2019s one of the things that David actually missed. The end is only when you overcome at death or when Jesus comes. If you are not on the offensive the devil will put you on the defensive. If you do not go for him , he will come for you .If at work, you are not looking for ways to get others to know Jesus, they will get you to leave him David was trying to retire when he still had strength and hence ended feeling idle. Have you heard of people who say they want to be so successful that they retire at forty?. Of course it has come from a book which is very popular in churches and yet it is totally un-theological. It has no biblical basis yet it\u00a0 is very popular with parents who want to motivate their children.. But just look at its philosophy\u00a0 and look at the bible.\u00a0 The bible does not have examples of retirement at all. Just go through the whole bible. Moses worked until he died, Samuel worked until he died , Jacob worked until he died. They\u00a0 never, ever retired. And when David tried to retire early, he ended up not only becoming an adulterer, he became also a murderer. You know what I am talking about? So that idea that you are going to reach a time you are so successful, you don\u2019t require to work anymore\u00a0 is the way to lose your way to heaven. Of course you can stop working for pay and start working just fulfill your call. We do not work just to make money. But we will work until we die. Of course as we become older there are\u00a0 tasks we cannot do but there will be others we still can do. Of course you are going to argue, but you yourself\u00a0 are retired. It is true I retired from Shell. But for me it is like a transporter giving his vehicle new tyres. That\u2019s when I got an opportunity to get new\u00a0tyres. So I am nowre-tyred. I have new tyres. And when you fit\u00a0 new set of tyres for your lorry, it is so that\u00a0 it\u00a0 goes for a longer journey. It gave me an opportunity to change from being employed to self-employment.\u00a0 By the time of writing this, I have been actually busier after the day I left Shell. As an\u00a0 example: I began my business consultancy, also\u00a0\u00a0 I am able to speak to groups during office hours whose invitation I used to reject. I now have a website\u00a0 with reasonably big following who follow my daily meditations. I write books. I have done an MA in leadership. I had told myself, the day I retire I will be able to write\u00a0 books in shorter periods .Unfortunately, there is a book I have been writing now for the last three\u00a0 years. I am so busy that I am not able to writer it as fast as I had hoped. So if I had idea of retirement as resting ,the Lord has taught me it is actually a\u00a0 busy time. So you need to kill that idea of resting from the age of forty and leaving the money you got by age forty to work for you. Good financial investment must be encouraged but that will not be excuse for you to be idle. Someone said that\u00a0idle hands are the devils workshop. However if you change your job at forty, that\u2019s ok, but be busy fulfilling the mission for which you were born until your budy cannot allow you to do it anymore. Like\u00a0 David ,feeling you are too successful to fall ,or too rich to need to be busy, or just being idle will be your spiritual undoing . Of course you can also be busy doing the wrong thing. You must seek the lord on what your should be busy doing. \u00a0 Day 4\u00a0\u00a0 . 2 Samuel 11 David and Bathsheba 1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king\u2019s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. \u00a0 Have a good reason to do the job you do \u00a0 The other reason why great King David fell,is because he lacked motivation to continue with war of expansion. The other day a micro finance organization gave my consultancy firm\u00a0\u00a0 a chance, to go throughout the country talking to the staff about why we all work. It was\u00a0 a way of motivating staff to higher performance. I told them that\u00a0 you don\u2019t work just to earn a salary, you work because you are created to work. And they said, aai do you mean it? I referred\u00a0 them,\u00a0 to the book of Genesis. A lot of us believe we work as a curse. And even in the church it is taught we work as a result of a curse. That\u2019s why we are looking forward to Jesus\u2019 coming so that we stop working. But this view is because you haven\u2019t read the bible. Just go to the book of Genesis. In Genesis 2 man has not\u00a0 fallen yet.\u00a0 In chapter two verse fifteen\u00a0 we are told, he was\u00a0 put in the garden to do what? To work. Then in chapter three Adam\u00a0 fell. So before the fall, what were they doing? Working. But you know, we used to sing, a song about the joy of going back to Eden, meaning if you went\u00a0 back to Eden you will stop working. It is simply wrong .Man worked even before the fall.\u00a0 God\u00a0 created us to work. Genesis\u00a0 1:1says , in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then a little later He created us in his own image. What is his image? A creator, a worker. So how are you expecting to stop working if you are created in the image of a worker? And Jesus said, I work and my Father works. So that the idea that you are going to reach a time when you have enough money and so\u00a0 you stop working,\u00a0 is a fallen\u00a0 man, unbiblical idea and many of us have fallen into it. Work is not a curse. Every time you appear at work you wonder , oh God another cursed day, why did it have to be this? Now, what you don\u2019t know is that, even in heaven we shall be working. When read about\u00a0 the twenty four elders in Revelation , what are they doing? Going\u00a0 Up and down in worship , that is their work. So that the idea of idleness in heaven\u00a0 is simply not biblical. Realizing that work is not a curse will help you live an active Christian life in all areas . You should\u00a0 not have \u2018 arrival mentality\u2019 where you feel that now you have reached the\u00a0 seniority you had hoped for .So what else can motivate you? That thinking\u00a0 is a killer to motivation and encourages idle time that is the devils workshop. Be aware that as a Christian professional you are going to work as you serve God and man until you die. The retirement day is\u00a0 the death day. So if you say, oh God I want to retire, you mean that I want to die because the only way of retiring is to die. But change of type of work might\u00a0 happen many times in your life time. For example, there are tasks\u00a0 you used to do\u00a0 that you need to change and do others as you grow older .I might not run,but it doesn\u2019t mean that I can\u2019t do something else. It is only that running is not the type of job I will do. So what changes is the type of work you do, but you must always work. And if you actually don\u2019t work you will soon be dead. I think it is Dr. Gatere the Kenyan psychiatrist whom I heard talking in radio saying\u00a0 that in Kenya people retire at fifty five, and then many\u00a0 of them are dead a few years later. For some three years is all they require to be dead. Why do they die? You see, what keeps you alive is the desire to wake up and do something. So when you retire and you used to be a manager in Nairobi, you join your wife in the rural home , you might become idle. Then you go to the village market , nobody knows you and yet in the office you used to be called boss. What happens? Within no time you feel unimportant, frustrated and you could\u00a0 be dead within three years. Now, what will keep you alive is if you do something that has meaning, something you feel you are confident in\u00a0 doing. And why is that necessary? Because we are created by a creator so that we are\u00a0 creators by nature . Work is not a burden, it is not a duty, it is an opportunity to create. Obviously if you are reading this\u00a0 and the job you are doing is destroying, you need to rethink. That cannot be what God called you to do. God created us to create. So you need to ask yourself, why do you do the job you do? What does it contribute to human kind? If you are destroying (for example, you are involved in selling drugs or cigarettes and creating addiction and cancer), you need to ask yourself, is that useful, is it creative or destructive? We are not created to destroy, we are created in order to create. But in as long as you are doing something you feel contributes to society it keeps you motivated. You have heard of\u00a0 Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs,? You seek to reach a level of self-actualization. And that self-actualization is where you don\u2019t work for money, you work to contribute to human kind. And that\u2019s where everybody wants to reach, isn\u2019t it? And that\u2019s really what will help you to keep alive . So it is important that you reach to that level where you do not behave like David who\u00a0 felt he had\u00a0 arrived. You need to be\u00a0 somebody who feels there is something important\u00a0 to do. Human needs are perpetual, and hence your contribution to human solutions will always be welcome. \u00a0 Day 5 Ecclesiastes 3:14, 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. \u00a0 \u00a0 A Christian professional , must be an excellent professional\u00a0 for Work that satisfies is work with excellent results \u00a0 You\u00a0 work because you feel God has called you to actually contribute to society . If you are working as a call from God you cannot do shoddy work for him. But what is excellence?\u00a0Excellence is a quality which is unusually good and so surpasses ordinary standards. So when you say that your work is excellent work, it means that it is so good that\u00a0 it surpasses ordinary standards. If I ask you to jump and you jump a height that a normal human being can jump, we just say that is good. But if you do better than the average human being we say that is excellent. So excellence is something that is beyond the normal standard. For example in management we talk about operational excellence as a\u00a0\u00a0 philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization. That is what is called operational excellence, where you are continuously improving, When you hear a company is ISO9000 certified, one of the requirements is that it commits itself to continuous improvement. ISO certification\u00a0 seemed to imply that company produces the best\u00a0 products in the industry , but that is not ISO9000 claim. ISO9000 does not say that your product is the best in your industry. It only says that the quality it is consistent. When I promise to give you a\u00a0 product, it will be produced\u00a0\u00a0 the same way consistently. It will never be worse than it is the first time you test it, but it could be better. At least what I promised you, you will always get. Because ISO90000 requires that you have procedures and you follow those procedures , you can be sure the product which was produced in January is similar to the one produced in June. It doesn\u2019t mean the product is better, it means the product is consistent. However, there is\u00a0 a commitment that even if it is not the best\u00a0 product in industry you will keep improving it continuously . A company that is not ISO9000\u00a0 certified may actually be producing better products but they might not be\u00a0 consistent. One that is ISO9000 certified at least promises you ,if you find it\u00a0 good it will be consistently good. So when we talk about excellent professionals ,we are talking about professionals who have given themselves to offer work that is above the normal standards, and in addition to that to commit themselves to continuous improvement to meet the needs of your customer or client . Also you are always,\u00a0 focusing on the needs of the customer or client. In other words it is not you saying the thing is good, it is actually the customer who says\u00a0 what you are doing is good. Whatever you produce must always be good. Excellence should not\u00a0 be measured by you. If you say something you have made is good, it doesn\u2019t make it good. After all Kikuyus say,the people who don\u2019t go around say their mother is the best cook. And you can\u2019t blame them, they might never have\u00a0 had another type of food. So you need to understand that if you are talking about being excellent, you must give other people opportunity to give you feedback on your work. In management we call it measuring \u2018customer satisfaction index\u2019. It means that you allow an independent party to research among your customers what they feel about your service or\u00a0 product. So professional excellence, requires that you are going to operate above the standard, number two, you are committed to continuous improvement, and number three you are committed to hearing what the receivers of your service or product have to say, feedback. So if you don\u2019t care what clients\u00a0 say, then you are not committed to excellence because excellence has to be measured by receiver of the service. As an employer\u00a0 you must be\u00a0 committed to empowering your team, your employees. You are committed to helping them to keep doing\u00a0 better and optimizing the activities so that\u00a0 the organization achieves the excellence we are talking about. We are talking about professional excellence but you\u00a0 need to be aware\u00a0 how God defines excellence in Ecclesiastes 3:14 . The first thing is, if you are a person committed to professional excellence, it is not that some of the things you do will be good and others bad , all things that you do are going to be excellent. The verse also says that your product will not be\u00a0\u00a0 only excellent , it will also endure. Are you getting the point? If it is made by somebody excellent, it is so good that you cannot improve on it. Let me just spend a bit of time looking at this. When I first read this verse\u00a0 I said what! If that\u2019s the nature of those who are excellent it is very difficult for anybody to call themselves excellent. But remember the bible also\u00a0\u00a0 tells us to be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.. Thus if you are truly\u00a0 born again the way to show you are born again is that the job you do will be an excellent job. And you will not be doing it in order to just\u00a0 get a salary or a\u00a0 promotion, but it is\u00a0 your way of life. I heard somebody explaining about the characteristic of cheese. That if\u00a0 it mixes with the liquid water, what happens to cheese? It comes up to the top. Now, and you can\u2019t do anything to change this . Immediately you put cheese in the water, it will always come to the top. Don\u2019t congratulate it. It has no alternative than to come to the top. That is its nature. It is the issue of density. So it always floats on top. What we are saying is, a Christian nature of working needs to be the nature of excellence. You should\u00a0 work excellently, naturally. That\u2019s what you do, that\u2019s your nature. So that you don\u2019t expect anybody to congratulate you foe it . We\u00a0 need to come to where Christian professionals are excellent by nature so that you don\u2019t require anybody to supervise you or motivate you to be excellent. One of the things that is bad is the fact that a lot of us will do better under supervision. If you actually do better under supervision, chances are you have a problem spiritually and not just at your place of work. If you truly start understanding that your nature is a nature of excellence, then whether the boss is there, or the boss is not there you will be doing something that is excellent just like cheese will go to the top. So when you don\u2019t work excellently , you need to see it is not just an issue at work, you need to see it as a spiritual issue. To be excellent means to work like God. So you must ask yourself, I am a follower of Jesus. Do I follow him in the area of excellence? Do I work like God? For example, the kind of work you do, does somebody have to repeat it? As a secretary ,your typing speed is may be a hundred words per minute but equals eighty mistakes per minute .Are you at a level where what you do has to be checked by somebody else and the boss cannot take it\u00a0 to the board because he doesn\u2019t want to embarrass himself. Do you know there are other employees e where the boss signs the report without looking. They\u00a0 have given him the confidence so\u00a0 that he feels he is wasting his time checking. He has checked it on the last three years, and he has never found\u00a0 anything to improve. The verse above says what God\u2019s work\u00a0 cannot be improved. If you are not working like that, then I think you need to ask yourself: what\u2019s wrong with me? Do\u00a0 you regularly make\u00a0 careless mistakes?. You do things that clearly show if only you could have been more careful you would have sorted them out. How come shoddy work doesn\u2019t bother you, may be it is a spiritual problem you have. However ,remember you are not doing that so that you get a promotion, you are doing it because you are a Christian. Because you are following the nature of God. What you do, the product endures, it is not shoddy work, it is not shoddy service. However it does not mean that if you are born again you are going to be the one necessarily with the highest IQ in your organization. It is true that Christians are not necessarily the only\u00a0 ones who get A\u2019s. What it means is that as a Christian, given your level of work knowledge and experience , that you will do your very, very best. The one comment a Christian student should\u00a0 never get on his report form is,\u00a0can do better. That\u2019s an insult for a Christian. Because what the teacher is saying is you are lazy . If only you had put more effort you would have done better. Do you know the comment a Christian should get?..good effort . There are people who\u00a0 get just a B and\u00a0 the teacher writes, wonderful, keep it up! Then somebody else gets a B+ and the teacher writes..\u00a0 could do better . Why? Because they are A material getting a B+ because they\u00a0 are not doing your\u00a0 best. Thus ,I am not creating the impression that because you are a Christian you will be the best in the department. What I understand from the scriptures is that you will be doing your very best. You will be trying your very level best. And when they employ you, knowing\u00a0 what you are capable of, they know what level of performance to expect, and you will not disappoint them. They know they cannot give you something higher because your capacity is not that high. All they want is that\u00a0 you are doing your very, very best? Your best is not to be compared to somebody else best . I like using the example in the book of Revelation which is talking about the church. God\u00a0 says of the church:\u00a0 you are neither cold nor hot. You better be one or the other. This church\u00a0 has three alternatives. Either be\u00a0 hot, lukewarm, or cold. And what does Jesus requires it to become? Hot. But then He says that if you are not hot and he is left with the other two alternative, between lukewarm and cold, what\u00a0 would\u00a0 he rather have? Cold. It sounds very funny because to us lukewarm is better than cold but He is saying you had better either be cold or hot. Not lukewarm. So in his way of measuring, it is hot first, cold second, lukewarm last. What complicates this\u00a0 further is that you are not supposed to measure the temperature\u00a0 by comparing yourself to others. Why ? Hot for water is its boiling point ,a hundred degrees centigrade. Hot for milk must be a lower temaparature, I don\u2019t know what temperature it is but it must be a lower one. Can we assume\u00a0 fifty? Yeah, at fifty milk is already boiling. So when we\u00a0 say, milk is hot, it is only fifty because it is already boiling at fifty. At that time brother water may be\u00a0 at ninety. You know at that time water is a whole forty degrees above sister milk but the Lord is saying :water is lukewarm\u2026. I will spit out of my mouth. At that point brother water is saying: aaah! God compare me with her! But God is not\u00a0 going to compare you because he\u00a0 made milk to boil at fifty and made you as water to boil at a hundred. And if you are not a hundred, what are you? Lukewarm. So lukewarm is not the same in everyone. God created you different. And that\u2019s one of the things that goes wrong with us even spiritually where we are always comparing ourselves with others. But if you are brother water please be aware that even if you are ninety you are still lukewarm. So do not say, but you see God, in all this group who has performed\u00a0 like me? But you are not supposed to have performed\u00a0 like them, you are not them, isn\u2019t it? According to you their performance\u00a0 is very low, according to God ,he says to them as low as they are\u2026. well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into your master\u2019s presence. It sounds quite unfair, isn\u2019t it? When you are\u00a0 much better than others but God knows He created you to be much better than you are performing, He says he will not accept your work. You are not supposed to be professionally comparing yourself with others. It is a waste of time, it is unscriptural. Even in the area of witnessing, you feel like the way you witness is the best in your group and you wonder\u00a0 , what could they do without me. But the question is, whereas it is true you have done a lot of work, God knows you would have done even more. So when He looks at you He says, you are lukewarm. You say, but who in FOCUS can compare to me? But He says, \u2018you could have done more. I created you with capacity to do more. So the people you are laughing at, are people doing very little but\u00a0 I have given them capacity to do just that much. So I will tell them \u2026 enter into your Father\u2019s presence yet they did\u00a0 little compared to you\u2019. So excellence is\u00a0 not assessed by comparing yourself with\u00a0 others. It is\u00a0comparing yourself with yourself, and then seeking to improve continuously. Most of the men of God have been destroyed because\u00a0 of comparing. One should be involved in the area he is called and do his best on that area without wanting to be like another person. For example I have spent the last many years\u00a0 involved in student ministry in addition to my employment . At one point in order to be like others , I also bought land\u00a0 and a cow and started planting potatoes in\u00a0 Nyandarua, the county I came from. Within no time I discovered I am being irresponsible in my farming because\u00a0 when I am invited on weekend by Kenyatta University at the time I am supposed to go to look after potatoes . I would sit and wonder, will I tell Kenyatta University no, just\u00a0 because I want to look after my potatoes? Where is\u00a0 the Lord calling , potatoes or students? I realized there is no way I would\u00a0 go to the potatoes gardening when I have opportunity for ministry. So what happened? I could see I was putting more money in the farm than I was getting out of it. At one time I had cows ,then during one of the February dry weather they died. I discovered this is not the thing I am called to do. There after I planted trees because trees don\u2019t require my involvement yet over time\u00a0 can give a reasonable return. I then can go on\u00a0 preaching and the trees\u00a0 will still grow. It is very important to understand that I am not asking\u00a0 another person to do like me but I also should not copy others. \u00a0 Knowing\u00a0\u00a0 my life\u2019s calling\u00a0 helps me to evaluate various\u00a0 opportunities that come my way and only do what helps me fulfill God\u2019s calling in my life . Initially I thought that I will only be involved with students when I am in my twenties, in my thirties, up to\u00a0 may be my forties , then pull out of youth work to deal with older people. When I was in the university we assumed anybody over forty was so old we wondered what the CU was doing bringing such an old man to minister to us . So I thought by the time I reached forty I would no longer be relevant\u00a0 to university students or high school students. That\u2019s why I was preparing to start using\u00a0 my non employers hours in\u00a0 farming. But I am now around\u00a0 sixty, and yet\u00a0 my diary is as full\u00a0 or more full of speaking engagements\u00a0 to universities , colleges and schools, than it was in my earlier days. This must be God opening the way to fulfill his call on my life. I understand my call is not about growing potatoes and rearing cows. That does not mean that there is something wrong with Christians who spend their weekends looking after cows and potatoes. It is important that each person hears the call of God in his life and does only those activities that help him fulfill his life\u2019s purpose. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are people called and gifted to make money to fulfill some money needs in God\u2019s kingdom. The other day I was mentoring somebody and I said, please don\u2019t look up to me as an example of how to\u00a0 make money. I have a business degree and should\u00a0 know what to do to make money but\u00a0 I have\u00a0 not invested most of my time in it. So if you are looking\u00a0 for somebody who has made\u00a0 money, I am a bad example. I have had many ethical opportunities to make money but I haven\u2019t utilized\u00a0 many of them. When I look at other people who retired in top management in\u00a0 multinational organizations\u00a0 and what they are able to do in retirement, I know I am not a good example to young people who want to hit it rich\u00a0 . But this is a consequence of the decision made earlier in my life\u00a0 that although I still\u00a0 invest in areas that have a high return ,The investment must not require my time. Most of my\u00a0\u00a0 time\u00a0 I use in my speaking ministry that may not have monetary returns. However\u00a0 God has been faithful in giving me enough money to meet my daily needs and live a contented, fulfilled life. I am not bothered by how rich others become. My success will not be measured by comparing me with others. It is by comparing myself with myself, given my calling. How far I have gone in fulfilling my life\u2019s purpose matters .That is also what will matter on the day of judgment. \u00a0 Knowing your purpose in life early helps you to align every area of your life to that purpose. Of course what you hope is that you marry a girl who understands that purpose for her\u00a0 task is to be your helper as Genesis 2 says..to help you fulfill your life\u2019s purpose. You also must know her purpose so that you help her fulfill her life\u2019s purpose . My joy is that I married a girl called Rebecca who understands this and this has helped both of us to realize our potential. But all I am saying is, life\u00a0 is not a matter of comparison, what God has called you to do, stick to it\u00a0 and He will, on judgment day say: well done, good and faithful servant. It is not how you did compared with others. God says, be hot but He doesn\u2019t tell you one\u00a0 temperature because all of us have different boiling points. \u00a0 Day 6 \u00a0 Hebrews6:11We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure Thus\u00a0 working excellently, working like God, is producing products or services that endure, and\u00a0 that cannot be improved . In other words,\u00a0 services at the best and as far as you are concerned\u00a0not improvable, if that is good English. This is what you need to ask yourself. Do you produce a product or service\u00a0 that could have been better if only you had put more effort? Then there is something wrong with you. You are supposed to produce\u00a0 something which\u00a0 even if you repeated the process, it could not be\u00a0 better, with your current level of competence. That\u2019s what you need to commit yourself to. You need to ask yourself, when\u00a0 your boss, your employer or your customer looks at what you are doing, does he really think there is something you could have done better? One of the reasons why this is so important is that when you give an excellent service to clients, it becomes the opening for evangelism because immediately they see you as an excellent\u00a0 kind of a person, they want to know who you really\u00a0 are. They also open up, they want to talk to you more than just do business with you. I have realized if they know you are mediocre, someone who does things in a mediocre way, and then you tell them, why don\u2019t you become a Christian\u00a0 like me,they will just laugh and answer, become mediocre like you? Thus , one of the reasons why it is so important to be excellent in the work you do is because your message as Christ\u2019s witness will be hindered if you don\u2019t do excellent work. One of the best ways of witnessing is by how you work. For example if you are a teacher, and you are the one who doesn\u2019t mark pupil\u2019s work on time, the student will loath you\u00a0 and cannot accept your witness.When all the teachers have returned the work to students , you are the only one not having returned. Then you tell a young man, you should be saved like me. You expect him to get saved? Many Christian teachers\u00a0 say ,\u2019I am doing a wonderful ministry in my school\u2019 because they preach in the fellowship. But you might be\u00a0 the kind of a teacher no student wants to emulate. Can you see you are hindering ministry? It doesn\u2019t matter how much you keep testifying, telling them to get saved. They will respectfully listen to you while you are there but after you go they really laugh about it. But if you are the best chemistry teacher ,and every student wants to be like you, what happens? They seek you as a mentor. Those of you who have gone through catholic schools, the biggest impact is from\u00a0 the nuns\u00a0 and brothers who have worked in those schools . Sometimes when it is a government\u00a0 kind of a school that allows protestants children, they don\u2019t actually preach. They just become good teachers. But by form four, several protestants have become catholic. But they didn\u2019t go out of their way to witness to the children at a\u00a0 personal level. Every girl wants to be like sister. Of course when they come to sister, sister tells them to be like me, do the following things\u2026.. . In my consultancy we also do training. When I left Shell I asked myself, in consultancy, what are the opportunities of influencing people with the gospel? First of all you have to quote for business, and that in itself is something new to me. Then you wait until you are allocated the business. You need to do this in a way that becomes a witness for Jesus. Then when you are finally doing the training there, how do you witness since you are being paid per hour? If you start witnessing they will deduct it from the bill. Are you getting the point? You are being paid for the time you spend on the job you have quoted to do. So I wondered how do I do ministry here? I said, God I know how I have done it in\u00a0 Shell but I don\u2019t know how to do it in consultancy. I was wondering when a young man after a workshop\u00a0 came and asked me, \u2018could I see you after the course?\u2019 I said, yes it is okay. Then when we met me he said, \u2018I just wanted you to mentor me\u2019. Mentoring like this\u00a0 is a new word. In our days as youth we never used those words: Would you please mentor me? We would have to know each other first. So I asked him to book an appointment so that we get to know each other . I bought him tea to tell me exactly what he wanted. You know in his own mind, since it was a petroleum course and he hears I was in top management of the then biggest oil company in Kenya, he wanted to know how he can also go up in the oil industry. I told him,\u2019 I never told you the whole story\u00a0 about who are I am.The reason I am who I am is because of whose I am. I am a Christian. What I do is not just as an employment, it is not just about the salary, I do it\u00a0 as unto God. And if you truly want to be like me, to be honest, I have to tell you to\u00a0 belong to the same\u00a0 One. You need to\u00a0 belong to the same one that I belong to\u2019 To my surprise, as we talked like that, by the second meeting he said, yes ,I would like to get saved. I prayed for him. The mentoring continues .Several young professionals have got saved in similar manner when they on their own have approached me after a consultancy in their place. Recently\u00a0 I rang one of them who got saved immediately after I retired and he told me he had now joined a big Pentecostal church where I initially recommended he goes for a new believers class for follow up. In another course where I was a trainer, a young man came to me and similarly said, \u2018I would like you to mentor me\u2019. I said,\u2019 okay we will meet\u2019. We agreed where to meet. The day we were going to meet he rang to say that , another person who was in the workshop also said he would like to come. I said, no, no, no. Let me meet you alone I can meet him separately later. I knew he didn\u2019t know what I was going to do when I met him,and tow would be crowd . I was going to witness to him. Obviously for him he just wants to know how to go up the career ladder and since the other one wanted the same thing and they were friends ,he did not see any problem of them meeting me together . However , I thought if they are two it will bring confusion. So I told him, to tell him that I am also available to meet him on his own. On the actual day he rang, and\u00a0 said, \u2018he asked me whether what we are discussing is confidential, and\u00a0 when I told him it is not confidential, he said he wanted to join me in seeing you. And since it is not confidential why can\u2019t you meet both of us at the same time?\u2019. I reluctantly told him, I didn\u2019t mind. Now, I was in trouble .I realized my strategy might\u00a0 fail. So they came both of them but I still did what I wanted to do, concentrate on trying to preach to this first guy. I was\u00a0 trying to show him that if he really wanted us to go\u00a0 together up his\u00a0 career ladder , it was important if he was \u2018owned\u2019 by the one who \u2018owns\u2019 me. Instead of the one who consulted me first replaying first , the one who was supposed to be disturbing us said he wanted to get saved. Finally\u00a0 both of them got saved. Remember I did not witness during the workshop. I had been paid to talk about petroleum but somehow they formed an opinion that they would like to be like me. By now\u00a0 I can\u00a0 count quite a number\u00a0 of people who have gotten saved since I retired in this way . I have discovered that\u00a0 if you do your job well, that is the first opening for witnessing. If you do it badly, that\u2019s the first blockage to ever witness. Witnessing is not a mouth exercise\u00a0 about Jesus, it is initially simply doing work that can be called excellent. If where you are employed you are not regarded as somebody excellent, you are already a\u00a0 blockage to the flow of the Spirit to that company. Are we together? And that\u2019s the reasons for\u00a0 excellence in your performance. So I don\u2019t know what your area is but I can tell you, you will not be able to do much unless you actually start taking the issue of working as for the Lord so that you work in excellence. \u00a0 Day 7 \u00a0 Col 3 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him \u00a0 However, again ,do not misunderstand me and start thinking I am telling you not to use words to tell\u00a0 people about Jesus, because actions speak louder than words. As people become senior at work, they seem not to talk about Jesus very much. Am I right? Even though they\u00a0 are saved they don\u2019t talk about it except when they go to their church. At work you have to do a PhD on him to discover he is actually born again. So that one day in function in his church you hear him giving a testimony and you say, \u2018haiya! you mean my boss is saved? But at work you can\u2019t tell he is saved\u2019. And what his argument? His argument is , you will know I am a Christian through my actions. Have you heard that kind of an argument .Like I have said elsewhere,not even one person has ever gotten saved because of only good actions. Even after my emphasis on performance, know it is only for\u00a0 opening the door for you to witness. If you say nothing about the Lord, do not ever expect anybody to know the Lord. The best they can do is say, you look like a Christian. Does that bring them to the Lord? It might attract him to go to see a Christian friend if he has one or go to church if there is one but of itself it will not save. . \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The point I want to emphasize so that you don\u2019t miss it, is that if you try to talk without good excellent work, your talk will be interfered with by your bad actions and so no good witnessing will happen.Actions speak louder than words. Why? Because they amplify the words. For example, if you are talking via a mike with an\u00a0 amplifier. If you say nothing, \u2026. Do others\u00a0 hear anything? No . Because if I say nothing it amplifies nothing. If I say something, it amplifies something. So the reason why actions speak louder than words is because actions amplify words. If you say nothing the amplifier will amplify nothing. So it is important that you understand that although my emphasis is on actions, it is not divorced from words. You must have both words and actions. Not just actions ,and not just words. You need both of them. I am saying a professional is one who does his part with excellence or can be regarded an expert, a specialist, a qualified person, a proficient person, a keen person, a trained person, a certified person, a licensed person. Can you be regarded as that in any job you do or you will be regarded as an amateur. An amateur is somebody who is learning. Even if he does it wrong, he is forgiven since not\u00a0 yet a professional. What are you?Are you a professional who works excellently. So if you want to be an effective Christian professional we have said you need to do what is within your calling . I have written a book,\u00a0A Leaders Source Of Influence, that tries to answer the question, how to discover your mission in life. For example you admire preachers and you try to be a preacher but you are not gifted in that area. Will you become excellent? No. And the problem is simply that you are not within your area of call. So one of the things then, if you really want to be excellent in your work, try to work within your area of calling. Your mission and vision statement need to be clear. Just like any organization needs a mission statement, you need a clear mission statement. If you want to look at one not so that you copy but just to see an example go to my website, www.johnnganga.org. I got the website through a young woman who is mentoring me on IT. You know normally it is the older who mentor the younger, but on IT I had to be mentored by somebody who is below thirty. And she kept working on me until I had a website. If you go to my website you will see what my vision and mission statement are. The reason I am able to operate the way I do and even allow loss of\u00a0 financial opportunities is because I enjoy what I am doing whether it give money or not ,for it is the reason I was born. When you invite me to come to speak in a\u00a0 dinner far away from my home , I will cancel even a consultancy, I will cancel my work, because it excites me. I am operating within my mission and vision. So if you continue trying to operate in something so that\u00a0 you get money, but that\u2019s not where you are called, then you will keep frustrating yourself because you will never work to the level of excellence that really God expects you to work in. So it is important to find as early as possible what your mission\u00a0 is. Of course related with that is that, if you are single, it is important for you to notice that for you to really work excellently, it will be good that you marry somebody whose mission and yours don\u2019t contradict each other. I keep telling young people, it is not people who marry, it is their missions. So if her mission and yours are not together, please understand you require my sympathy on the wedding day because there is going to be trouble all the days of your life until death do you part. So it is important to understand that I am very clear myself. I would not be who I am if I never married Rebecca. No way. Not many women would allow me to do what I have done.If Rebecca was not having a similar vision and mission with me, I would have had to slow down. So when some people say, Ng\u2019ang\u2019a I wish I was like you! I say, then marry a Rebecca. It is very important to understand that who you marry can interfere with the possibility of you becoming a man or a woman of excellence. For the married,I am not suggesting those who are married to such people divorce. You are not allowed. And I am not suggesting you kill her. You will be a murderer. It is important to understand, the above suggestion is addressed to the single not to the married . So those of you who are married close your ears. But for you who are single please understand, do not marry a girl because of the size of her nose. Noses don\u2019t matter. It is the inside. Just like one day you will stay in a house in Milimani, having moved from another one in River Road but house will not make you different, isn\u2019t it? So the girl, how she looks is totally irrelevant. It is who is occupying the inside. And you know the body is the tent for the inside person. So if she is beautiful but the girl inside is ugly, please be worried. Find out, what is her or his call in life. For example, if you marry a girl who is talking about getting a green card to settle in America from Africa and yet the Lord is talking about the possibility of you becoming a missionary in Saudi Arabia, please stop the wedding. Within a year, she will be doing the green card\u00a0 rotary, isn\u2019t it? And there will be trouble in your marriage. It is important to understand that if you want to be a girl of excellence, don\u2019t marry because he is driving a Mercedes, marry a boy who can support your mission. And that\u2019s what you need to discuss as you court her or him. Don\u2019t just talk about sweet nothing during courtship, talk about even bitter\u00a0 something\u2019s. If a\u00a0 boy is interested in you, ask him, before we go any further, who are you, what has God called you to do? As soon as you discover he wants to go to Saudi Arabia and you want to get a green card, don\u2019t waste his and your\u00a0 time. Tell him, God bless you as you go to Saudi Arabia. Don\u2019t allow any further discussion. So it is important that you understand that who you marry is\u00a0 a very critical thing if you are going to be somebody of excellence. I don\u2019t see how you will you operate at your best if you are not operating within the area you feel God has called you to. Secondly , you must operate within the message of\u00a0 Colossians 3:17, where we learn that\u00a0whatever you do, you do it as unto the Lord. Whatever means whatever, isn\u2019t it? It means that whatever the task is, you must see it as working for God. I can tell you, if you work for your mother, sometimes it will frustrate you because you expect to be please but she is not. She is already comparing you with somebody else. She says, okay you have done well , it is true you have a PhD but are we going to eat your PhD? You, you expected your mother to be excited that you got a PhD. So and so has no degree but has built a house for his mother. So please don\u2019t work in order to impress human beings. Work to please\u00a0 the Lord. Not even your boss. You worked very\u00a0 hard but then he promoted the lazy one. Have you heard things like that? So if you work to please such , you will be in trouble. Thus\u00a0 if you want to be somebody who has excellence, you must remove the issue of working for a human being. Then you must have God as the one you seek to please . I only worked for two employers: A development bank and Shell. However I did very many different jobs. For about six, seven years, I worked in the regional office covering about ten countries from Madagascar, Mauritius, to Djibouti, Ethiopia.\u00a0\u00a0 So it is true I did many jobs. I want to tell you it therefore means I know may types\u00a0 of frustration: an Ethiopian type of frustration, a Madagascarn type of frustration, I know about all of them. But the important thing, the thing1 that allowed me to continue was the fact that I never did just to please\u00a0 bosses , I did it for the Lord. And because I did for the Lord, when it is the lords time even if someone wants to block it ,once in a while they would say, eeh, we want to promote you. That happens at times\u00a0 , but that\u2019s not what I am working\u00a0 for. I am working\u00a0 to honour God. Chances are ,even when they don\u2019t want to promote you, sometimes even if they don\u2019t like you they have no alternative than to promote you. Are you getting the point? So even that will come but that\u2019s not your aim. So I am saying if you want to be a man of excellence it will be important that you actually work in such a way that you work as unto God. \u00a0 Conclusion \u00a0 We saw that competence also matters . If you want to be an accounting professional then you must pass all the CPAs.But ven those who have not finished their CPA I am regarding as professional. I am talking about anybody who is employed in order to give\u00a0 a service. That you earn your daily bread by selling a service. That\u2019s your professional area. Now, may be the registration engineers have not registered you yet but to me you are a Christian professional, if\u00a0 you are paid for giving\u00a0 a service. If you are a teacher, you are a professional because you are paid for teaching, isn\u2019t it? You are an engineer you are a professional because you are paid for engineering service . You are an architect, you are a professional because you are paid for designing what is changing the face of the earth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Ng'ang'a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-10-26T04:36:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"johnad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"johnad\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"johnad\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/60d2ddd8c3ee6ab5a4a456022a7c540b\"},\"headline\":\"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment?\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-10-26T04:36:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":14,\"commentCount\":0,\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/webfocuskenya.com\\\/jnnn\\\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\\\/\",\"name\":\"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment? 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- John Ng'ang'a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment? - John Ng'ang'a","og_description":"J. N. N. Ng\u2019ang\u2019a \u2013 Meditations for\u00a0 9-15TH Jan 2012 \u2026 what keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment ? \u00a0 DAY 1 Ezekiel37:23They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God \u00a0 Christain life is more of marathon than 100 meter dash.we must serve god not just when we are young but all the days of our ;life What I believe is my secret for remaining involved in Christian work all these years\u00a0 is as seen above ,remaining connected to the Christian fellowships. Look for the fellowship even if with your juniors who are Christians. \u00a0 Secondly, in order to remain fresh in God\u2019s service as a professional, you need to be aware that\u00a0 you will never get so senior that the devil will\u00a0 stop tempting\u00a0 you to sin. There is a song that was popular in the seventies, which\u00a0 used to say,\u00a0I have gone too far to look back again. I think it is no longer a top ten but in the seventies it was in the top ten. It was sung by a group that used to be called, the\u00a0Explosion Choir. I have gone too far to look back again, is\u00a0 trying to imply you can get so saved, there is no way of backsliding. Later I realized how unbiblical it was. It is not in the scriptures. You will never be too far to look back. A Christian professional must\u00a0 be wary of the arrival mentality that makes it easy for the devil to pull him into sin But who is a Christian professional ? . It is a person who is working excellently but he \u00a0also works as \u00a0for God. Additionally he will be distinguished from others not only by the very fact his performance is excellent but also he verbally shares his beliefs . In order to pursue excellence, it will be important that you do it for God and\u00a0 \u00a0with God. Realizing that God is a God of excellence ,you want to copy him, not to copy human beings. We\u00a0 said there will be many challenges along the way but each one of the challenge will be met with God\u2019s help. When you don\u2019t work for human crowd, you are not discouragable, if that is English? You have something from within that keeps you encouraged , passionate and motivated. You have God. Let us go into some detail on this \u00a0 \u00a0 Day 2 Matthew 5:22 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother[a] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, \u2018Raca,[b]\u2019 is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, \u2018You fool!\u2019 will be in danger of the fire of hell. \u00a0 To remain fresh spiritually, we must hate and avoid sin\u2026any similitude of sin .We must know that the God we serve not only hates sin but has prepared hell for those who refuse to repent of sin.Because he loves , he has sent Jesus to die for our sins but because he is holy and just, he must punish sin. We saw earlier that\u2026. both of employer and employee \u00a0will\u00a0end in\u00a0\u00a0 hell for \u00a0not serving God, employer \u00a0for not paying, employee for not working well.\" Yes, the bibles tells us anyone who lives in \u00a0sin will end\u00a0 up in hell . I am aware there is theological position that: once saved always saved\u2019 but\u00a0if this means that once you accept the lord as your savour , you will still go to heaven even if you live a sinful life,\u00a0I do not see it backed by the bible. Let us see what the bibles says about a Christian and sin. \u00a0 1 john 2 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us Here the bible talks of people who backslide but they did so because they were never really Christians all the while although they belonged to the church . ..so\u00a0 how do you know whether you are His and therefore going to heaven or are you going to heaven just because you claim you are saved? \u2026 Read 1 john 2 on this \u00a0 3 We know that we have come to know him\u00a0if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, \u201cI know him,\u201d\u00a0but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But\u00a0if anyone obeys his word, God\u2019s love[b] is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:\u00a06 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. \u00a0 \u00a0 However God is forgiving God so, once the bad employer accepts it is sin to underpay or fail to pay his worker or employee admits it is sinful to fail to work diligently, then he is forgiven. All of us sin but the issue is if you are Christian you are made \u00a0sensitive to sin by the Holy spirit in you, and hence regret it and repent .In the end the people who go to hell are those who did not repent since even those who go to heaven will have sinned also but repented 1 john 1: \u00a0 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.\u00a09 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.\u00a010 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives If a professional or employer \u00a0thinks it is just a small matter that cannot take him to hell then he will not repent and then above \u00a01john 2:4 verse will apply \u00a0 Day 3 1 Kings 11:4As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been \u00a0 Even when you are a man after God\u2019s heart like David .. you need to warch out so that you do not fall into temptation . Those of you who have read my book,\u00a0Leadership King David\u2019s Style, will know\u00a0 David really impresses me. You will notice in my book,\u00a0 I argue that\u00a0 the reason why David finally backslade, was self confidence. If you go to the bible book of Second Samuel, in the beginning david has\u00a0 good life, but somewhere in the middle of his story ,he starts going downhill. Why, what happened? \u00a0 Three things brought king David\u00a0 down. What is the first one? Success. \u00a0 Failed to Handle success carefully \u00a0 He succeeded in\u00a0 getting to expand the kingdom of Israel to the extent it could not be recognized with the former borders. He was very\u00a0 successful, in fact he killed so many enemies, captured so many others that God told him he could not\u00a0 build His temple. By the middle of the book of Samuel he must have wondered: surely what is remaining, what are other borders to conquer?. At that point, the Bible says, it\u00a0 was a season for expansion, season for enlarging the borders of Israel. But\u00a0 he must have\u00a0 felt :surely, I am already so successful..why go to war! He sent the army without him. That was the first problem that brought David down; to feel he has gone too far to look back. At the time you are supposed to be expanding your spiritual borders\u00a0 you say but God where to? What haven\u2019t I done for you Lord? The day you reach that level, please understand it may\u00a0 not be the end but the beginning of your spiritual\u00a0 end. It is important to get in your mind that you never go too far to look back. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That even after you have been in the Lord for a long time, the devil can\u00a0 still\u00a0 get you. And that\u2019s one of the things that David actually missed. The end is only when you overcome at death or when Jesus comes. If you are not on the offensive the devil will put you on the defensive. If you do not go for him , he will come for you .If at work, you are not looking for ways to get others to know Jesus, they will get you to leave him David was trying to retire when he still had strength and hence ended feeling idle. Have you heard of people who say they want to be so successful that they retire at forty?. Of course it has come from a book which is very popular in churches and yet it is totally un-theological. It has no biblical basis yet it\u00a0 is very popular with parents who want to motivate their children.. But just look at its philosophy\u00a0 and look at the bible.\u00a0 The bible does not have examples of retirement at all. Just go through the whole bible. Moses worked until he died, Samuel worked until he died , Jacob worked until he died. They\u00a0 never, ever retired. And when David tried to retire early, he ended up not only becoming an adulterer, he became also a murderer. You know what I am talking about? So that idea that you are going to reach a time you are so successful, you don\u2019t require to work anymore\u00a0 is the way to lose your way to heaven. Of course you can stop working for pay and start working just fulfill your call. We do not work just to make money. But we will work until we die. Of course as we become older there are\u00a0 tasks we cannot do but there will be others we still can do. Of course you are going to argue, but you yourself\u00a0 are retired. It is true I retired from Shell. But for me it is like a transporter giving his vehicle new tyres. That\u2019s when I got an opportunity to get new\u00a0tyres. So I am nowre-tyred. I have new tyres. And when you fit\u00a0 new set of tyres for your lorry, it is so that\u00a0 it\u00a0 goes for a longer journey. It gave me an opportunity to change from being employed to self-employment.\u00a0 By the time of writing this, I have been actually busier after the day I left Shell. As an\u00a0 example: I began my business consultancy, also\u00a0\u00a0 I am able to speak to groups during office hours whose invitation I used to reject. I now have a website\u00a0 with reasonably big following who follow my daily meditations. I write books. I have done an MA in leadership. I had told myself, the day I retire I will be able to write\u00a0 books in shorter periods .Unfortunately, there is a book I have been writing now for the last three\u00a0 years. I am so busy that I am not able to writer it as fast as I had hoped. So if I had idea of retirement as resting ,the Lord has taught me it is actually a\u00a0 busy time. So you need to kill that idea of resting from the age of forty and leaving the money you got by age forty to work for you. Good financial investment must be encouraged but that will not be excuse for you to be idle. Someone said that\u00a0idle hands are the devils workshop. However if you change your job at forty, that\u2019s ok, but be busy fulfilling the mission for which you were born until your budy cannot allow you to do it anymore. Like\u00a0 David ,feeling you are too successful to fall ,or too rich to need to be busy, or just being idle will be your spiritual undoing . Of course you can also be busy doing the wrong thing. You must seek the lord on what your should be busy doing. \u00a0 Day 4\u00a0\u00a0 . 2 Samuel 11 David and Bathsheba 1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king\u2019s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. \u00a0 Have a good reason to do the job you do \u00a0 The other reason why great King David fell,is because he lacked motivation to continue with war of expansion. The other day a micro finance organization gave my consultancy firm\u00a0\u00a0 a chance, to go throughout the country talking to the staff about why we all work. It was\u00a0 a way of motivating staff to higher performance. I told them that\u00a0 you don\u2019t work just to earn a salary, you work because you are created to work. And they said, aai do you mean it? I referred\u00a0 them,\u00a0 to the book of Genesis. A lot of us believe we work as a curse. And even in the church it is taught we work as a result of a curse. That\u2019s why we are looking forward to Jesus\u2019 coming so that we stop working. But this view is because you haven\u2019t read the bible. Just go to the book of Genesis. In Genesis 2 man has not\u00a0 fallen yet.\u00a0 In chapter two verse fifteen\u00a0 we are told, he was\u00a0 put in the garden to do what? To work. Then in chapter three Adam\u00a0 fell. So before the fall, what were they doing? Working. But you know, we used to sing, a song about the joy of going back to Eden, meaning if you went\u00a0 back to Eden you will stop working. It is simply wrong .Man worked even before the fall.\u00a0 God\u00a0 created us to work. Genesis\u00a0 1:1says , in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then a little later He created us in his own image. What is his image? A creator, a worker. So how are you expecting to stop working if you are created in the image of a worker? And Jesus said, I work and my Father works. So that the idea that you are going to reach a time when you have enough money and so\u00a0 you stop working,\u00a0 is a fallen\u00a0 man, unbiblical idea and many of us have fallen into it. Work is not a curse. Every time you appear at work you wonder , oh God another cursed day, why did it have to be this? Now, what you don\u2019t know is that, even in heaven we shall be working. When read about\u00a0 the twenty four elders in Revelation , what are they doing? Going\u00a0 Up and down in worship , that is their work. So that the idea of idleness in heaven\u00a0 is simply not biblical. Realizing that work is not a curse will help you live an active Christian life in all areas . You should\u00a0 not have \u2018 arrival mentality\u2019 where you feel that now you have reached the\u00a0 seniority you had hoped for .So what else can motivate you? That thinking\u00a0 is a killer to motivation and encourages idle time that is the devils workshop. Be aware that as a Christian professional you are going to work as you serve God and man until you die. The retirement day is\u00a0 the death day. So if you say, oh God I want to retire, you mean that I want to die because the only way of retiring is to die. But change of type of work might\u00a0 happen many times in your life time. For example, there are tasks\u00a0 you used to do\u00a0 that you need to change and do others as you grow older .I might not run,but it doesn\u2019t mean that I can\u2019t do something else. It is only that running is not the type of job I will do. So what changes is the type of work you do, but you must always work. And if you actually don\u2019t work you will soon be dead. I think it is Dr. Gatere the Kenyan psychiatrist whom I heard talking in radio saying\u00a0 that in Kenya people retire at fifty five, and then many\u00a0 of them are dead a few years later. For some three years is all they require to be dead. Why do they die? You see, what keeps you alive is the desire to wake up and do something. So when you retire and you used to be a manager in Nairobi, you join your wife in the rural home , you might become idle. Then you go to the village market , nobody knows you and yet in the office you used to be called boss. What happens? Within no time you feel unimportant, frustrated and you could\u00a0 be dead within three years. Now, what will keep you alive is if you do something that has meaning, something you feel you are confident in\u00a0 doing. And why is that necessary? Because we are created by a creator so that we are\u00a0 creators by nature . Work is not a burden, it is not a duty, it is an opportunity to create. Obviously if you are reading this\u00a0 and the job you are doing is destroying, you need to rethink. That cannot be what God called you to do. God created us to create. So you need to ask yourself, why do you do the job you do? What does it contribute to human kind? If you are destroying (for example, you are involved in selling drugs or cigarettes and creating addiction and cancer), you need to ask yourself, is that useful, is it creative or destructive? We are not created to destroy, we are created in order to create. But in as long as you are doing something you feel contributes to society it keeps you motivated. You have heard of\u00a0 Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs,? You seek to reach a level of self-actualization. And that self-actualization is where you don\u2019t work for money, you work to contribute to human kind. And that\u2019s where everybody wants to reach, isn\u2019t it? And that\u2019s really what will help you to keep alive . So it is important that you reach to that level where you do not behave like David who\u00a0 felt he had\u00a0 arrived. You need to be\u00a0 somebody who feels there is something important\u00a0 to do. Human needs are perpetual, and hence your contribution to human solutions will always be welcome. \u00a0 Day 5 Ecclesiastes 3:14, 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. \u00a0 \u00a0 A Christian professional , must be an excellent professional\u00a0 for Work that satisfies is work with excellent results \u00a0 You\u00a0 work because you feel God has called you to actually contribute to society . If you are working as a call from God you cannot do shoddy work for him. But what is excellence?\u00a0Excellence is a quality which is unusually good and so surpasses ordinary standards. So when you say that your work is excellent work, it means that it is so good that\u00a0 it surpasses ordinary standards. If I ask you to jump and you jump a height that a normal human being can jump, we just say that is good. But if you do better than the average human being we say that is excellent. So excellence is something that is beyond the normal standard. For example in management we talk about operational excellence as a\u00a0\u00a0 philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization. That is what is called operational excellence, where you are continuously improving, When you hear a company is ISO9000 certified, one of the requirements is that it commits itself to continuous improvement. ISO certification\u00a0 seemed to imply that company produces the best\u00a0 products in the industry , but that is not ISO9000 claim. ISO9000 does not say that your product is the best in your industry. It only says that the quality it is consistent. When I promise to give you a\u00a0 product, it will be produced\u00a0\u00a0 the same way consistently. It will never be worse than it is the first time you test it, but it could be better. At least what I promised you, you will always get. Because ISO90000 requires that you have procedures and you follow those procedures , you can be sure the product which was produced in January is similar to the one produced in June. It doesn\u2019t mean the product is better, it means the product is consistent. However, there is\u00a0 a commitment that even if it is not the best\u00a0 product in industry you will keep improving it continuously . A company that is not ISO9000\u00a0 certified may actually be producing better products but they might not be\u00a0 consistent. One that is ISO9000 certified at least promises you ,if you find it\u00a0 good it will be consistently good. So when we talk about excellent professionals ,we are talking about professionals who have given themselves to offer work that is above the normal standards, and in addition to that to commit themselves to continuous improvement to meet the needs of your customer or client . Also you are always,\u00a0 focusing on the needs of the customer or client. In other words it is not you saying the thing is good, it is actually the customer who says\u00a0 what you are doing is good. Whatever you produce must always be good. Excellence should not\u00a0 be measured by you. If you say something you have made is good, it doesn\u2019t make it good. After all Kikuyus say,the people who don\u2019t go around say their mother is the best cook. And you can\u2019t blame them, they might never have\u00a0 had another type of food. So you need to understand that if you are talking about being excellent, you must give other people opportunity to give you feedback on your work. In management we call it measuring \u2018customer satisfaction index\u2019. It means that you allow an independent party to research among your customers what they feel about your service or\u00a0 product. So professional excellence, requires that you are going to operate above the standard, number two, you are committed to continuous improvement, and number three you are committed to hearing what the receivers of your service or product have to say, feedback. So if you don\u2019t care what clients\u00a0 say, then you are not committed to excellence because excellence has to be measured by receiver of the service. As an employer\u00a0 you must be\u00a0 committed to empowering your team, your employees. You are committed to helping them to keep doing\u00a0 better and optimizing the activities so that\u00a0 the organization achieves the excellence we are talking about. We are talking about professional excellence but you\u00a0 need to be aware\u00a0 how God defines excellence in Ecclesiastes 3:14 . The first thing is, if you are a person committed to professional excellence, it is not that some of the things you do will be good and others bad , all things that you do are going to be excellent. The verse also says that your product will not be\u00a0\u00a0 only excellent , it will also endure. Are you getting the point? If it is made by somebody excellent, it is so good that you cannot improve on it. Let me just spend a bit of time looking at this. When I first read this verse\u00a0 I said what! If that\u2019s the nature of those who are excellent it is very difficult for anybody to call themselves excellent. But remember the bible also\u00a0\u00a0 tells us to be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.. Thus if you are truly\u00a0 born again the way to show you are born again is that the job you do will be an excellent job. And you will not be doing it in order to just\u00a0 get a salary or a\u00a0 promotion, but it is\u00a0 your way of life. I heard somebody explaining about the characteristic of cheese. That if\u00a0 it mixes with the liquid water, what happens to cheese? It comes up to the top. Now, and you can\u2019t do anything to change this . Immediately you put cheese in the water, it will always come to the top. Don\u2019t congratulate it. It has no alternative than to come to the top. That is its nature. It is the issue of density. So it always floats on top. What we are saying is, a Christian nature of working needs to be the nature of excellence. You should\u00a0 work excellently, naturally. That\u2019s what you do, that\u2019s your nature. So that you don\u2019t expect anybody to congratulate you foe it . We\u00a0 need to come to where Christian professionals are excellent by nature so that you don\u2019t require anybody to supervise you or motivate you to be excellent. One of the things that is bad is the fact that a lot of us will do better under supervision. If you actually do better under supervision, chances are you have a problem spiritually and not just at your place of work. If you truly start understanding that your nature is a nature of excellence, then whether the boss is there, or the boss is not there you will be doing something that is excellent just like cheese will go to the top. So when you don\u2019t work excellently , you need to see it is not just an issue at work, you need to see it as a spiritual issue. To be excellent means to work like God. So you must ask yourself, I am a follower of Jesus. Do I follow him in the area of excellence? Do I work like God? For example, the kind of work you do, does somebody have to repeat it? As a secretary ,your typing speed is may be a hundred words per minute but equals eighty mistakes per minute .Are you at a level where what you do has to be checked by somebody else and the boss cannot take it\u00a0 to the board because he doesn\u2019t want to embarrass himself. Do you know there are other employees e where the boss signs the report without looking. They\u00a0 have given him the confidence so\u00a0 that he feels he is wasting his time checking. He has checked it on the last three years, and he has never found\u00a0 anything to improve. The verse above says what God\u2019s work\u00a0 cannot be improved. If you are not working like that, then I think you need to ask yourself: what\u2019s wrong with me? Do\u00a0 you regularly make\u00a0 careless mistakes?. You do things that clearly show if only you could have been more careful you would have sorted them out. How come shoddy work doesn\u2019t bother you, may be it is a spiritual problem you have. However ,remember you are not doing that so that you get a promotion, you are doing it because you are a Christian. Because you are following the nature of God. What you do, the product endures, it is not shoddy work, it is not shoddy service. However it does not mean that if you are born again you are going to be the one necessarily with the highest IQ in your organization. It is true that Christians are not necessarily the only\u00a0 ones who get A\u2019s. What it means is that as a Christian, given your level of work knowledge and experience , that you will do your very, very best. The one comment a Christian student should\u00a0 never get on his report form is,\u00a0can do better. That\u2019s an insult for a Christian. Because what the teacher is saying is you are lazy . If only you had put more effort you would have done better. Do you know the comment a Christian should get?..good effort . There are people who\u00a0 get just a B and\u00a0 the teacher writes, wonderful, keep it up! Then somebody else gets a B+ and the teacher writes..\u00a0 could do better . Why? Because they are A material getting a B+ because they\u00a0 are not doing your\u00a0 best. Thus ,I am not creating the impression that because you are a Christian you will be the best in the department. What I understand from the scriptures is that you will be doing your very best. You will be trying your very level best. And when they employ you, knowing\u00a0 what you are capable of, they know what level of performance to expect, and you will not disappoint them. They know they cannot give you something higher because your capacity is not that high. All they want is that\u00a0 you are doing your very, very best? Your best is not to be compared to somebody else best . I like using the example in the book of Revelation which is talking about the church. God\u00a0 says of the church:\u00a0 you are neither cold nor hot. You better be one or the other. This church\u00a0 has three alternatives. Either be\u00a0 hot, lukewarm, or cold. And what does Jesus requires it to become? Hot. But then He says that if you are not hot and he is left with the other two alternative, between lukewarm and cold, what\u00a0 would\u00a0 he rather have? Cold. It sounds very funny because to us lukewarm is better than cold but He is saying you had better either be cold or hot. Not lukewarm. So in his way of measuring, it is hot first, cold second, lukewarm last. What complicates this\u00a0 further is that you are not supposed to measure the temperature\u00a0 by comparing yourself to others. Why ? Hot for water is its boiling point ,a hundred degrees centigrade. Hot for milk must be a lower temaparature, I don\u2019t know what temperature it is but it must be a lower one. Can we assume\u00a0 fifty? Yeah, at fifty milk is already boiling. So when we\u00a0 say, milk is hot, it is only fifty because it is already boiling at fifty. At that time brother water may be\u00a0 at ninety. You know at that time water is a whole forty degrees above sister milk but the Lord is saying :water is lukewarm\u2026. I will spit out of my mouth. At that point brother water is saying: aaah! God compare me with her! But God is not\u00a0 going to compare you because he\u00a0 made milk to boil at fifty and made you as water to boil at a hundred. And if you are not a hundred, what are you? Lukewarm. So lukewarm is not the same in everyone. God created you different. And that\u2019s one of the things that goes wrong with us even spiritually where we are always comparing ourselves with others. But if you are brother water please be aware that even if you are ninety you are still lukewarm. So do not say, but you see God, in all this group who has performed\u00a0 like me? But you are not supposed to have performed\u00a0 like them, you are not them, isn\u2019t it? According to you their performance\u00a0 is very low, according to God ,he says to them as low as they are\u2026. well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into your master\u2019s presence. It sounds quite unfair, isn\u2019t it? When you are\u00a0 much better than others but God knows He created you to be much better than you are performing, He says he will not accept your work. You are not supposed to be professionally comparing yourself with others. It is a waste of time, it is unscriptural. Even in the area of witnessing, you feel like the way you witness is the best in your group and you wonder\u00a0 , what could they do without me. But the question is, whereas it is true you have done a lot of work, God knows you would have done even more. So when He looks at you He says, you are lukewarm. You say, but who in FOCUS can compare to me? But He says, \u2018you could have done more. I created you with capacity to do more. So the people you are laughing at, are people doing very little but\u00a0 I have given them capacity to do just that much. So I will tell them \u2026 enter into your Father\u2019s presence yet they did\u00a0 little compared to you\u2019. So excellence is\u00a0 not assessed by comparing yourself with\u00a0 others. It is\u00a0comparing yourself with yourself, and then seeking to improve continuously. Most of the men of God have been destroyed because\u00a0 of comparing. One should be involved in the area he is called and do his best on that area without wanting to be like another person. For example I have spent the last many years\u00a0 involved in student ministry in addition to my employment . At one point in order to be like others , I also bought land\u00a0 and a cow and started planting potatoes in\u00a0 Nyandarua, the county I came from. Within no time I discovered I am being irresponsible in my farming because\u00a0 when I am invited on weekend by Kenyatta University at the time I am supposed to go to look after potatoes . I would sit and wonder, will I tell Kenyatta University no, just\u00a0 because I want to look after my potatoes? Where is\u00a0 the Lord calling , potatoes or students? I realized there is no way I would\u00a0 go to the potatoes gardening when I have opportunity for ministry. So what happened? I could see I was putting more money in the farm than I was getting out of it. At one time I had cows ,then during one of the February dry weather they died. I discovered this is not the thing I am called to do. There after I planted trees because trees don\u2019t require my involvement yet over time\u00a0 can give a reasonable return. I then can go on\u00a0 preaching and the trees\u00a0 will still grow. It is very important to understand that I am not asking\u00a0 another person to do like me but I also should not copy others. \u00a0 Knowing\u00a0\u00a0 my life\u2019s calling\u00a0 helps me to evaluate various\u00a0 opportunities that come my way and only do what helps me fulfill God\u2019s calling in my life . Initially I thought that I will only be involved with students when I am in my twenties, in my thirties, up to\u00a0 may be my forties , then pull out of youth work to deal with older people. When I was in the university we assumed anybody over forty was so old we wondered what the CU was doing bringing such an old man to minister to us . So I thought by the time I reached forty I would no longer be relevant\u00a0 to university students or high school students. That\u2019s why I was preparing to start using\u00a0 my non employers hours in\u00a0 farming. But I am now around\u00a0 sixty, and yet\u00a0 my diary is as full\u00a0 or more full of speaking engagements\u00a0 to universities , colleges and schools, than it was in my earlier days. This must be God opening the way to fulfill his call on my life. I understand my call is not about growing potatoes and rearing cows. That does not mean that there is something wrong with Christians who spend their weekends looking after cows and potatoes. It is important that each person hears the call of God in his life and does only those activities that help him fulfill his life\u2019s purpose. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are people called and gifted to make money to fulfill some money needs in God\u2019s kingdom. The other day I was mentoring somebody and I said, please don\u2019t look up to me as an example of how to\u00a0 make money. I have a business degree and should\u00a0 know what to do to make money but\u00a0 I have\u00a0 not invested most of my time in it. So if you are looking\u00a0 for somebody who has made\u00a0 money, I am a bad example. I have had many ethical opportunities to make money but I haven\u2019t utilized\u00a0 many of them. When I look at other people who retired in top management in\u00a0 multinational organizations\u00a0 and what they are able to do in retirement, I know I am not a good example to young people who want to hit it rich\u00a0 . But this is a consequence of the decision made earlier in my life\u00a0 that although I still\u00a0 invest in areas that have a high return ,The investment must not require my time. Most of my\u00a0\u00a0 time\u00a0 I use in my speaking ministry that may not have monetary returns. However\u00a0 God has been faithful in giving me enough money to meet my daily needs and live a contented, fulfilled life. I am not bothered by how rich others become. My success will not be measured by comparing me with others. It is by comparing myself with myself, given my calling. How far I have gone in fulfilling my life\u2019s purpose matters .That is also what will matter on the day of judgment. \u00a0 Knowing your purpose in life early helps you to align every area of your life to that purpose. Of course what you hope is that you marry a girl who understands that purpose for her\u00a0 task is to be your helper as Genesis 2 says..to help you fulfill your life\u2019s purpose. You also must know her purpose so that you help her fulfill her life\u2019s purpose . My joy is that I married a girl called Rebecca who understands this and this has helped both of us to realize our potential. But all I am saying is, life\u00a0 is not a matter of comparison, what God has called you to do, stick to it\u00a0 and He will, on judgment day say: well done, good and faithful servant. It is not how you did compared with others. God says, be hot but He doesn\u2019t tell you one\u00a0 temperature because all of us have different boiling points. \u00a0 Day 6 \u00a0 Hebrews6:11We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure Thus\u00a0 working excellently, working like God, is producing products or services that endure, and\u00a0 that cannot be improved . In other words,\u00a0 services at the best and as far as you are concerned\u00a0not improvable, if that is good English. This is what you need to ask yourself. Do you produce a product or service\u00a0 that could have been better if only you had put more effort? Then there is something wrong with you. You are supposed to produce\u00a0 something which\u00a0 even if you repeated the process, it could not be\u00a0 better, with your current level of competence. That\u2019s what you need to commit yourself to. You need to ask yourself, when\u00a0 your boss, your employer or your customer looks at what you are doing, does he really think there is something you could have done better? One of the reasons why this is so important is that when you give an excellent service to clients, it becomes the opening for evangelism because immediately they see you as an excellent\u00a0 kind of a person, they want to know who you really\u00a0 are. They also open up, they want to talk to you more than just do business with you. I have realized if they know you are mediocre, someone who does things in a mediocre way, and then you tell them, why don\u2019t you become a Christian\u00a0 like me,they will just laugh and answer, become mediocre like you? Thus , one of the reasons why it is so important to be excellent in the work you do is because your message as Christ\u2019s witness will be hindered if you don\u2019t do excellent work. One of the best ways of witnessing is by how you work. For example if you are a teacher, and you are the one who doesn\u2019t mark pupil\u2019s work on time, the student will loath you\u00a0 and cannot accept your witness.When all the teachers have returned the work to students , you are the only one not having returned. Then you tell a young man, you should be saved like me. You expect him to get saved? Many Christian teachers\u00a0 say ,\u2019I am doing a wonderful ministry in my school\u2019 because they preach in the fellowship. But you might be\u00a0 the kind of a teacher no student wants to emulate. Can you see you are hindering ministry? It doesn\u2019t matter how much you keep testifying, telling them to get saved. They will respectfully listen to you while you are there but after you go they really laugh about it. But if you are the best chemistry teacher ,and every student wants to be like you, what happens? They seek you as a mentor. Those of you who have gone through catholic schools, the biggest impact is from\u00a0 the nuns\u00a0 and brothers who have worked in those schools . Sometimes when it is a government\u00a0 kind of a school that allows protestants children, they don\u2019t actually preach. They just become good teachers. But by form four, several protestants have become catholic. But they didn\u2019t go out of their way to witness to the children at a\u00a0 personal level. Every girl wants to be like sister. Of course when they come to sister, sister tells them to be like me, do the following things\u2026.. . In my consultancy we also do training. When I left Shell I asked myself, in consultancy, what are the opportunities of influencing people with the gospel? First of all you have to quote for business, and that in itself is something new to me. Then you wait until you are allocated the business. You need to do this in a way that becomes a witness for Jesus. Then when you are finally doing the training there, how do you witness since you are being paid per hour? If you start witnessing they will deduct it from the bill. Are you getting the point? You are being paid for the time you spend on the job you have quoted to do. So I wondered how do I do ministry here? I said, God I know how I have done it in\u00a0 Shell but I don\u2019t know how to do it in consultancy. I was wondering when a young man after a workshop\u00a0 came and asked me, \u2018could I see you after the course?\u2019 I said, yes it is okay. Then when we met me he said, \u2018I just wanted you to mentor me\u2019. Mentoring like this\u00a0 is a new word. In our days as youth we never used those words: Would you please mentor me? We would have to know each other first. So I asked him to book an appointment so that we get to know each other . I bought him tea to tell me exactly what he wanted. You know in his own mind, since it was a petroleum course and he hears I was in top management of the then biggest oil company in Kenya, he wanted to know how he can also go up in the oil industry. I told him,\u2019 I never told you the whole story\u00a0 about who are I am.The reason I am who I am is because of whose I am. I am a Christian. What I do is not just as an employment, it is not just about the salary, I do it\u00a0 as unto God. And if you truly want to be like me, to be honest, I have to tell you to\u00a0 belong to the same\u00a0 One. You need to\u00a0 belong to the same one that I belong to\u2019 To my surprise, as we talked like that, by the second meeting he said, yes ,I would like to get saved. I prayed for him. The mentoring continues .Several young professionals have got saved in similar manner when they on their own have approached me after a consultancy in their place. Recently\u00a0 I rang one of them who got saved immediately after I retired and he told me he had now joined a big Pentecostal church where I initially recommended he goes for a new believers class for follow up. In another course where I was a trainer, a young man came to me and similarly said, \u2018I would like you to mentor me\u2019. I said,\u2019 okay we will meet\u2019. We agreed where to meet. The day we were going to meet he rang to say that , another person who was in the workshop also said he would like to come. I said, no, no, no. Let me meet you alone I can meet him separately later. I knew he didn\u2019t know what I was going to do when I met him,and tow would be crowd . I was going to witness to him. Obviously for him he just wants to know how to go up the career ladder and since the other one wanted the same thing and they were friends ,he did not see any problem of them meeting me together . However , I thought if they are two it will bring confusion. So I told him, to tell him that I am also available to meet him on his own. On the actual day he rang, and\u00a0 said, \u2018he asked me whether what we are discussing is confidential, and\u00a0 when I told him it is not confidential, he said he wanted to join me in seeing you. And since it is not confidential why can\u2019t you meet both of us at the same time?\u2019. I reluctantly told him, I didn\u2019t mind. Now, I was in trouble .I realized my strategy might\u00a0 fail. So they came both of them but I still did what I wanted to do, concentrate on trying to preach to this first guy. I was\u00a0 trying to show him that if he really wanted us to go\u00a0 together up his\u00a0 career ladder , it was important if he was \u2018owned\u2019 by the one who \u2018owns\u2019 me. Instead of the one who consulted me first replaying first , the one who was supposed to be disturbing us said he wanted to get saved. Finally\u00a0 both of them got saved. Remember I did not witness during the workshop. I had been paid to talk about petroleum but somehow they formed an opinion that they would like to be like me. By now\u00a0 I can\u00a0 count quite a number\u00a0 of people who have gotten saved since I retired in this way . I have discovered that\u00a0 if you do your job well, that is the first opening for witnessing. If you do it badly, that\u2019s the first blockage to ever witness. Witnessing is not a mouth exercise\u00a0 about Jesus, it is initially simply doing work that can be called excellent. If where you are employed you are not regarded as somebody excellent, you are already a\u00a0 blockage to the flow of the Spirit to that company. Are we together? And that\u2019s the reasons for\u00a0 excellence in your performance. So I don\u2019t know what your area is but I can tell you, you will not be able to do much unless you actually start taking the issue of working as for the Lord so that you work in excellence. \u00a0 Day 7 \u00a0 Col 3 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him \u00a0 However, again ,do not misunderstand me and start thinking I am telling you not to use words to tell\u00a0 people about Jesus, because actions speak louder than words. As people become senior at work, they seem not to talk about Jesus very much. Am I right? Even though they\u00a0 are saved they don\u2019t talk about it except when they go to their church. At work you have to do a PhD on him to discover he is actually born again. So that one day in function in his church you hear him giving a testimony and you say, \u2018haiya! you mean my boss is saved? But at work you can\u2019t tell he is saved\u2019. And what his argument? His argument is , you will know I am a Christian through my actions. Have you heard that kind of an argument .Like I have said elsewhere,not even one person has ever gotten saved because of only good actions. Even after my emphasis on performance, know it is only for\u00a0 opening the door for you to witness. If you say nothing about the Lord, do not ever expect anybody to know the Lord. The best they can do is say, you look like a Christian. Does that bring them to the Lord? It might attract him to go to see a Christian friend if he has one or go to church if there is one but of itself it will not save. . \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The point I want to emphasize so that you don\u2019t miss it, is that if you try to talk without good excellent work, your talk will be interfered with by your bad actions and so no good witnessing will happen.Actions speak louder than words. Why? Because they amplify the words. For example, if you are talking via a mike with an\u00a0 amplifier. If you say nothing, \u2026. Do others\u00a0 hear anything? No . Because if I say nothing it amplifies nothing. If I say something, it amplifies something. So the reason why actions speak louder than words is because actions amplify words. If you say nothing the amplifier will amplify nothing. So it is important that you understand that although my emphasis is on actions, it is not divorced from words. You must have both words and actions. Not just actions ,and not just words. You need both of them. I am saying a professional is one who does his part with excellence or can be regarded an expert, a specialist, a qualified person, a proficient person, a keen person, a trained person, a certified person, a licensed person. Can you be regarded as that in any job you do or you will be regarded as an amateur. An amateur is somebody who is learning. Even if he does it wrong, he is forgiven since not\u00a0 yet a professional. What are you?Are you a professional who works excellently. So if you want to be an effective Christian professional we have said you need to do what is within your calling . I have written a book,\u00a0A Leaders Source Of Influence, that tries to answer the question, how to discover your mission in life. For example you admire preachers and you try to be a preacher but you are not gifted in that area. Will you become excellent? No. And the problem is simply that you are not within your area of call. So one of the things then, if you really want to be excellent in your work, try to work within your area of calling. Your mission and vision statement need to be clear. Just like any organization needs a mission statement, you need a clear mission statement. If you want to look at one not so that you copy but just to see an example go to my website, www.johnnganga.org. I got the website through a young woman who is mentoring me on IT. You know normally it is the older who mentor the younger, but on IT I had to be mentored by somebody who is below thirty. And she kept working on me until I had a website. If you go to my website you will see what my vision and mission statement are. The reason I am able to operate the way I do and even allow loss of\u00a0 financial opportunities is because I enjoy what I am doing whether it give money or not ,for it is the reason I was born. When you invite me to come to speak in a\u00a0 dinner far away from my home , I will cancel even a consultancy, I will cancel my work, because it excites me. I am operating within my mission and vision. So if you continue trying to operate in something so that\u00a0 you get money, but that\u2019s not where you are called, then you will keep frustrating yourself because you will never work to the level of excellence that really God expects you to work in. So it is important to find as early as possible what your mission\u00a0 is. Of course related with that is that, if you are single, it is important for you to notice that for you to really work excellently, it will be good that you marry somebody whose mission and yours don\u2019t contradict each other. I keep telling young people, it is not people who marry, it is their missions. So if her mission and yours are not together, please understand you require my sympathy on the wedding day because there is going to be trouble all the days of your life until death do you part. So it is important to understand that I am very clear myself. I would not be who I am if I never married Rebecca. No way. Not many women would allow me to do what I have done.If Rebecca was not having a similar vision and mission with me, I would have had to slow down. So when some people say, Ng\u2019ang\u2019a I wish I was like you! I say, then marry a Rebecca. It is very important to understand that who you marry can interfere with the possibility of you becoming a man or a woman of excellence. For the married,I am not suggesting those who are married to such people divorce. You are not allowed. And I am not suggesting you kill her. You will be a murderer. It is important to understand, the above suggestion is addressed to the single not to the married . So those of you who are married close your ears. But for you who are single please understand, do not marry a girl because of the size of her nose. Noses don\u2019t matter. It is the inside. Just like one day you will stay in a house in Milimani, having moved from another one in River Road but house will not make you different, isn\u2019t it? So the girl, how she looks is totally irrelevant. It is who is occupying the inside. And you know the body is the tent for the inside person. So if she is beautiful but the girl inside is ugly, please be worried. Find out, what is her or his call in life. For example, if you marry a girl who is talking about getting a green card to settle in America from Africa and yet the Lord is talking about the possibility of you becoming a missionary in Saudi Arabia, please stop the wedding. Within a year, she will be doing the green card\u00a0 rotary, isn\u2019t it? And there will be trouble in your marriage. It is important to understand that if you want to be a girl of excellence, don\u2019t marry because he is driving a Mercedes, marry a boy who can support your mission. And that\u2019s what you need to discuss as you court her or him. Don\u2019t just talk about sweet nothing during courtship, talk about even bitter\u00a0 something\u2019s. If a\u00a0 boy is interested in you, ask him, before we go any further, who are you, what has God called you to do? As soon as you discover he wants to go to Saudi Arabia and you want to get a green card, don\u2019t waste his and your\u00a0 time. Tell him, God bless you as you go to Saudi Arabia. Don\u2019t allow any further discussion. So it is important that you understand that who you marry is\u00a0 a very critical thing if you are going to be somebody of excellence. I don\u2019t see how you will you operate at your best if you are not operating within the area you feel God has called you to. Secondly , you must operate within the message of\u00a0 Colossians 3:17, where we learn that\u00a0whatever you do, you do it as unto the Lord. Whatever means whatever, isn\u2019t it? It means that whatever the task is, you must see it as working for God. I can tell you, if you work for your mother, sometimes it will frustrate you because you expect to be please but she is not. She is already comparing you with somebody else. She says, okay you have done well , it is true you have a PhD but are we going to eat your PhD? You, you expected your mother to be excited that you got a PhD. So and so has no degree but has built a house for his mother. So please don\u2019t work in order to impress human beings. Work to please\u00a0 the Lord. Not even your boss. You worked very\u00a0 hard but then he promoted the lazy one. Have you heard things like that? So if you work to please such , you will be in trouble. Thus\u00a0 if you want to be somebody who has excellence, you must remove the issue of working for a human being. Then you must have God as the one you seek to please . I only worked for two employers: A development bank and Shell. However I did very many different jobs. For about six, seven years, I worked in the regional office covering about ten countries from Madagascar, Mauritius, to Djibouti, Ethiopia.\u00a0\u00a0 So it is true I did many jobs. I want to tell you it therefore means I know may types\u00a0 of frustration: an Ethiopian type of frustration, a Madagascarn type of frustration, I know about all of them. But the important thing, the thing1 that allowed me to continue was the fact that I never did just to please\u00a0 bosses , I did it for the Lord. And because I did for the Lord, when it is the lords time even if someone wants to block it ,once in a while they would say, eeh, we want to promote you. That happens at times\u00a0 , but that\u2019s not what I am working\u00a0 for. I am working\u00a0 to honour God. Chances are ,even when they don\u2019t want to promote you, sometimes even if they don\u2019t like you they have no alternative than to promote you. Are you getting the point? So even that will come but that\u2019s not your aim. So I am saying if you want to be a man of excellence it will be important that you actually work in such a way that you work as unto God. \u00a0 Conclusion \u00a0 We saw that competence also matters . If you want to be an accounting professional then you must pass all the CPAs.But ven those who have not finished their CPA I am regarding as professional. I am talking about anybody who is employed in order to give\u00a0 a service. That you earn your daily bread by selling a service. That\u2019s your professional area. Now, may be the registration engineers have not registered you yet but to me you are a Christian professional, if\u00a0 you are paid for giving\u00a0 a service. If you are a teacher, you are a professional because you are paid for teaching, isn\u2019t it? You are an engineer you are a professional because you are paid for engineering service . You are an architect, you are a professional because you are paid for designing what is changing the face of the earth.","og_url":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/","og_site_name":"John Ng'ang'a","article_published_time":"2016-10-26T04:36:33+00:00","author":"johnad","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"johnad"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/"},"author":{"name":"johnad","@id":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/#\/schema\/person\/60d2ddd8c3ee6ab5a4a456022a7c540b"},"headline":"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment?","datePublished":"2016-10-26T04:36:33+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/"},"wordCount":14,"commentCount":0,"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/","url":"https:\/\/webfocuskenya.com\/jnnn\/january-9-15th-2012-what-keeps-the-christian-professional-spiritually-healthy-in-hostile-working-environment\/","name":"January 9-15th 2012, What keeps the Christian professional spiritually healthy in hostile working environment? 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