The Main Secret of Success - God's Part & Man's Part

The main secret of success is given in Joshua 1:1-9. It started with God taking the initiative again - this time with Joshua after the death of Moses. It also shows God's plan for mankind does not end with the death of a person. His plan continues with the election of a new person to take over. It is easy for God to speak to Joshua as Joshua had been with Moses most of the time when God talked to Moses. Joshua has a relationship and a heart for God. (Exo 33:11, Deu 31:14).

Step#1 Have a Relationship with God through Jesus Christ
The 1st step is to get connected with God. God has taken the initiative of sending His Son Jesus Christ to come to this earth and die for us so that we may get connected back to God the Creator and the Source of Life. It is God who seeks after us to have a relationship with Him.

Step#2 Receive Your Calling from God
God told Joshua about his mission in life - lead His people to inherit the promised land Jos 1:6. Each of us has our calling from God - to impact the world around us for His glory. God may also call us out to another area of influence. But whatever it is, God promised you the support to achieve the mission He has given you. His mission for us is for good success - Jos 1:7,8.

Step#3 Be Assured of God's Support & Promise
God said he would be with us whenever we go to Jos 1:9; He will not fail us for He is ABLE and He will not forsake us for He is WILLING. We are given assurance in John 14:16 - forever with us and Heb 13:5 and 13:6.

Step#4 Arise & Go - Start
The keywords used are "NOW", "ARISE", "GO", "POSSESS the LAND".... simply "JUST DO IT".
God has done His part- calling, empowerment, commission, accompaniment, assurance, and the detailed instructions in the Bible.

Step#5 Follow the Bible
The detailed instructions are given in the BOOK - the BIBLE. Joshua was taught how to read the Bible too

1. Not depart from the Mouth - i.e. speak the word, confess the word.
2. Meditate on it Day and Night. - hiding His Word in our hearts all the time.
3. Follow it Exactly - Take it as the Standards for Living. Not to turn to right or left; Not try to be smarter than the Word. Do not try to take shortcuts. Don't be corrupted by the world's teaching. Stick to the Word and act on it accordingly no matter what even looking foolish to the world.

Step#6 Stayed Connected.
This is implied in meditating on the Word of God day and night. Read, Study, and Talk over the Word with the Holy Spirit as a teacher with the attitude of willingness to obey and execute the Rhema Words received.

Our Part
The secret to success is simply to Know God and Follow Him. God has taken the 1st step in reaching out and telling us how. It is up to us to put it into action and realize the success that God has intended for us.

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Gemini: Additional Thoughts

The text could be enriched by incorporating additional biblical perspectives on success, such as:

• The concept of stewardship (Luke 12:48)
• The importance of character development (Proverbs 22:1)
• The role of adversity in building resilience (Romans 5:3-5)
• The significance of serving others (Matthew 22:37-39)

KP#18 Customers Services & More

The Golden Rule of Customer Service is "Empathy" - Seeing things from Customer's view point and treating them as they would like to be treated. This is the famous Luke 6:31 Do as you wish others would do to you. There are criticisms against this verse - citing it as too self-centered ( I think empathy is implied in the verse) and propose other versions. Here are the summary:

1. The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would others do unto you.
2. The Platinum Rule: Do Unto Others as They Would Have You Do Unto Them.
   (Do they know what is best for themselves?)
3. The Rhodium Rule: Do unto others as Jesus would have us do unto them.
   (Love as Jesus; for their benefits from God's viewpoint. e.g. an alcoholic would like to have more alcohol and that is not good for them).

The Extra-Mile Service
How is a person delighted and thrilled by your service ? By going beyond his expectation. This is the teaching of Mat 5:38-48. When customers complained, don't fight back. Listen to his grievances and see things from his view poins. Could you do more to help solve his problems. Go the extra mile and seize back the initiative. If you think this is the best, let me share with you that you are only reacting to his demand.

The Higher Level Pro-active Service
A higher level of service is able to foresee his needs and when he realize his needs and it was already taken off, he will be trule impressed --- "they think of everything for me!" Mat 6:8 Be not therefore like them: for your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask him.

Caveat
If you are not making money to serve the extra-mile customers, then drop them ... you are not designed to serve them. This could be due to inappropriate Business Model (pricing, service model ). e.g. Budget Airlines does not compete with SIA on service. Othere reasons are: processes wrong, jobs spec wrong, staff's competence wrong and staff's motivation wrong.

Go For Non-Customers
We tend to fall into myopic's trap - only seeing our present customers and trying to keep them happy and emotionally engaged with us. Another part of our business should be reaching out to people that are not our customers yet. How can we reachout to this larger pool of non-customers ? The Parable of the Wedding Feast Mat 22:1-14, Luke 14:16-24, tell us to look for those with needs that we can fulfill and at a profit. If you think it can't be done, look at Google's model, micro-loans, village phone services. Ask God for wisdom where you can have a breakthrough business and not a compromised business.... Charity at a Profit!

Next: Plan to Succeed

KP#17 Purpose of Significance - Giving to Life & Harmony

What makes for 'Significance'?
I think it is life - making alive, vitalized living. Gen 2:7 ... God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Life is fulfilled by having relationship - with God and others. Relationship is built up by Giving and Sharing of love, care, joy, and things.

Significance is therefore related to Giving and Supporting Life and Relationship. It also involves in creating and preserving the environment for sustaining life and living. Generosity is key attribute of Significance. God set the example in the parable of 'laborers in the vineyard' Mat 20:1-16. It can also be named "God's Pay System".

The mindmap below gives the details:



The value of Generosity, the Principle of True Giving, unconditionally and expecting no reward, is illustrated in the Parable of the Host in Luke 14:11-15 and illustrated negatively by the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:16-21. See the mind map below:



Corporation of today measure the 'Triple Bottom Lines' of

1. Profit to Grow the Business
2. Environmental Sustainability
3. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of being responsible for and giving back the community.

If you do these, you will get the objective of the High Performance Organization ( HPO ) objectives of becoming the choice of customers, employees and investors and I want to add a fourth, the model and envy of your competitors.

Next: Customers

Should We Attend Church Now with Availability of Internet

In today digital or internet world, we can gain immediate access to the messages of the best preachers. We can read the scriptures with lots of aids and commentaries. We can communicate with each other through email, live chat, myspace and many others. We can even get connected wirelessly anywhere and anytime. Is there still a need to attend the Sunday Worship services, or in normal terms, attend church on Sunday?

Purpose vs Activities
To answer this question, we need to back to the basic definition of Church. What makes a Church ? What is its purpose ? What are the activities ? We need to differentiate the activities from the purpose. Purpose does not change with time and situations but activities do. How do we make use of the better technology to do church-activities and thereby fulfill the Purpose of the Church more effectively.

Definition of Church
Church is an assembly of Believers in Jesus Christ for the purpose of representing Christ on earth and therefore to the building each other up in maturity to conform to the image of Christ. Christ is the head of the Church his Body on earth Col 1:18, Eph 1:22. Church is made up of people and not things or activities. The purpose is Christ on earth - behaving and showing Christ on earth. But we don't get to maturity in Christ immediately. So we are to organized ourselves together where such caring and building-up can take place.

Church is NOT Christ & Me only
We can immediately see that Church is not made up of One-Person. It is not Christ the head and Me the body. It is Christ the Head and We the believers the Body. We cannot do church alone and we must be linked to a community of believers.

The Organisation of Church
Eph 4 gives the purpose and the 5 fold ministries in a church. Any healthy church should have the 5 roles staffed and played out. See the mind-map for the details. Rom 12 and 1 Cor 12 added additional gifts and roles. It is possible, as some people proposed, that the gifts are related to the ministry. e.g. Gifts of Exhorting, Showing Mercy are for Pastors. Miracle workers are related to Evangelist and Apostles.

The Activities
Act 2 tells us that the early Church met in Temples, Public Places, and in Homes day by day (Not just Sunday! Church is not Sunday at a location but Church is wherever and whenever we are.). They attend to the Apostles' teaching (i.e. Bible Truth), fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers, giving thanks and praising God. They were glad and generous hearted people. Consequently, they have favors with all the people and God added to their number day by day.

They met at public places to receive teachings and to share the Gospel (Act 4:4). They met at their home for fellowship ( which might include the application of teaching in every life; the corrections and learning in practice), sharing of joy and sorrows. There were centralised activties and there were home group activities.
There were people in different leadership roles (e.g. 5 fold ministries) and there were the larger group of people who lived out the truth in their market places - work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ 1Th 1:3.

What About Technology
Technology is related to the activities. Technology helps us to carry out the activities with greater effectiveness and ease. We should therefore make good and better use of them. We should change our activities to make better use of techology to accomplish the purpose of the Church. Teaching and Fellowship are all aided by internet technology. Use them. It allows us to more effective. There is only caution. Easy and Wide availablility also means easy and wide access to garbage and wrong doctrines. Need to know how to filter out and choose those that are good.

Do We Attend Church?
What are the activities that enables us to accomplish reflecting Christ on earth better ? How do we grow up into maturity conforming to the image of Christ? How can we organize ourselves better so that we can have a greater impact on our society for Christ? The basic things for believers are:

a. get connected with a Group of Believers
b. where others can help you grow and be accountable
c. and where you can help others grow and be accoutable
d. and living out the Christ in us through connecting with God, studying and obeying His will for you.

If you have such a group where Christ is the head and all are members accountable to one another and living out Christ daily, then you have a Church. Attending Sunday Worship at a Church building may be or not be one of the activity that the Church has to do.

Follow the mind-map below for more details.

KP#16 Singleness of Purpose or Mission

In Luke 16:13, we are taught that we could not serve two masters - we cannot serve God and money. Our purpose must be single - we must always make one choice - which or who is the highest priority of our life. Once that is fixed, there are three principles we need to follow:

1. we can use the things of lower priorities to serve the highest priority.
   e.g. using money to serve God.
2. we cascade the objective downward
   e.g. we show love of God through loving others that God loves.
   we show love of God by obeying His commandments
3. we maintain a list of priorities and ensure a balanced life.
   e.g. devotion to God is 1st and highest priority but we cannot just spend our time totally with God and neglect caring for our wife and children, job and ministry.

The lack of single-mindedness will result in James 4:8 - Double-Minded -> indecision -> delay or inconsistent decision making and creating confusion.

Loving God is not specific enough for each person. Each person is created uniquely by God to fulfill a specific calling and role in the grand design of God for human. Each of us may need to seek God to discover our calling. We will cover what are "Significance" in life created by God in the next posting. Phi 4:8 may be a start or a check list for us. The mind map below summarized this posting:

KP#15 Realities of Life - Same Input but Different Outcomes

Sometimes we tried very hard and yet the outcome did not seem to commensurate with our effort put in. At other times, the outcomes were beyond our expectation - we put in so little and yet the result was wonderful. The parents tried their very best, prayer, teaching, love and care and yet their children were not responding according. The managements tried all ways to encourage their staff and yet there weren't any corresponding actions from staff. In those depressive time, we blame ourselves for not trying harder and we even blame God for not helping us.

The Parable of the Sower

It give us a good explanation and an important teaching. The seeds sowed were all of the same high quality of God's Words. Yet the outcomes, some eaten, some dried up, some choked up, some 30 folds, 60-folds and 10o-folds return. The reasons are:

Internal Self-Responsible Factor

1. The Soil of the Hearts.
2. The path-way,
   
3. the rocky,
   
4. the thorny and good-soils.

External Factors

1. The birds (devils),
2. the sun of tribulation and persecution (pressure, push),
   
3. the temptations and distractions of the world(the lures and the pull) and

The Success Factor

1. the hearing & understanding and put-into-practice of the Word.

The Greek for "Understanding" is G4862 to put together, that is, (mentally) to comprehend; by implication to act piously. Hebrew's knowing and learning, unlike the Greeks, is more than just 'playing in the mind' but to know intimately with experience by practicing it. The outcome depends on how much we learn from the Word and putting the learning into practice. In John 15:1-5, we find the need to prune for more fruits which is the secret from getting the 30 fold into the 100 fold.







Application to Business - Types of Staff

Next: Singleness of Purpose - Mission