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The curse of comparison had reared its ugly head. When we leaders compare our work against others, what can we do?

Our fallen human nature naturally tempts us to compare ourselves with the more successful, the prettier, the smarter.

I believe we often do so to build ourselves up so we can feel significant. No matter your vocation, position in life, or size of your ministry if you are a leader, you probably face this same curse.

From my experience I learnt three lessons that have become the foundation of my thinking concerning success and effective living.

The principle of capacity

The true capacity of a product is determined not by the user but by the manufacturer.God created you like he did everything else with the capacity to fulfill your purpose. Therefore your  capacity is not limited, reduced, or altered by the opinion of others or your previous experience.

You are capable of attaining the total aptitude given to you by your creator to fulfill His purpose for your life. The, the key to maximizing your potential is to discover the purpose or reason for your life and commit to it’s fulfillment at all cost.

Thehe apostle Paul in a letter to the church at Corinth, spoke of the hidden secret wisdom of our destiny that is invested in each of us by our creator God.

No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom ,A wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.

None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had ,they would not have crucified the lord of Glory . However, as it is written:” No eye has seen ,no ear has heard, no  mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Corinthians 2:7-9).

The implication in verse 9 is that no human has the right or the ability to fully determined or measure the capacity of a potential you possess .

The principal of comparison

One of the most significant mistake humans make is comparison the measuring of oneself against the standards, works or accomplishment of another.

This exercises is fruitless demeaning and  personally tragic because it places our true potential at the mercy of others, giving them the right to determine and define our success.

True success is not measured by how much you have done or accomplished compared to what others have done or accomplished; true success is what you have done compared to what you could have done.

In other words,leaving to maximum is competing with yourself. it is living up to your own through standard and capabilities. success is satisfying your own personal passion and purpose in pursuit of personal excellence .

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Infact you must always remember to performed for an audience of one ,the Lord is your creator.

consciously applying this principle to Our lives can do much to free us from the immobilizing culture and environment of our society ,which strives to control us through comparison. From the early years of childhood we were compared to our sisters and brothers, the neighbours children or some other person’s .

This comparative spirit continues on into our teen and our adult years, developing into a sophisticated dehumanizing state of competition . The result is traumatizing because we spend most of our life’s trying to compete with others, comparing our achievements  with those of our peers,and attempting to live up to their standard of acceptance.

Instead of being ourselves, we become preoccupied with being who others detect we should be.

 If we succumb to this temptation, we will be reminded, that their will be always be some people who will exceed and others who at pace us .if we compete with ourselves and not with others, then it does not matter who is behind us or ahead of us ;our goal is to become and achieve all we are capable of being and doing,and this becomes the measure of our satisfaction.

The apostle Paul, the great leader of the church commanded on this critical issue: we do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves .when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise .

we , however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our Bosten to the field God has assigned to us .(2 Corinthians 10 verse 12 to 13).

To his friends in Galatia, Paul further reiterates this principle by declaring ,

if anyone think he is something when he is nothing, he decives himself. each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself ,without comparing himself to somebody else ,for each one should carry his own load (responsibility)( Galentine’s 6:3-5).

These statement strongly admonish us not to compete with others or to compare our talent with the abilities of potential , .since we are responsible only for our potential, not there’s.

The story of the servant with the talent clearly confirms this personal responsibility (see Matthew 25 from verse 14- )30.

Therefore ,our principal goal in life should be to discover God’s will and purpose for our lives and to complete her assignment with excellence .

The principle of experience

Experience may be defined as the observation of facts as a source of knowledge and skill gained by contact with facts and events .By its very nature, experience is a product of the past and is, therefore, limited to and control by the previous exposure.

In spite of the fact that experience may be valuable for making decisions and judgements concerning the future, is important to know that any significant measurement of growth, development, expansion or advancement will require experience to submit to the substance of the unknown through Faith .

Unfortunately ,experience has compelled many promising people to cover in the shadows of fear and failure because they were not willing to venture out into the uncharted frontiersr of new possibilities.

Experiences is given not to determine the limits of our lives, but to creates a better life us. Experiences is a tool to be used!

Experience does not cancel capacity .

At any point in our lifes, we are the sum total of all the decisions we have made, the people we have met, the exposure we have had and the fact we have learnt .

In essence, every human is a working history book . Nevertheless,  we must keep in mind that our personal history is being made and recorded everyday, and our past experience was once our future.

Therefore, we must be careful not to allow our past to determine the quality of our future. Instead ,we must use our experience to help us make better decisions ,always guiding against the possibility that it may limit our decisions. 

Remember, your ability is never limited to your experience.

This world is filled with millions of individuals who are capable of traveling at a maximum capacity of 1,800 MG but they have settled for 55 mph. Because they have overtaken some folks or have exceeded the expectations of a few others .They have compared their life to these persons and they have accepted mediocrity as excellence .

Determined not to let your past experience limits yourcapacity .Be grateful for the lessons of the past ,then accelerate with confidence  unto autobahn of Life ,being careful to obey only those signs  that have been established by your creator,or who admonishes you, “all things are possible if you only believe”(Mark chapter 9 vs23 ).

This  dissatisfaction for a fraction

One of life’s great tragedies is that the majority of the world’s population is composed of individual who have negotiated agreements with mediocrity, signed a contract with the average, and pledged allegiance to the ordinary .

They have resolved never to be more than society has made them or do more than is expected .what  a tragedy of destiny ? God expect more !

Inside of every humanbeing is a deep call of destiny to do something  worth while with our lives. The urge to accomplish great things and engaged in significant  endeavors is the jam of purpose planted by God in the heart of Man.

while then do will settle for so little? why do we abandon our dreams and deny our purpose ?why do we live below our privilege, buried in the cemetery of wishful thinking and empty regrets ?

As we have seen one reason we fall to progress in fulfilling our purpose is satisfaction with our present measure of success . The believe that we have arrived is the deterrent that  keeps us from getting to our destination .

A second part of the answer lies in the fact that we have accepted that present state of our lives as the best we can do under the circumstances .

This concept ,under “the circumstances”, serves to imprison us and to immobilize our God-given ambition because too many of us have surrendered to a status quo and have become prisoners of the war for minds .

we forget that circumstances has a temporary arrangement of Life to which we are all exposed. We overlook or disregard the fact that the circumstances are designed to identify, expose ,develop ,refine, and maximize our true potential .

it is not what happens to us that matters, but what we do  with what happens. Much  of the time we are not responsible for our circumstances ,but we are always responsible for our response to those circumstances.

One key to maximizing your potential is to become dissatisfied with the circumstances that is restrict, limits, and it’s stifle your potential .many people know that they possess  great potential ,that they have a significant purpose in life, but they still fell to move beyond Good intentions to experience the fullness of there lives.

why? their comfort is greater than their passion. They are more concerned with fitting in than with standing out .

Remember ,you will never change anything that you are willing to tolerate .Your creator want you to consciously choose to fulfill your purpose and maximize your potential because in so doing you will bring glory to his name .

Unfortunately, history gives evidence of only a few rare individuals who, driven by a passion to achieve a cherished vision in their hear,t initiated their own Deliverance, Rose above the tide of their norm,and impacted their generation and ours.

A second significant  key to maximizing potential is the unassuming benefit of crisis. crisis, as defined by author Dick leider ,our lives wake up calls.These alarms are often the catalyst that impel us to become fully conscious of a mediocre life.

Crisis are lives wake up calls. How many stories have you heard about individuals who after a close call with death or disease suddenly change their lifestyle and their attitude towards life ?often there priorities sometimes their entire value system change.

The Biblical record bears witness to the efficacy of a crisis to get people back on track.

Beginning with Abraham and continuing on to Joseph ,Moses, David ,Jona ,Peter and most significantly the apostle Paul ,God use the interjection of a major crisis to led these heroes of faith to move beyond mediocrity to life at the maximum.

Remember, we cannot become what we were born to be by remaining what we are. just as the mother eagle  removes the comfort of  her feathery nest  to disturb the young eglet into flying, so our creator moves us beyond our comfort zones so that we are forced to fly.

Without this stirring, most of us would never fly.

And eagle that doesn’t fly cannot fulfill its purpose likewise ,your life will lake purpose and focus until you discover your wings.

This Discovery will require both wisdom and courage because the thrill of flying always beginning with the fear of falling .yet you are not left alone to find your wings because God, through the prophet Moses, promises to undertake for you.

Like an eagle that stays up its nest and hovers it young,and that spread it’s wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone leads you (Deuteronomy 32:11-12a)

He will give definition to the crisis of your life and inspire you to move on into all he has planned for you .Indeed, the Greatest gift God can offer you is to push you into a crisis of temperry discomfort that requires you to try your wings. This pushing into crisis is his supreme out of love, akin to that of a mother eagle that pushes her young from the next  to force them to fly don’t be a pigeon  if you were born to be an eagle.Experience God’s attitude for your life.

principles

1. what you have done does not equal the sum of what you can do.

2. success is a journey of Discovery and adventure as you explore your God-given potential.

3. mediocrity accept the norm , pleases  the crowd and does what it can get by with.maximum living pushes the norms, please God, and set the standard of excellence.

4.The capacity of your potential is not determined by what you have done or what others think about what you have done

5.The performance  or opinions of others cannot measure your success .

6.Your past experience cannot measure your future success

7 .Circumstances and Criss are God’s tools to move you into your purpose and the maximizing of your potentials.

Shalom…