In life there is always the ideal situation which we must all aim for and the positive situation which is what we currently might be experiencing but not God’s best. The issue to try as much as possible with the enablement of beautiful and helpful Holy Ghost to move from “what is” to “what should be“. Today I will share some personal stories about myself interspersed with scripture to encourage folks as to how to live an excellent life. But before I talk about the testimonies, I will begin by showing what God’s ideal is i.e. what we must all aim for.
WHAT should be—normative ideal
If you have ever studied management, then you know that out of all the physical resources available to humans like money, human capital or infrastructure, the most important is TIME. This is because in physical terms, this is the only resource man cannot create or restore once it has been used up or wasted.
TIME MANAGEMENT
For this reason, King David prayed saying:
Psa 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
What David was underscoring was the importance of Time in our lives. He was asking God to teach us time planning or scheduling. If we do not know how to number or schedule time, we cannot use wisdom to maximize the time given us. The importance of proper usage of time cannot be overstated but let’s assume you have misused a greater portion of your time or life and are left with very little, do not worry. God the creator of the sun, moon and stars i.e. the markers of time can restore time:
Joe 2:25 And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten–the hopping locust, the stripping locust, and the crawling locust, My great army which I sent among you.
God can restore time lost BUT it is much wiser not to waste it in the first place. In other words, we must learn to do things right the first time maximizing all resources available to us including time.
EXCELLENCE
Maximizing all resources available to us in all we do including our time is part of what a culture of excellence entails. True excellence is the inheritance of the children of God and that is why I wrote the post Excellence is your inheritance .Let us listen to the scripture:
Pro 12:26 The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them.
Dan 5:12 Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.
When we were born again and received God’s Spirit into us, the totality of God’s spirit came to reside in us. The Spirit of God in us is the Spirit of excellence, the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of fear of the Lord, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of the Lord
etc. This is the same Spirit that rested upon Jesus . Now He abides in us and on us.
Isa 11:2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
The challenge is most of us do not exercise this treasure in us. We have access to excellence, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, might, reverence or fear of God etc. But most times we allow this treasure to lie dormant and inactive. We must stir up this gift. One reason some do not do this is ignorance (Hosea 4:6). Many have not been taught to access these blessings and to release the rivers of living water in them in the form of excellence, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, might etc residing in them.
What is—Current reality
Though we are supposed to exhibit a culture of faultless excellence always, sometimes we mess up and maybe waste time and finally we realize we need to meet a deadline in a few days. This has happened to me many times especially in my undergrad days. It has even transpired in my grad school days. The question is that at such times what must we do? The simple answer is to say sorry to God for wasting his resources, accept forgiveness, activate your spirit, and access Grace, strength and energy to excel in whatever endeavor with the sufficiency of the Holy Ghost at work in you.
I remember when I was an undergrad, my school mates were ministers of state, military officers, parliamentarians, journalists and special assistants to the President. At times I was tempted to feel incapable because we were studying Public Administration. Then I heard Pastor Chris Oyakhilome teach on the scripture 2Cor 3:5. From that day, I had a key which eventually earned me first class honors in that program, earning me best student in the program topping all these dignitaries plus receiving an award from the Vice President of my nation. Eventually this success predicated on the excellence of God at work within me opened other doors of opportunity locally and internationally.
But what was the key I received that day? That is what I am about to teach you and you can apply it even if you are pressed with deadlines or situations that seem insurmountable.
What Pastor Chris taught was the explanation of this verse:
2Co 3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
The word sufficiency comes from the Greek word transliterated as hikanotēs. What does it mean? It is defined as sufficient, ability or competency to do a thing. It is only used once in the scriptures.
All Pastor Chris had to do was explain that no longer was I to depend on my own human sufficiency, ability or competence but that if I wanted, my competence in school, work or even in meeting a deadline or challenges of life is totally dependent on God. My competence, or ability is of God.
From that day I stopped operating out of my human competence and started operating out of God’s competence by faith, I excelled in all I put my hands to astonishing those who knew me before. There are times when I have had up to digest close to a hundred pages of stuff I was not familiar with in a short time before delivering a presentation to experts on the matter. Having the knowledge that all I need is God’s competence, I do not stress. I just speak in tongues and activate my spirit, confess that my competency is of God and I simply read the information with an activated spirit i.e. with the ability of God in me and I prepare my PowerPoint slides. Do you know that every time, the experts were absolutely blown away by my presentations? The reason is because GOD is my competency and there is none as competent as God.
Another key can be found in the following passage:
Php 4:13 I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].
When Paul says we can do ALL things through God who empowers us. The question is what is this empowerment? The word Paul used in this scripture for empowerment is a Greek word transliterated as endunamoō and it is defined as, to receive strength or to be endued with strength. But where does this strength come from? Is it from heaven? No it comes from God the Holy Spirit who lives in you. All that you will ever need is already inside you but you need to activate and release it. How does one do this? By confessing the Word and by speaking in the heavenly language which edifies you. When this strength is infused in you, then you can do super-human or super-natural feats such as assimilating and digesting many pages in a short while, healing the sick or raising the dead. We must all learn to live in this state of being full of the Holy Ghost and all He carries.
Eph 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
All blessings are already in us. All you will ever need is already inside you. We have already been blessed with all we will ever need even to meet challenges or deadlines but we must activate it through faith, talking the word, and speaking or praising in tongues.
Now what if you need information that you do not have or have never been taught. One lecturer heard I had all A’s and wanted to teach me a lesson I guess so in his exam, he tricked us and brought a question I had never seen. Now if I failed this question, it would end my legitimate A streak. I would probably have had an B or C.
After I was done writing my paper, I asked the Holy Ghost who lives in me, should I turn it in to the invigilator? He said, NO you made a mistake. He showed me the trick the man had played and showed me exactly how to solve it even though I had never encountered the problem or trick before. After the paper the lecturer met me outside the exam hall and said as I paraphrase, “Solo the exam was hard ehh! Yeah I know, I woke up at night and changed the questions”. He said this laughing thinking he had the upper hand. After he marked the paper and to his astonishment I had an A, he said I was simply lucky. But we know the truth which is that we play by a different setoff rules. Praise God forevermore.
Now what is the morale of this story? Did I just share to brag about my grades. NO! It is to underscore the importance of hearing the voice of God for yourself. It is like TV or Radio waves. They are always present and transmitting around us even though our naked eyes cannot see them. But transmission is going on. To access the transmission you need a receiver like a radio or TV. Likewise God in us is the repository of ALL knowledge, wisdom, counsel, understanding, etc but our antenna must be tuned in or else we will not hear him. Our spirit must be in sync with His. I heard in the exam situation because I was tuned in or in sync. Most of the time before exams, I stop learning and just listen to Pastor’s tapes or worship music or pray in the Holy Ghost to activate my spirit and my faith. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
On other occasions, I had lecturers come to class and talked about their occult entanglements and said the following, ” AS for my class, no one gets an A”. Under my breadth, I would simply cancel that statement and I would confess the Word instead over my life:
Deu 28:13 And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them:
So what’s the conclusion?
Always be prepared but if for one reason or the other you are caught off-guard or unprepared, no worries. All knowledge resides within you and God is your competence. Put these two together, activate divine energy and strength and run towards the Goliath i.e. whatever challenge or chore you have. You will surely overcome and take off the head of the challenge with its own sword. Never back down! God is always with you! Never run from challenges. Run towards them having faith in God. God bless you.
1Sa 17:48 When the Philistine came forward to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.
