We Expect the Best from Others, but do we Expect the Best from Ourselves

We Expect the Best from Others, but do we Expect the Best from Ourselves

 

     How often have we walked into a restaurant or department store only to leave disappointed because we did not receive the Brand Promise during our visit.   We left thinking, “They did not give me their best.”   Yet how often have we looked at our lives and come to the same conclusion, “I have not given my best to my Church, to my Work, or even to my Family.” 

     It appears that many people, including Christians, are happy with ‘being average’.  We must understand how Average is the enemy of Greatness.   Here is the basis of my belief.   Average identifies you as the Best of the Worst, yet it also identifies you as the Worst of the Best!  

     No one pays a great salary to those who are merely average.   No Pastor of a growing, thriving Church wants to hire staff that will be mediocre and average at best.   They are praying and searching for those that daily will give the best they have to offer to bring onto their staff.

     As the ministry God has led me to start, JimKilgoreMinistries, continues to develop, I am constantly searching to add men from all over the world to our International staff.   We currently have a Regional Director for JKM in Central America, Pastor Timothy Aguire from Mexico.  We also have a Regional Director for Asia, Pastor Jonathan Aparre from the Philippines.  We have also assembled a team in Asia called, JKM Team Asia.   Six godly men were selected because of their love for Jesus Christ and their passionate desire to win souls and start new Churches on every Continent.

     If I had suspected they would only commit to an average effort for JKM, they would not have been selected.   God’s work, especially on the International level, demands commitment to excellence and a dedication and urgency in reaching the World with the Gospel.  

     A friend asked me a fascinating question several years ago, “Jim, if you were in charge of quality control of a factory, what percent of errors would you tolerate?”    “None,” I responded. “I’d be unhappy with anything less than 100 percent quality.”

     He told me that he’d asked that same question to several people and their responses varied from 95 % to 99.9%. To the person who would tolerate quality errors of one-tenth of one percent, he showed a list with the heading:   If 99.9 %  is  Good enough, then:

• Twelve newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
• 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes will be shipped this year.
• 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled in the next hour.
• 2.5 million books will be shipped with the wrong covers.
• 315 entries in Webster’s dictionary will be misspelled.
• 800,000 credit cards in circulation will have incorrect card holder information on their magnetic strips. 
• 2 million documents will be lost by the IRS this year.
• 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written this year.
• 291 pace maker operations will be performed incorrectly.

 

Do Your Best

You can’t be perfect
You can’t always be the greatest
What commands the most respect
Is your effort to do your best

When the curtain is finally down And the music has finally stopped
There is nothing more satisfying to self
Than to say, ‘I did my best’

It’s healing to say the least
And empowering to hear people say
‘All the labor of your hands
Will never be in vain’

In those words you’ll find perfection
They mirror all your effort
If ever in need of courage
Pick this poem and read again

You might not be the greatest
Or the best that ever lived
Provided you do your best
You’ll be, one of the greatest of all time

David Beckham

Points to Ponder on our Personal Effort

 

1.  Can we accept less than 100 percent?
2. To improve upon “average” I have some great advice: SMALL changes over time will make BIG difference! Improvement is achieved in INCHES rather than in MILES!
3. Advancement only comes with continually doing more than is expected from you.
4. “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.”  Jackson Brown
5. You are doing your best only when you are continually trying to improve what you are doing.
6. Successful people were not born that way.  They became successful by daily doing those things which the unsuccessful person refuses to do.

 

Someone once said, “If I continue to do what I have been doing, then I will continue to get the same results.”     The question is, do you really want the same results you have been achieving?