Day 1
Proverbs 12:26.
26 The righteous should choose his friends carefully,
For the way of the wicked leads them astray.
In Isaiah 17 towards the end, it talks about the king.What are the critical success factors for leadership, which we all in our various leading roles require.We will all require it. The first requirement,which I think is critical is your calling .
In other words, in developing leaders, ethical leaders, must operate within their calling. That leader is not diverting from his main area of calling. I don’t think it is possible for you to realize your potential if you are not operating within your area of calling. You know some people say, I am making much money and that is success. If you are making money, yes, but you are so frustrated because you survive to make money. You are so frustrated that although you are making the money you may end up having high blood pressure out of the making of the money.
But when you are doing something that is within your calling, you will be tired but happy. Every evening you will sleep satisfied that you are doing what is within your calling. Chances are when you are just making money, you will be still looking from somewhere else to make more money. So as you are making money here, you will be asking, how can I be somewhere else to make even more money?
So you can’t put all your efforts in what you are doing because it is not exactly your calling, it is just a place of making money. You might even be tempted to make short cuts since you have the power to do so as a leader.And so I thought that the critical thing is we as his friends of the leader we need to support him within his area of calling. If he is not within his area of calling he is not going to realize his potential.
We ourselves need to ask ourselves, are we within our area of calling? Because if we are not, you will be dissatisfied in life, discontented, but in the end what is worse, when you are an old man, you will be regretting your life. So it is a very important thing to say.
We have just been discussing with somebody who used to be with me in Shell, and we are both retired. I happened to be the chairman of our pensioners’ association. So we are old people. When we are in the pensioners’ association AGM they call me a boy since some pensioners are in their nineties. So when you are in your mid-seventies you are a child. Are you getting the point? So I am not in that old. But it means if you don’t operate within your calling, please accept a long old age of regret . You are too old to be versatile and yet you realize I would have done much more within my area of calling but I never did it. So it is a very critical issue.
The other thing I keep saying is that if you operate within your calling it doesn’t mean you will not make the money, it is only that money will come along, money will not be your focus. When you operate within your area of calling, you are likely to do it so well that even if people don’t like you, they like your work and will reward you handsomely.
Day 2
James 1:22
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
You know Jesus told his critics , if you don’t like me, look at the things I do. So there are many people whose person they don’t like, but because they like their work they retain them. I was the first manager in Shell born again. They had never had somebody at the manager level saying they are born again. And I could see the struggle of our management board about allowing me to become manager with this nonsense of salvation. You know, that’s how I ended up in Kisumu. I went to Kisumu as a way of trying to sort out that issue; what to do with a saved person. Because my work is okay, but this testimony business, uncomfortable.
To imagine somebody in an industry wide meeting talking that nonsense, my white man could not just hear it, how it can happen. But they can’t throw me out because they don’t mind my work. Are you getting the point? So they are struggling with it.
So I know when you operate within your area of calling, money will follow but it will not be your main focus. And I thought we need to remind ourselves that not just some leaders but all of us, should be operating within our area of calling.
Number two, which is critical, if you are really going to realize your potential, you not only must operate within your area of calling, you must receive training. Training is critical to empower you to reach your potential. Training helps you know how to use all the resources God has given you ,on how to operate them. That’s why we go for training.
So to assume that because you have a gift of leadership you don’t require training in leadership, it is a high level of naivety. Jesus was wise when He could look at Peter and say, come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. So the guy must have other gifts in fishing men. But despite the potential, ability of Peter to fish men, He now took him for a three year training, similar to our university days, length. Why? They had potential but they required training. It means they could not have done the thing God wanted them to do without exposing themselves to training.Sometimes you feel like you are gifted, therefore you don’t require training. Then if you are gifted, who knows better about your gift than Jesus? And if He could take people go through three years of training, how come you yourself don’t require training?
So I think it is an important thing to ask yourself, are there things you are not performing well in because we have rejected training ?If we had accepted training, we will still have our gifts but our gifts will be sharper. We are likely to achieve more because we have applied our gifts with the help of training. Okay, the trainer has also to be capable, but you need to offer yourself to be trained if you really want to realize your potential.
So whichever area of calling, like for me producing ethical leaders in Africa, have traning. But you need to ask yourself, are you exposing yourself to training? If you are not, again you are likely to condemn yourself in the old age years living a life of regret. Because you say, if only I had this I would have been able to do this but now it is too late to do it. I regard this as the second thing that is very, very important.
Day 3
He who walks with integrity walks securely, But he who perverts his ways will become known
Thirdly and importantly, still on my topic of how to realize your potential, I think it will be critical that you have integrity. Integrity is the deciding factor whether you finish strong or not. You can operate within your calling, you can also be somebody who has the training, but if you have no integrity, despite operating within your calling, despite being somebody who has been empowered by training,you will fail.Integrity is critical because lack of integrity is what will make you lose transparency, then people lose trust. And the moment the team lose trust in you , many people whose lives you could affected with your skills and giftings will not trust you enough for you to influence them.
So integrity, is a critical thing. But what is integrity? Integrity is oneness. Three point five is not an integer because once there is a fraction, it is not a interger.It is a long time since I did mathematics, but at least integers were full numbers. Am I remembering correctly? An integer is a full number and integrity is oneness. So it will be critical to understand that if you have integrity you have wholeness. It means that you are never two people. And many of us are; many people in one , including some Christians. They do something, we wonder , haiya you mean you have done it?
In a family meeting we were talking and I don’t what they said something and they said about a friend of mine. And I started defending him. They said, papa you can’t defend someone. It is known. It is even in the newspapers. Now I realized I better keep quiet. But it is important to understand the moment you have no integrity you can go for a long time but there is always a fortieth day and it will destroy all you have built for many years, and it will be destroyed by one incident. And it is a critical issue.
Again I heard about this person who was a missionary and came to Kenya, and then they did not have integrity. It is a lady who didn’t have integrity. Then she got pregnant. But because they are still a good family there was no problem until the child was born and was a half cast. Now, they have gone back to America because the mission organization could not retain them. Yes there is always a fortieth day.
So if you really want to realize your potential you must have integrity because with integrity you will be consistent and transparent and you will be predictable, and because of that people trust you and people can go with you for the long haul because they don’t think you are saying two things at the same time. And so it is critical that you understand if you don’t have integrity it is impossible to please God. You need integrity if you are to realize the calling. And it will be important that you do that.
Day 4
1 Corinthians 15:33
33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character
Proverbs 12:26 says that the righteous choose their friends carefully but the way of the wicked is destruction.We are still looking at what can help you to operate to your potential. To use the late Monroe’s words, to realize you potential is to die empty, so that there is nothing you take to the grave. And we are saying to be a success you need to choose your friends wisely.
The company you keep is critical to your success if you are going to have impact… You know a lot of us parents are very interesting. Whenever your child does something wrong you say, daughter of so and so is spoiling my daughter. The truth is, the reason, your daughter is with that other child is because your child is similar in character. There are many children in school, how come they are choosing this particular friend? You need to understand your friends are never forced on you, it is always your choice. And you are not different from your friends. They say, show me your friends and I will tell you your true character. You can’t be spending time with drunkards and say, no, no, no… am different . Me I only drink soda. Why do you drink soda with drunkards? It is because you have a problem with alcohol but you don’t mind their character, isn’t it? That’s why you are surviving time with them.
The other day I was in a wedding and somebody opened a strange bottle. And we could see, from us older people we were a little surprised. One of the young men came to my table to say, Mr. Ng’ang’a it is non-alcoholic. I asked him, so why are you trying to get something that looks alcoholic which is non-alcoholic? It is only because you want alcohol but not yet. You are only one step to alcohol. Because for it to be non-alcoholic, it means you want to take something which can be the second for alcohol, but the truth is it is non-alcoholic.
We are talking about the friends, choose your friends wisely. You will not reach very far depending on the kind of friends you have. If friends are crooks, don’t keep saying I am not like them , it is only my friends. it is critical to understand, your friends are your choice. If your father is a drunkard, for me to blame you for your father it just shows how foolish I am, because you never put an application to God; let me be born by Ng’ang’a. No. So I cannot blame you for your parents, but I am allowed to blame you for your friends.
1 Corinthians 15:33 says,
do not be deceived; bad company spoils good character,
Depending on the version you are using. So it will be important to understand the company you keep, who is with you, will determine how far you reach in your life within your calling, .
Day 5
Isaiah 1
7 In that day a man will look to his Maker,
And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.
8 He will not look to the altars,
The work of his hands;
He will not respect what his fingers have made,
Nor the [d]wooden images nor the incense altars.
9 In that day his strong cities will be as a forsaken [e]bough
And [f]an uppermost branch,
Which they left because of the children of Israel;
And there will be desolation.
Let’s look at the prophecy against Damascus. You read up to verse six. … That is Isaiah looking forward to what will happen, but you see, it was not similar to how they were going to be. And then he clearly shows what will happen, which must have been very surprising even to the prophet because that’s not the way things are.Things are going to be different in the future.
And I think that’s a very critical thing for us to learn, that sometimes we are discouraged by the way things are now, because we do not want to see the way the things can be. You know I keep saying, although I was keen to talk about friends and choosing your friends wisely, it is good to understand that everybody you meet is in two categories; either they are Christians or they are potential Christians, because if he is not a Christian he still could get saved, isn’t it?
Now, when you understand that this crook could be your roommate in heaven, you can’t treat anybody badly despite his bad behavior currently.. So I thought that another thing that will help us to help us retain and reach our potential is to operate with a realization of where we are but more importantly with potential in mind.
You can see where you are going although you are not ending there. Don’t allow history to discourage you from where God is calling you to go.
Next see Deuteronomy 17:14 says,
when you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, let us set a king of us like all the nations around us, be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not have a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite.
But remember my question is still about us. How can you be the leader operating with the full potential you need? How can you operate within your potential within your calling? The first thing he says is that what you do as chosen by God. Let the king, the person becoming king must be chosen by God. Be sure to appoint over you a king, the Lord your God chooses. Releasing yourself not to do what you like but to do what God likes, that brings glory to him. It will be critical to realize your potential because He knows better than you. He understands the potential and the threats of the future better than you.
So we are being told, do you want Israel to be run well? Do you want your life to run well? It will be important you allow God to be the one who chooses. And I think that will be an important thing that we have to deal with.
Number two, the king must be from among the fellow Israelites. In other words you must be an Israelite. The New Testament language, you must be a Christian. Do you really want to operate to get your full potential? The things I was saying earlier are meaningless if you have not put your life in God. It will be important that the leader is an Israelite, he is not a foreigner to godliness. So you yourself must sit at a personal level to walk with the Lord personally, not just be a part of a church. I think the critical thing is, do you walk with God daily?
He must be from among fellow Israelites,means he must be Jehovah worshipper. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. And my understanding of Israelite, one who does not believe in Jehovah. So I think the challenge is on me. I may have walked with the Lord for the last, it is about sixty years since I gave my life, since I put up my hand in a meeting to receive the Lord, but that may be true of a past. But What happens to me into the future? If I want to run and finish strong, it will be important that I walk with the Lord on a daily basis and to realize what matters is not I have walked with the Lord in the past, am I walking with him now? Am I an Israelite? Am I a Christian? Do I have the fear of God?
Day 6
Proverbs 11.28
“He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like the green leaf.”
Then the passage goes on to say, the king moreover must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt, for the Lord has told you, you are not to go back that way.
My understanding of what they are being told is that do not put your trust in horses, do not acquire a lot of horses because you can be a king and the reason you think Israel is protected is because you have a lot of horses. He is saying no, no, no. Put your trust in God, don’t put your trust in, who do I know in government? Which politician is with me? Put your trust in God, not in horses.
Elsewhere He says, cursed is he who puts his trust in man and on horses also. So you need to ask yourself, as you relate in your life, where is your trust? Why are you beginning a project? Where is your trust?
Then He goes on to say, the king must not take many wives or his sons will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
Now, many wives, means no polygamy for leaders. I am a Gideon and we were going for a Gideon’s conference in 1997.The American Gideon’s were told to host us, during lunch hour so we were eating together, they were supposed to entertain us. So each day I went out with a different American. What surprised me is two of those I met in that week were polygamous. I met the first one, he introduced me and he told me this is my second wife. Then he said, that’s my son and this is her son. Now, I was a little confused but given they were in their sixties and I was in my forties, I felt embarrassed about asking them. But the following day another one came and he said the same thing. I think this one said it is a third wife. I wondered, you mean Americans are polygamous? I had never imagined it. Now that day I had to ask. He explained, you know I had a wife but we couldn’t see eye to eye. Then we finally had to divorce. Then I got another one. You know the first one threw me out, the second one I had no alternative but to throw her out. Life was impossible. But the Lord is wonderful, look at what He has given me.
So that’s when I came up with a statement; in Africa we are polygamous concurrently, three wives at the same time; in America they are polygamous serially. You know, you are alive with five wives but each after another. So we are both polygamous only one concurrently, the other one serially. A leader must avoid both situations.
Day 7
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world
To succeed you must manage your sex life .It is a long chapter in my book, Leadership King David Style . It will be important to understand you won’t go very far. You remember a great guy like Clinton; bright, Harvard mind, and Oxford trained, but a small school girl comes to do internship and he was soon gone. Later that story is affecting the election campaign of the wife. And it was a small girl.
A leader who does not know how to stay with the wife of his youth is never going to finish properly. And it is a critical thing for us to understand. It is an area of prayer and something that we will need to deal with in a very important way.
When the king takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll, a copy of this scroll, taken from that of the Levites’ priests. It is to be with him and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord God and follow carefully all the words of his law and his decrees.
Do you really want to reach your potential,then put effort to operate at your highest level of potential. The book of the law, the Bible, must be somebody accompanying you as a leader. You can’t say you have read it over, and not keep reading. I don’t know how many times I have covered the Bible from cover to cover. But even what I read this morning or what I read yesterday sounded completely new. That’s what the king is being told.
Do you want success for your kingship? Don’t even rely on the Bible in the temple, make a copy for yourself, have a copy with you in your house. Read the Bible on a current basis. It is a critical requirement for the success by the king.
Next, the leader must not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites , he also must not turn from the law to the right or to the left. Only will he and his descendants reign a long time over the kingdom in Israel.
Did you hear that last one? Consider himself better than the fellow Israelites. That’s where pride comes, isn’t it? You feel like surely, we left Alliance with so and so, this is a fellow Alliance boy, yet he is still struggling. Am I not special!
They are being told, you do that and your rulership will be in trouble. The moment you don’t realize it is the grace of God, it is the favour of God, and you start thinking there is something special about you that leads you to pride.
Some time back I was just talking to a university new graduate and I was telling him, of my book called A Leader as a Steward. And in the book I argue, you may be somebody who has done very well and got your degree and you start thinking that it is because of your ability. But if truth be told there were people brighter than you but never made it. On the week of the exam he started diarrhea and he was in the exam in and out of the exam.He could not get more than a B yet he was A material. Now, it is not just your brain, it is your health and health came from God. And if you start checking you can see how many things come together to make your success that you cannot credit yourself with.
The moment you start thinking there is something special, the king is told, you start thinking you are a special guy, you are not like your fellow Israelites, you will be in trouble. Now, I am preaching to myself, for it is very, very tempting when everybody tell you , well done, well done, well done. And it might get in my head that I am special. The king is being told, your rulership will be in trouble.
Let us pray that the Lord in his wisdom will help us as individuals as we think about his future, to take these biblical principles and find a way of applying them so that we will operate within them with God’s love and grace.
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