{"id":2399,"date":"2015-09-02T10:46:38","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T14:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2015-09-02T10:46:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T14:46:38","slug":"a-prayer-for-excellence-in-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/a-prayer-for-excellence-in-business.html","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer for Excellence in Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.\u201d (Philippians 1:9-10)<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Years ago Tom Peters published a popular business leadership book titled In<\/i> Search of Excellence<\/i>. Perhaps you read it. Peters set out to define excellence in the marketplace and then to identify enterprises that met that standard. It was not an easy search. More recently Jim Collins has picked up the quest. In his books Built to Last<\/i> and Good to Great,<\/i> he has not only set the benchmark metric for excellence, he outlines a roadmap to match that quality ourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How to get to excellence? The Bible has another route: Prayer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our human efforts always<\/b> end in failure. Eventually we find we are not strong enough, smart enough, nimble enough, or persuasive enough to neither create nor sustain excellence. God has made the world this way. As Jesus puts it, \u201cApart from me you can do nothing.\u201d<\/i> (John 15)<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s brilliant prayer is packed with power. We can borrow his words and make it our prayer for our work and business. Let\u2019s do that today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pray for love<\/i>. Love is not a concept, a feeling or a choice. Ultimately, Love is a Person\u2026 Love Himself\u2026 Pray for more Love, to be passionately engaged with your calling and with the people in your spheres.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pray for knowledge<\/i> \u2013 the \u201csmarts\u201d to grasp the nuances required to master your responsibilities: good memory, clear logic, quick assessments. Under-standing means, literally that matters \u201cstand under\u201d my mastery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pray for discernment \u2013 <\/i>a miraculous capacity to distinguish truth from illusion. God can install his \u201ctruth detector\u201d beyond knowledge. Ask for it!<\/span><\/p>\n

Pray for excellence <\/i>and the capacity to build, recognize and reward it! God loves what is \u201cgood.\u201d When he created, he stepped back and said, \u201cVery good!\u201d Pray for the same, to be able to generate works of excellence and to step back and call it \u201cgood!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Love\u2026 Knowledge\u2026 Discernment\u2026 Excellence. Let God bless the \u201cwork of your hands\u201d by borrowing these words in prayer over the specifics of your spheres of responsibility. As you do, monitor your own heart and circumstances. What happens?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnd it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.\u201d (Philippians 1:9-10) Years ago Tom Peters published a popular business leadership book titled In Search of Excellence. Perhaps…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,7,4,25,3,1],"tags":[1332,1328,1225,1327,1330,1331,1742,1333,510,1741,488,1326,1329],"class_list":["post-2399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bible-prayer","category-daily-prayer","category-god","category-jesus","category-prayer","category-uncategorized","tag-built-to-last","tag-business","tag-discernment","tag-excellence","tag-good-to-great","tag-in-search-of-excellence","tag-jesus","tag-jim-collins","tag-knowledge","tag-love","tag-memory","tag-success-in-business","tag-tom-peters"],"yoast_head":"\nA Prayer for Excellence in Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/09\/a-prayer-for-excellence-in-business.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Prayer for Excellence in Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cAnd it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.\u201d (Philippians 1:9-10) Years ago Tom Peters published a popular business leadership book titled In Search of Excellence. 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