Reach for Higher Standards

I remember reading about the experience of John C. Maxwell, the acclaimed pastor and leadership guru, where he shared about discipline and standards. When he was a child, his parents gave him some household chores to do. They warned him way in advance, that if he didn’t complete it by the weekend, he won’t get to go swimming with the family. But as a child, he took it very lightly and didn’t do the housework. When the weekend came, he thought his parents would take him along – but they didn’t! Everyone else went out for some fun, but he had to stay at home alone and do housework. He whined, begged and cried - but they still left him behind!

His parents loved him very much, and wanted him to be a disciplined person. They didn’t lower their standards to make him happy. They wanted him to reach the higher level. They gave him a second chance to it, and this time he finished the job in time. Then, his parents took him for the next family outing. John said that incident taught him a very good lesson about reaching standards, which has made him who he is today.

A lot of times in life, we have high expectations of others. These expectations are positive and attainable. They require effort and discipline to reach. We have these expectations because of love. When parents love their children, they expect the kids to excel in school. When a husband loves his wife, he expects her to be the best in everything she does. When a wife loves her husband, she also expects the same of him.

Imagine someone is teaching you to drive. Every time you reach a busy road, you cry and say you can’t do it anymore. What will happen to you if your teacher looks into your pitiful eyes and says, “Never mind…no need to learn anymore…” You’ll never learn! Your teacher will push you till you reach that higher standard, if he really cares.

Do we realize:

If we want the people we love to reach a certain level of expectations - we need to keep the standards high! We’ve got to be a little hard, firm to say ‘No’ if we must, push them when they slow down, gently pick them up when they fall, and wait patiently for them to reach the higher level. It takes time, but we’ve got to do it, if we really LOVE them.

If you are expecting honesty, don’t settle for lies and silence.
If you are expecting commitment, don’t accept it when a person simply comes and goes.
If you are expecting discipline, don’t say ‘Never mind’ when they are playing the fool.
If you are expecting love, don’t say it’s OK when there is selfishness.

A lot of times, we mistakenly lower our standards because we feel sorry that it’s too high for them to reach. We think that we need to give in because we love them. This is one of the biggest lies the Devil can throw into your mind! If you lower your standards, it only means this:

1) You don’t love others (you don’t care about improving their lives)
2) You look down on them ( you think they can never reach a higher level )
3) You look down on yourself (you think YOU can never reach and help others achieve greater heights)
4) You don’t respect God (you don’t believe God made you for greater things)

Just think about John C Maxwell’s parents in his childhood incident. I am sure it didn’t make them happy to leave their darling little boy behind on a family outing! Yet, they did it because they loved him. They knew that if they lowered their standards, their son will never become a better person. They were raising him to reach the next level!

LOVE raises you to a higher level – to a place that you never thought you could reach! If you fall, it will pick you up, get you back on your feet, and push you to climb that peak. It will never bring you down! LOVE is a POWERFUL FORCE.



Do you know why? It’s because GOD is LOVE. The Bible says it in I John 4:8.

We can learn this from the Man Himself. God LOVES us, but He maintained His criteria. He said that the repayment of sin is DEATH. He didn’t take back His Word to say, “Never mind, I know it’s difficult for you…I’ll remove the ‘death’ part.” No! He NEVER said that!


GOD PAID the price of sin with the DEATH of His only beloved Son (JESUS), so that anyone who believes in Him, will not die but have eternal life. (John 3:16).

God didn’t lower the standards! He PAID the price because He LOVED us. His requirement: BELIEVING & ACCEPTING that Jesus took the punishment on our behalf, is the only way for us to avoid the punishment of DEATH (eternity in hell). Hell is still there!

God gives us Commandments to follow. True, He loves us, and the rules are not easy to keep. He tells us to love God more than anything else in the world. He tells us to put Him first in everything, love others and love ourself. It’s not easy, but just look at what happens when you try to follow:

1) Love God

(Put God FIRST in everything : You read the Bible & pray 1st thing in the morning, think about Him the whole day, and before you sleep, you go to church every week, you give 10% of your salary back to God)

Benefits:


-You develop excellent time management; if you have time for God, you will have time for everything else that’s important. Your priorities are right.
-Your mind is fed with good things - you are happy when you think good thoughts.
-You become a better thinker and leader by learning from great people in the Book
-You become a good listener (by listening to sermons and others)
-You become a good speaker (by sharing in Bible studies and talking about good things that you learn)
-You improve your language skills (the Bible is an excellent piece of literature)
-You plan your finances better and you have more than enough after you give your dues to God
-You don’t become greedy because you learn not be too attached to money
-You can enjoy the material things of the world without becoming materialistic
-You won’t be mastered by anything in this world except God
-You will not be afraid of anything when you have the Lord’s power within you.


2) Love Others

Benefits:

-You become a nice person, because God’s character is reflected on you
-You are forgiving when people make mistakes because that’s how God loves you
-You are kind to your enemies because you know it was the Devil behind their evil deeds
-You don’t have a temper because you are too busy loving
-You are not easily bullied because you’re training to be strong to love them
-You are blessed when you give and help others
-You develop better relationship skills when you mix with people with an attitude of love
-God sends others to love and help you back in the same way when you are in need.

3) Love Yourself

Benefits:

-You care for yourself without being selfish
-You take care of your physical appearance because you are thankful God gave you good looks
-You exercise and play sports because God gave you an able body
-You travel and enjoy good pleasure because God gave you this world to live in.
-You develop a stronger character to stand firm for God, against the Devil’s techniques.
-You perform with excellent leadership skills at work.
-You become a good husband, wife, father, mother, child, daughter, sister, citizen, employee, boss, leader etc.
-You become good at whatever you do.

And, through it all, you avoid sin because you LOVE GOD, and you know GOD LOVES YOU.

You become a COMPLETE person when you obey God’s high standards in the Bible.

What would happen to us if God lowered the standards, so there is no right or wrong?

We’ll be womanizing, drinking, sleeping around with pre-marital sex and extra-marital affairs, becoming biological parents before marrying, smoking, taking drugs, killing, raping, stealing, making our own gods, believing that we are gods, being scared of everything, getting angry with a terrible temper, fighting for revenge and causing unrest, becoming selfish and greedy, failing to love – making the world a terrible place! (like it isn’t already, as people only do what they like!)

And the WORST part - we’ll be thinking that all this SIN is OKAY!

This is what happens when there is no standard to follow, or if the standards are lowered.

We NEED HIGH STANDARDS to reach higher.
We NEED to KEEP HIGH STANDARDS to help others reach higher.

Along the way, we fall and make mistakes. But God keeps pushing us forward to reach that goal – because He LOVES us.
When we see others fall and make mistakes, we should help them get up and move forward, just like God does to us.


An athlete runs to finish the race. He trains himself to reach that goal. The finishing line doesn’t come nearer towards him out of pity. He reaches it – with the unseen help of God.

Maintain HIGHER STANDARDS.
If you love yourself and others, DON’T lower it.
LOVE like Jesus.
GOD is LOVE.

Reach for HIGHER STANDARDS, because YOU are LOVED.

-JJ-