Part Two – 2 MAXIMIZE: Discover Your Innate Gift And Make The Most Of It

Read the first part here

Dear reader, I hope you have been following the progression of these posts carefully and thoughtfully. It is my wish that you become so much more than you ever thought possible and that can only happen when you’re enlightened with the right information. Merely skimming through the words in this post will do little benefit to you, because, embedded within these posts are proven life changing principles and instructions that will guide you carefully towards looking within you and harnessing the treasures there. But you can only find these treasures when you give it your attention. Treasures are not found laying careless on the ground. – Love, Mo’

Questions the “Hedgehog Companies” Answered

1. What are we good at, that we could be the best in the world at? (Gifts)
2. What are we deeply passionate about? (Passion
   )
3. What drives our economic engine? (Financially Rewarded Value)

The meeting point for the answers to these questions, helped give them a working framework, for promoting their identity and ensuring continued relevance and success, through wise business decisions.

They were known for something they were good at and passionate about; also with specific solutions, people needed and are willing to reward them for, financially.

Jim and his team therefore concluded that, like the hedgehog, depending on its unique gifting and design to ensure its sustainability in the woods, these companies, created a structure and lived from that understanding, based on the answers they got from those probing and personal questions.

Transformation from good to great happens by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog framework, incredibly well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a great period of time.

Here is the point:
For you Jane, like the hedgehog, you can simplify the complexities of life into a single organizing idea, a basic principle that unifies and guides everything else.

And what would that be, you may ask; it is functioning from your primary strengths, which are your innate giftings and the Presence of God, secondary strengths are learned abilities and the quality of relationships in your life.

Like the hedgehog, if you are going to be intentional about life, then your life approach wouldn’t just come out of nowhere. It must be deeply rooted in the understanding of yourself, what you are naturally skilled in, and the unique advantage you have by your connection with God.

This approach is more than a strategy, it’s the power of simplicity sponsored by an understanding….one thing.

Psalm 119:144b …give me understanding, and I WILL LIVE
As Apostle Joshua Selman often says, ‘Understanding is truly a miracle,’ you must desire it.

GOD WAS INTENTIONAL IN YOUR CREATION

Like the hedgehog, created with all intentionality by God, the one who predetermined its design and wiring, you were crafted uniquely as well.

And your design was dependent on the work-type and solutions you were meant to deliver to the world, for it is work and purpose that determines design.

Take a look:

Psalm 139:13-15 Amplified Bible
For You formed my innermost parts; You knit me [together] in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks and praise to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was being formed in secret, And intricately and skillfully formed [as if embroidered with many colors] in the depths of the earth.

And here (Jeremiah 1:4-5), we see the tender hearted Prophet revealing God’s pattern on creation and purpose again.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 Amplified Bible (AMP)
Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you [and approved of you as My chosen instrument], And before you were born I consecrated you [to Myself as My own]; I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

YOU NEED TO BE INTENTIONAL TOO

You need to follow God’s pattern of intentionality, for you were made in His image and likeness, therefore act like Him.

• First of all, be certain about what you have been given as part of your unique formation.
• Know your dominant passion (this points you to the direction of your focus, where and on what you need to deploy yourself).
• Then have a system that ensures that your gifts are constantly worked through service and accountability, in other to guarantee freshness and cutting edge fruits.

Your gifting is like a seed, you need the right conditions of light and water (information) and nutrients (relationships) and soil (environment, both geographical and The Presence of God) to produce good fruits.

The world needs your good fruits, your fruit is the solution they need, not just your gifts. It is your fruits that brings you rewards that men are willing to pay for, whether with their time, trust or monetary value.

This is why productivity is a big deal with God. When God made man, he commanded him to be fruitful because there’s a seed in him.

And by constantly bearing fruits, he will enter the next dimension called multiplication, then subduing and ultimately dominion, for there is a dimension of dominion that comes through extraordinary fruitfulness.

Jane, I want you to come to a place of mastery in expressing your innate gifting and learned abilities through your delivered fruits. Be Creative, Be Productive!

THE AMPLIFYING FACTOR

Still on fruitfulness, you remember how Aaron’s rod budded in The Presence of God, or how Mary became fruitful by the overshadowing Presence of The Holyghost, or how those five loaves of bread and two fishes multiplied and feed thousand after they were lifted up to God?

Do you see any common ground in all of these occurrences?
There was something or someone that was offered.
(Let’s call that your fruit, which is the product of a worked gift. It was bread, not flour; a damsel, not a day old baby;)

The Amplifying power of God’s Presence provoked the extraordinary in terms of fruitfulness.

Your fruit and The Presence of God is a combination that the world must acknowledge, and say, ‘we have not seen it in this fashion before.’

They said it about the Lord Jesus, they said about King David, they should say it about you too, for the world desperately needs the shine your light brings.

This is why I usually say, that everyone in Christ is a blessing to creation.
We have The HolySpirit in us!

1 John 4:15 (Amplified Bible)
Whoever confesses and acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

Have you thought about the potential effects of being God’s temple and He being your habitation?

Can you actually imagine the impact your fruitfulness will have in your territory and sphere of influence, plus the relevance your identity commands for the kingdom of God, if you are intentional about working your gifts, growing in intimacy with God, and living a life of surrender and dedication to God’s glory on the earth?

Can you? I would say limitless.

Festus A.

Concluding part will be up next week.