When I first entered supervision, many years ago, I was taught to remain aloof, not to get close to my employees. I was told they would take advantage of me if they thought we were friends; that they would be looking for special favors. I even had one superior tell me that if my employees liked me, it was evident I wasn’t doing my job. Much advice was dumped on me that first year, but none worse that this. What I learned through experience, was the exact opposite.
When I was a craft employee, the supervisor who got the most out of me, my best effort, was the one who treated me with respect, the one who said, “I need your help please”. The supervisor that took me by the front of the shirt and tried to cram something down my throat got the least; he got minimum effort while he was watching, and even less when he wasn’t. What I learned through experience was that I was not that different from other craft employees, most folks react just like I had. I also learned that my “real” friends would come early, stay late and bust their backsides to get the job done. Time and again they pulled my fat out of the fire.
The greatest Teacher of all was our Lord Jesus. The scholarly religious leader Nicodemus said to Jesus, “We know that you are a teacher come from God” (John 3:2). We would be wise to follow His example in our relationships with others.
The Thirteenth Chapter of First Corinthians tells us of the importance of love in everything we do. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels……though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries…….and have all knowledge…..and though I have all faith so I could remove mountains……and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and give my body to be burned…..if I don’t do it with love, I am nothing.
Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another…..These things I command you, that you love one another” (John 15: 12 & 17). The Apostle Paul said. “….ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another” (I Thess. 4:9). One of the most important lessons we can learn in life is to really love people.
Dr. W. A. Criswell preached for fifty-five years at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. In a sermon on love, he said, ”However, eloquent we may be, however gifted, however wonderfully blessed of God with talent, if our spirit is crude and rude and rough, if our heart is not filled with the milk of human kindness, if we’re not actuated and motivated by a wonderful care and concern for God’s fellow creatures, our eloquence is like sounding brass and clanging cymbal. Our gifts of the spirit are nothing and our very philanthropies fall to the ground”.
When I was a craft employee, the supervisor who got the most out of me, my best effort, was the one who treated me with respect, the one who said, “I need your help please”. The supervisor that took me by the front of the shirt and tried to cram something down my throat got the least; he got minimum effort while he was watching, and even less when he wasn’t. What I learned through experience was that I was not that different from other craft employees, most folks react just like I had. I also learned that my “real” friends would come early, stay late and bust their backsides to get the job done. Time and again they pulled my fat out of the fire.
The greatest Teacher of all was our Lord Jesus. The scholarly religious leader Nicodemus said to Jesus, “We know that you are a teacher come from God” (John 3:2). We would be wise to follow His example in our relationships with others.
The Thirteenth Chapter of First Corinthians tells us of the importance of love in everything we do. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels……though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries…….and have all knowledge…..and though I have all faith so I could remove mountains……and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and give my body to be burned…..if I don’t do it with love, I am nothing.
Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another…..These things I command you, that you love one another” (John 15: 12 & 17). The Apostle Paul said. “….ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another” (I Thess. 4:9). One of the most important lessons we can learn in life is to really love people.
Dr. W. A. Criswell preached for fifty-five years at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. In a sermon on love, he said, ”However, eloquent we may be, however gifted, however wonderfully blessed of God with talent, if our spirit is crude and rude and rough, if our heart is not filled with the milk of human kindness, if we’re not actuated and motivated by a wonderful care and concern for God’s fellow creatures, our eloquence is like sounding brass and clanging cymbal. Our gifts of the spirit are nothing and our very philanthropies fall to the ground”.
Christ knows everything we have ever done, said or thought, and He loves us anyway. He is our example; that’s how He expects us to love others, “anyway”. It matters not what they do, say or think; we’re to love them anyway. It’s a lesson better learned sooner than later.
