Better

Here is a principle worth living by: "Leave things better than how you originally found it."

At VBC we use this very often when it comes to the context of borrowing a room or using a facility that belongs to someone else. We want to leave the condition of the room/facility as it was when we found it and take an additional step to ensure that it is better than how we found it.

I believe there are several keys things we can draw from the principle above.

1. Jesus is all about abundance, and the "and then some" factor. He not only came to give life but to give Life (capital L - ultimate LIFE) and to give to the FULL.
2. Jesus not only instructs us to fulfill a "rule" but to live by the principle. Go the extra mile. For ex: Love our enemies but to go the extra and to pray for them.

Here is a great way to measure your maturity, whether you are maximixing your gifting/talents and if you are truly being the blessing He has called us to be.

When you leave, whether it be a church, work, school, or even people, is that place or those people left in a better "condition" than when you first arrived? Are people glad that you left because you did not add to them or build them but rather took away and pulled them down? Are there new things and growth and expansion that God has allowed you to pioneer or be a part of?

If you are a blessing, it will be a bitter sweet time. If you are maximizing your gifting and talents, that place should have moved further along and should have grown by the time you leave.

Are you leaving things and people better than when you found them? Hmmmm.....