We've got a financial course coming up shortly. Now if you're in debt I encourage you to go the course, because you're in bondage. The Bible says a person in debt is in bondage. The borrower is the servant of the lender, so if you've borrowed off ungodly people you're in bondage to them and it affects your future. I've talked with people in the church and they run everything up on tick and they - see what you do is you're selling your future. You're putting yourself in such bondage you can't fulfil what God calls you to do. If God says I want you to do this, you're just not positioned to do it. So when you get into debt you don't realise your mortgaging your future and there are certain places we can get into debt, but go to the course. Get dominion over your finances. An interesting thing when I talked with Andrew about the whole issue of Uganda we realised an interesting thing. For many people in the church if we gave them $100, they wouldn't get out of their debt. In other words they're below zero.
With Ugandans if we give them $100 they come up above zero and they start to be productive. I thought well man, I looked on them as being poor and I realised actually debt and this whole thing of credit has really crippled the church far more than we realise. So we want to do things that will help you and this course is one way to help you in that - so take personal responsibility. Say no to being a victim. Now let's give you the other ones and I want to get through these today. Each one of them you could develop and think about, but if I just give you them you'll realise and they just - like most things with God, anything that God's in is actually commonsense. You thought oh, I knew that. It doesn't mean to say you're doing it, but you knew it. Okay, so let me give you some of the other destiny decisions. These are important decisions.
Here's one of them which is very important: pursue excellence. Pursue excellence. In other words say no to mediocrity and half-heartedness; no to mediocrity and half-heartedness. Let me give you a verse in Colossians 3:23. Let's have a look at that. Excellence doesn't mean that I'm the best around. Excellence means I'm committed to do the best I can and to continually work to improve, so I never settle down for half-heartedness, see? Sometimes we use the word excellence; you say well that's beyond me. That's for other people. No, no, no, excellence is when you do your very best. When you use whatever resources and ability you've got and you do the very best you can, that's excellence and then when you continue to work to improve then that's excellence. That's the commitment to excellence, otherwise we look and we say I could never be like that, see?
So in Colossians 3:23 notice what it tells us here. Whatever you do, whatever you do do it from the heart or with excellence. Do it wholeheartedly as if you were doing it for the Lord and not unto men. And here's the reason why we do that, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance. So this has got destiny implications in it. I need to approach my life that I will never devalue myself by ever doing something half-heartedly. I'll never be involved in something mediocre. If it's mediocre change it and make it excellent, but don't give your life to something that's half-hearted. It will diminish your value. We must make a decision inside, if we're going to do something do it really well. One of the things I was delighted to see that in Uganda the property that John has got where they've got a house rented and they've got their offices in, is the sharpest looking one in the whole city.