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Giving Praise or Slinging Mud?

5/18/2016

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Around fifty years ago I read a book titled, The Greatest Salesman in the World. The book was written by Og Mandino, a motivation writer along with being a serious convert to Jesus Christ. Og had suffered for several years as an alcoholic, coming very near to taking his own life. Og wrote numerous helpful works prior to his leaving this Vale of Tears, and each one was abundantly laced with scriptural truth, though he seldom quoted from the Bible. He did make Bible truth clear. He lost a major writing job as a result of his stand on the reality of Jesus Christ.
 
One of the twenty sayings the potential greatest salesman in the world wanted to instill into his mind was this gem:
 
“I will laud my enemies and they will become friends; I will encourage my friends and they will become brothers. Always will I dig for reasons to applaud; never will I scratch for excuses to gossip. When I am tempted to criticize I will bite my tongue; when I am moved to praise I will shout from the roofs.” Og Mandino.
 
You may still buy Og’s books on Amazon and other outlets. In my opinion the money for his books is well spent, but only if you actually read and apply the truth in them.
 
The principle of being a good finder and a teller of praiseworthy things about others was a trademark of the greatest salesman. I like the phrase, “I will dig for reasons to applaud, never will I scratch for excuses to gossip.”  
 
Have you ever wondered why we humans are more prone to be people that place blame for our actions, missteps or plain old sin, on others? I have to tell you on biblical authority, it’s in our genes, trickling down all the way from the first human and first sinner, Adam. Most serious students of God’s Word, including me, believe the “sin seed” is passed down via the father, hence the utter importance of the Virgin Birth. We all know the first thing Adam did after the fall was to attempt to hide from God and then attempt to shift the blame for his choice to Eve, and ultimately to God Himself for giving the woman to him in the first place. Great Salesmen nor Great Christians play the blame card. Period.
 
One mark of character is to accept responsibility for your actions. For many years a friend of mine spent too many hours of the stuff we call life, digging in every nook and cranny, every slur page masquerading under the banner of religious news, attempting to find some scummy comment or juicy tid-bit about another brother or sister in the Lord. In his dotage I asked him why he had become so bitter toward other Christians. His answer was textbook perfect; “Because there is so much in their life, Larry, so much sin.” We argued for a spell but I could not accept his sense of value in discovering and publishing what’s wrong with everybody, nor could he accept the idea of instead of digging for dirt, to sift through the dirt searching for the Gold in a person’s life. Learning to be a Good Finder is far more rewarding in the spiritual realm. Satan accuses the brethren day and night!
 
Copyright © 2016  Larry Lilly

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