Greetings everyone and welcome to today’s edition of …
Learn & Grow with Jesus Every Day Today’s Topic is: The Importance of Relevance Date: Friday, February 19, 2021 Bible Reading: Luke 14:34-35 NIV
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
Discussion Question: Am I still relevant to my employer, to my spouse, and my associates?
Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness…it is thrown out. Think about that for a moment. Now, let's paraphrase – you are good, but if you lose your relevance, you are discarded.
Relevance is key. Simply, relevance can be defined as the measure of your usefulness and value. A great indicator of the measure of your relevance is demand. It is indeed a tragedy if nobody places a demand for your skills, expertise, services, products, association, or friendship. The reason why you are doing well in your career, business, or field of endeavor is that you are still relevant. The reason why your associates or friends still crave your company and values your friendship is simply that you are still relevant. There is a measure of usefulness and value you add to their bottom-line that they either cannot do without or they are yet to find an alternative or replacement. The measure of your relevance is directly proportional to the measure of the usefulness, value, and quality of services, and/or products you supply, or the brand you represent. Your ability to maintain and sustain that heightened level of demand for your usefulness and value determines the shelf life of your relevance to a people, an organization, or an enterprise within a domain. The moment the law of diminishing return sets on your relevance, you cease to be recognized, appreciated, or celebrated. You suddenly become invisible, even in limelight, and rapid obsolescence sets in.
Any loss of relevance can be traced back to complacency and negligence. Getting too comfortable and forgetting the vital importance of continuing to improve yourself, your skill, your expertise, your brand or the overall quality of your products and services to maintain your competitive advantage and value proposition can easily dislodge you no matter how secure you feel. Failure to understand that “all times are not equal” in this day and age where speed and agility are the currency, will leave you way behind the dust of your competitors.
To maintain and sustain your relevance, you must be uncompromising in these two things;
1. Performing at peak efficiency 2. Training, developing, and scaling with inexhaustible resilience and agility
There are different kinds of relevance depending on the context. Knowing where your usefulness and value fit in is pertinent. For instance, we have intellectual relevance, emotional relevance, financial relevance, social relevance, political relevance, economic relevance, spiritual relevance, and so on. The cumulative effect of two or more of these would keep you going for the long term.
The world is a marketplace. Everybody is looking for a very useful commodity to buy – and that commodity is “value”. Have you ever asked yourself, “What do I bring to the table? What value can I add, or degree of usefulness can I deliver?” What commodity exactly am I selling?
Many through no fault of their own fell on hard times because of the loss of employment, business, or a difficult health challenge. But many on the other hand, fell on hard times simply because they lost their relevance. Irrelevance is very costly and can have very adverse long term effects.
Jesus said that we are the salt of the world, and if we lose our saltiness, we are no longer of any use and would be discarded. Salt plays a crucial role in maintaining human health. It is the main source of sodium and chloride ions in the human diet. Sodium is essential for nerve and muscle function and is involved in the regulation of fluids in the body. Sodium also plays a role in the body’s control of blood pressure and volume. Salt is also a natural preservative, a flavor enhancer, a cleaning agent, and a de-icing agent.
As the salt of the earth, we should play crucial roles in:
Maintaining the overall health of our families and those of others, which includes but is not limited to – personal, spiritual, financial, mental, psychological, emotional, social, and behavioral health.
Adding flavor and color to the lives of everyone.
Treating everyone and everything with respect and dignity and preserving all the good in life.
Holding each other to a high moral standard and being accountable for each other’s wellbeing.
Healing and correcting one another gently with love, and de-escalating conflicts while promoting peace.
Maintaining and sustaining our relevance in any sphere of life by doing the needful diligently is a natural preservative that we should apply to all life situations.
Stay uplifted in Christ always and live cheerfully every day. Leader Chinedu Nicholas Obodo for EXOLOM Fellowship