Marketing Guru, Gary Bencivenga, writes that every company needs a set of core beliefs they stick to with utter zeal and conviction. He borrows this idea from Tom Watson, Sr., founder of IBM who said that to be great, a company needs a religion. Bencivenga calls this the "Credo Technique," Latin for "I believe."

You will find that when you clearly stand for something, you will never stand alone. Indeed, standing for something special in your overcrowded marketplace sets you apart from armies of me-too competitors who strive to be everything to everybody, and wind up meaning nothing special to anyone.¹

Imagine an army of people with this kind of "credo" for Jesus Christ. Could there be anything more worthy of this kind of commitment? Paul the Apostle stood for one thing and one thing only: "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3-4).

A few days ago I asked a Christ-confessing bookseller, "Are you ready to live and die for Jesus or is He more like something added onto the rest of your life?"

"Like something added on," he honestly replied.

Believer, if Jesus is simply another "part" of our busy schedule, does this give Him the honor He so rightly deserves? Does this sound like the appropriate response to Someone who was brutally tortured and murdered for wrong things you and I did? It would be better to tell no one that you are a Christian than to treat Jesus like an appointment in your Outlook. Jesus warned, "So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth" (Rev 3:16).

I pray that you will be so sold out for Jesus that people all around will know exactly Who you live for and what you are ready to die for. If IBM was willing to do it for money that encrusts with green rust, how could we not do it for Christ who lives forever?

Endnotes

1. Gary Bencivenga, "Berncivenga Bullets," http://bencivengabullets.com/bullets.asp?id=1, cited June 10, 2008.