You are required to take everything that God has given you and spend the time necessary to be good at what you do. God demands that. He demands excellence. Don't ever let anybody talk you out of that.

Excellence of ministry is the least you can give God, because everything you do is reflecting His glory.

If you aren't doing it to the best of your ability, then you're failing in what God has called you to do. Take hold of the fact that God doesn't make failures, and He not only programmed you for success, but He has given you the avenues to do what He expects of you. He won't ask you to do what you can't do without His help, so give Him your best effort.

You should never get the idea that because there is an apprenticeship period in your ministry that you shouldn't do your very best during that time. Remember that God is shaping you for your calling. He will shape you and prepare you to be shot out like an arrow.

Then, when you are ready, God will appoint you to a task. He won't appoint you before you're ready. He might give you a picture of it—a vision of what you are going to do—but He is never going to give you the word, Go, until you are ready to do it.

Do you know why?

Because He doesn't want you to fail. He wants you to be a success in everything you do. He knows that with the right groundwork and the right preparation, you can make it. That is why He said in 2 Timothy:

Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trials), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.
(2 Tim. 2:15)

That means, do the best that you can do to present yourself to God, approved. In other words, God isn't going to wave a little wand down on you to make you perfect.

The Bible says you have to work out your own salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). Part of that is to ground yourself in God's Word. Show that you are willing to submit yourself to God and to authority by putting off the way you think and putting on the way He thinks.

Maybe the hardest part of putting on God's way of thinking is to wait for Him to let you know when you're ready to do what He's told you to do. First Peter says:

Therefore humble yourselves [actually put off your way of thinking and think like God] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you.
(1 Peter 5:6)

If you clothe yourself with God's Word and exalt His Word...His Word will exalt you!

Many people wonder, Why isn't my music ministry going anywhere? Why isn't my teaching ministry going anywhere? Why isn't my preaching ministry advancing? Why doesn't my church get behind me? I know God has called me to do this.

Have you humbled yourself? Have you put off your thinking and put on God's thinking? God says that in the perfect, exact, right timing, He will lift you up, if you are thinking and acting His way.

Source: Called—Appointed—Anointed by Janny Grein
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers