I spoke with David a number of months ago, about where we are as a business and where we could improve — we both agreed that our goal should be building our employees and empowering them to be able to grow into better people. I can think of no better way than to focus on Jesus’ teachings for us all. 

His message was simple and direct: Matthew 22: 34-40 — Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  This is the core of Jesus’ teaching.  This is a part of what many people call “The Golden Rule.”  Basically, this is half of the entire New Testament tradition in one single statement – treat each other as (we) would want to be treated. . .

The other half is one that we tend to gloss over sometimes, though.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. . .  Without the love of God, we tend to see a fallen soul, like the drug addict on the street or (insert any other human that you feel is lost, even yourself) and think that they are lost, dirty, nasty or without hope and forget that they (we) are a child of God too. We tend to see what’s wrong and not what’s right. We tend to see everyone’s shortcomings and judge them based on those (this includes ourselves — we see our physical detriments and think of ourselves as short, fat, bald, ugly, etc. and are embarrassed by what we see as failures, but we ignore the 99.9999% of our perfection). We compare our own perceived strengths and judge others, without remembering that they have faced a completely different life with different challenges and that we may have survived that life if it were given to us. Our perspectives tend to dwell on the negative and not the positive, so we judge and hold on to those judgements and allow that to destroy our self-image and our vision of others as worthy, beautiful amazing creatures who each have an incredible divine purpose for existence. If, however, we love God and trust Him; we can see that every human being is salvageable and that they are an incredible creature of God too and our fear or revulsion fades away and we can overcome our worldly human nature and reach out to them with Love.

I want to encourage you all to remember and realize who you are, who you are proud to be, who you love and who you want to be (who God knows you to be); live out of the spirit and strive to be that spiritual person to each other and to all of the world. Remember who we are: 

We are J-Bar — we are blessed beyond measure. We love — we are thankful beyond measure. We serve, and in so doing become the leaders that God wants us to be.