Strive For Excellence (7)

We will be concluding our discussion of the topic of striving for excellence this week and to recap, the main points in the previous posts have been:

a.     Striving for excellence is not a desire for superiority over others

b.  While striving for excellence, have a disposition that views excellence as a direction and not a final destination

c.    Striving for excellence for God’s people should be done with a realization that we have a divine seed of excellence

d.    Striving for excellence requires some crucial internal attitudes:

1.      Determination

2.      Faith in God

This week I will go on to highlight a third crucial internal attitude required to walk in excellence

3.      Humility

One of the challenges that people who strive to walk in excellence face is pride. It really does not matter in what area or segment in life it is, pride just very easily creeps in. Once you begin abounding, there is a real temptation to become conceited and become self-congratulatory. With pride comes a desire to show one’s self better than others. Proud people usually have an exaggerated estimate of their achievements, attainments or status and they usually despise others or even treat others with contempt. Some of us become proud based on our previous achievements and some of us actually even display “spiritual pride”. 

The problem with pride is that it prevents us from reaching further, limits us from abounding further. That is not surprising as Scripture warns us:

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” 1^st Peter 5:5b New Living Translation. 

You can also look up James 4:6, Psalm 138:6, Proverbs 3:34 and Proverbs 29:23.  

The only antidote to pride is humility. Maintaining a humble disposition is the only thing that can keep us from the nasty scourge of pride. Biblical humility is an internal attitude that accepts God’s estimation or assessment as true.

Humility is not a rejection of anything good. Some people think that is what being humble is about. They have such an inferior view of themselves and constantly refuse to see themselves as being any good. True humility is an attitude of not having any exaggerated opinion of one’s self but accepting God’s estimation (Romans 12:3).

Again in the life of Joseph (remember we have been looking at Joseph and Daniel as examples of people who walked in excellence), we find this lesson of humility. Throughout his journey Joseph learnt humility and at the point when he was to be promoted to that elevated position, he displayed humility as he spoke with Pharaoh (Genesis 41:15-16).

 

Humility keeps us teachable (James 1:21). Humility makes us seek to improve and abound further as we walk in excellence. In my life personally, I’m learning to maintain this attitude. As a believer in Christ Jesus, I am reaching forth to things ahead, I know I can be better. As a husband and a father, I am focused on being better in my relationship with my wife and daughter. As a Pastor and preacher, I am constantly seeking to be better in both pastoring and preaching, I never think that I’ve attained the best I can be at those. As a Medical Doctor, I also have the same attitude. I encourage you to have the same attitude in all that you do.

Remember as I wrote at the beginning of this series: whatever stage you are in life, God is calling you to abound. God’s desire is for you to excel and He has given us resources to enable us achieve just that.

Strive For Excellence (6)

Last week, we start started looking at the important internal attitudes which are required for us to walk in excellence.  We considered determination as one of these requirements. This week, we will go further by considering another important requirement:

2.     Faith in God

Faith in God is a quality of the heart that accepts what God says as true and takes decisions based on this. Our determination must be alloyed with faith in God for us to walk in excellence. In fact for the believer, it is our faith in God that should fuel our determination.

To illustrate this point, we could consider the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43-48). According to the Law of Moses, she should not have even been mingling with the crowd because she was unclean and anyone else who touched her was also unclean (Leviticus 15:19-27). In spite of this, she pressed through the crowd of people that had thronged our Lord Jesus to touch the border of His garment. She was determined but Jesus commended her for her faith (Luke 8:48). It was her faith that made her overcome the obstacles in her way-she should have been ostracised due to her condition and also probably physically weak from 12 years of haemorrhage but her faith energised her and helped her to go beyond the limitations she faced. So you see, faith in God is crucial to our determination.

As believers in Christ Jesus, not only do we become children of God by faith, we are also to live and experience the transformed life by faith (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 11:6, 2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith is what allows us to cooperate with God and participate in the wonderful things He accomplishes.

Returning to Joseph again as an example of one who pursued excellence, he is mentioned in the “hall of fame of faith” as one who walked in faith (Hebrews 11:22). Though it was not directly mentioned in the Genesis narrative of his life, Joseph must have maintained the same faith in God through his tortuous path to greatness; from being his father’s favourite to being thrown in a pit by his own brothers, to slavery in Egypt, and then a brief period of relief as Head Servant in Potiphar’s household before his eventual imprisonment (for not succumbing to Mrs Potiphar’s sexual seductions) which then led to his elevation to the position of Prime Minister in Egypt.

One major thing that constantly dissuades us in life is doubt. Over and over, we are faced with different situations that seem to tell us that we cannot abound beyond our current attainments. Sometimes we are reminded of our pasts and that makes us have a very small or restricted view of the future. The only antidote to the crippling effect of such doubt is faith. We need to maintain our faith in God.

Faith in God enables us to look forward to the endless possibilities no matter our current or even past circumstances. Faith in God accepts the reality of God’s seed of excellence in us even if external circumstances seem to suggest otherwise. Faith in God enables us to walk in the reality of the divine resources God has made available to us.

Let me encourage you this week to return to the word of God over and over to re-affirm your convictions (Romans 10:17). That is how you can maintain your faith. God is who He says He is, He can do what He says He can do and you are who He says you are. You have to accept all these realities and walk in excellence by faith!

To be continued…

Strive For Excellence (5)

We have considered some important points on the subject of striving for excellence. The points we have highlighted so far have been:

a.      Striving for excellence is not a desire for superiority over others

b.  While striving for excellence, have a disposition that views excellence as a direction and not a final destination

c.    Striving for excellence for God’s people should be done with a realization that we have a divine seed of excellence

From this week, I would like to share some important internal attitudes that are required in striving for excellence.

1.      Determination

I often come across people who are highly talented and even many who are very skilled or gifted. Some are even more educated than their peers but sadly they do not excel. I have found that in a number of such cases, what is lacking is determination.

I took the liberty to look up that word in different dictionaries and I found a number of insightful definitions:

“A quality that makes you continue trying to do or achieve something that is difficult” (Merriam Webster)

“A positive emotion that involves persevering towards a difficult goal in spite of obstacles” (Wikipedia)

“The act of deciding definitively and firmly, firm or fixed intention to achieve a desired end” (Webster)

The simplest of the definitions was from the Urban Dictionary which defined determination as “simply not giving up”

Desire many times is not enough to sustain us as we strive for excellence. Talent, ability or giftedness is also not enough. Education and training alone are also not enough. It requires determination. There are usually obstacles and challenges along the path as we try to give expression to God’s seed of excellence and this is what makes it necessary for us to be determined about it.

Sometimes, the discouragement is from people around especially when a culture of mediocrity has been woven into the fabrics of such societies. Attempts to strive for excellence are usually suppressed in such environments because people would like the status quo to be maintained. Some would hurl insults, scorn and sometimes even take steps to subvert the efforts.

Going back again to Daniel as one of the prime examples of God’s people who had remarkable success as a product of striving for excellence, one thing stands out quite early in the Old testament narrative of his life. Daniel 1:8 says he “determined that he would not defile himself with the king’s food…” And he must have needed a good deal of determination to navigate the intrigues of the King’s magicians, sorcerers, enchanters and astrologers.

Andrae Crouch (July 1942 – January 2015) is regarded as the “father of modern day gospel music”, leaving us with lyrics and music that continue to reach people all over the world. Some of his well-known songs are “Jesus is the answer” and “Soon and very soon”.

Many of us however, do not realize that Andrae Crouch had a learning disability called dyslexia. Determined not to allow the dyslexia limit him, Crouch learnt more with drawings and images rather than words. He would begin the song writing process by drawing a picture of what he wanted the song to sound like and he used his visual skills to write dozens of songs and thus overcame the obstacle of difficulty with spellings of words.

In 1967, a young lady (17 year old at that time) had a diving accident that left her quadriplegic in a wheelchair. Joni Eareckson Tada (now aged 66) in spite of this is an author, artist, singer, radio personality and an advocate for the disabled. During her rehabilitation after the accident, Joni spent long hours learning how to paint with a brush between her teeth. She can also write this way. Her high-detail fine art paintings are much sought-after and collected. She has also written over 50 books. According to her autobiography, she experienced anger, depression, suicidal thoughts and doubts during the two years of rehabilitation yet she emerged with new skills and has gone on to abound further.

I encourage you dear friends as we strive for excellence, be determined. Do not give up no matter the challenges in your path. Do not settle for anything less than what God has called you to. Approach it with determination, not an outward sensational expression but an internal attitude of tenacity. Be determined to excel!

To be continued…