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…