Word of the week - Excellence

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Col 3:23-24

Our God is a God of Excellence at His very core.  He has created all things with Excellence (very good of its kind; eminently good; first class) because all things are created in His image.  As His children He desires for us to receive His spirit of Excellence and reproduce it.  A spirit of Excellence is really a godly attitude that is demonstrated by how we live as noted in Colossians 3:23 above.  Just like many other godly attributes such as love, joy and patience, a spirit of Excellence is a byproduct of what God is doing on the inside of us as we are discipled in Christ and allow Him to impart His nature within our soul and spirit.  If we understand who God really is, we cannot help but want to represent Him well as we engage with purpose.  Whether we are doing full time ministry, working in the marketplace, serving in the community, raising and disciplining our children or hosting a party, we should do everything as unto the Lord and thus with a Spirit of Excellence.Based on my experience in life, many people seem to believe that if you are doing something in the name of God or religion you can do it less than Excellent because it is volunteer work and fellow Christians should be nice and tolerant.  This is not true and has really distorted the view of Christ and His church.  In fact as fellow believers we should be holding each other to much higher standards; we should exhort and sharpen one another to live in Excellence.  “As iron sharpens iron so does one believer sharpen another” Proverbs 27:17.  Many non-believers are turned off by the mediocrity they see and experience from “Christians”, especially in the marketplace. This is why it is so important for us to understand that as followers of Christ we are representing God as His sons and daughters and are called to possess and demonstrate a spirit of Excellence in all that we do, so that others will see the wonders of God through us His children and be drawn to Him.  What is so cool about God is that in engaging in life with a spirit of Excellence, we end up winning favor with God and man and we are blessed beyond measure, this is abundant living, “the life that is truly life”.  Although God’s ways are not our ways they always seem to produce amazing fruit both in the spiritual and the natural, on earth and for eternity.  I guess God knows what He is doing!!!By this process, I was invited and had the opportunity to attend a conference called T-Factor this week in Nashville https://t-factor.com/#overview, which I highly recommend for business leaders who want to run godly purpose driven businesses.  Attending this event and spending time with my friend Marty Herndon, who invited and hosted me and my partner Zane with amazing Excellence, really showed me another level of Excellence, especially in the area of loving and blessing others to show the Excellent and extravagant love of God.  More to come on this next week…Have a great week and take every opportunity to live in a godly spirit of Excellence.Godspeed,-Duane