Is God Really Honored In Excellence?
Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
I have heard this phrase twice in the last couple of weeks from different people. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it or an iteration of it. Maybe you’ve heard this phrase too. It’s an easy one to take at face value. It sounds reasonable. The closest biblical anchor for the concept is probably 1 Corinthians 10:31 (“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”) though there are many other places in Scripture where preachers and teachers point to find the genesis for the concept. And who doesn’t want to be excellent?
But if I’m being transparent, I felt some tension when I heard this phrase.
I found myself asking, “Can God be honored in excellence?” And I realized that, yes, of course, He can. But part of my struggle is that God is not only honored in excellence. God can also be honored in brokenness, failure, and half-hearted, stumbling attempts at life and faith. If God were only honored in excellence, that would radically change the nature of our relationship with Him. It would be performance-based at best.
Can God be honored in our efforts at excellence? 100%. But He isn’t always honored in our attempts at excellence. He can also be completely absent from them. There are churches that appear to be excellent from the outside looking in but fall short of God’s commands for what a church should be and do. Some individuals seem “excellent” on the surface, but we inevitably discover that their lives are in chaos behind the scenes.
Is God honored in excellence? Sometimes. But not all the time. And that’s the rub. Because if that’s true, there is caution there.
I think the issue is how we typically define “excellence” in our culture. We usually define excellence as “best in class.” And herein lies the problem. While the Bible describes things as best in class, and we’re sometimes encouraged to choose the best options, there is not a call in the Bible for Christians to be best in class.
Excellence is most often understood in terms of something’s standing compared to others. This comparison mentality is something we carry over from culture and is largely absent in the Scriptures. We are indeed called to a higher standard than non-believers. But God doesn’t have a ranking system for Christians. There is no leaderboard, no Top-25.
There is no call in Scripture to outperform other believers. On the contrary, a mountain of biblical teaching suggests just the opposite
But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. - Matthew 20:26–28
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. - Matthew 5:5
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. - Philippians 2:5–8
In God’s economy, excellence is simply not defined as being the best in class. Yet I believe the Bible does indeed call us to excellence of a sort. But to recognize and see this call, we have to rethink our definition of excellence.
For Christians, excellence isn’t defined as being the best. Excellence is giving our best. Excellence in God’s economy isn’t about our standing; it’s about our seeking.
The excellence that all Christians are called to is a deep-seated commitment to following after God with everything we have. It’s a commitment to relentlessly pursue Him. Hosea 6:3 says, ‘Let us press on to know the Lord.” It is an unyielding, unwavering, everything we have, all-encompassing, totally life-consuming attachment to God in all areas of our lives. That is the definition of Christian excellence. And anything less than that falls short of the faith God desires for us.
When the Pharisees asked Jesus in Matthew 22:37–40 what the greatest commandment was, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5:
[37] And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
We see this sentiment over and over again in Scripture, especially in Paul’s words. He said that he was being poured out like a drink offering. He said he was hard-pressed but not crushed. He said that he was fighting the fight, finishing the race! He said that he pressed on toward the prize. Paul got that the excellence we’re called to is an excellence of devotion. Of commitment.
And let’s be clear: We don’t do this to earn our salvation or to earn God’s favor. God loves us and has made a way to peace and assurance in Him through faith in the person and the work of Jesus. Salvation is by faith alone. No, the motivation for excellence in our devotion is a love-fueled obedience to God’s command. We fully seek God because it is our spiritual act of worship (as Paul says in Romans 12:1-2), and it brings glory to God (as Jesus says in Matthew 5:16).
Is God honored in excellence? Only if we mean our whole being given in service of Him.
God expects us to pursue Him with excellence of commitment. And guess what? He knows we will never perfectly achieve this. Because of our flawed nature, an excellence of commitment can never be fully realized. Aren’t we forever grateful our value isn’t determined by our performance but by the merit of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross on our behalf? Amazing grace is God choosing to love us even in the face of our inability to pursue Him perfectly.
And yet, we honor God by seeking an excellence of devotion to Him. Let that be our goal today.
This article originally appeared in Volume 31 of my free newsletter, Good For You.
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