Excellence (Daily Devotional)

Welcome friends, so good to have you back. We are talking about being strong and firm in God no matter what season we are going through in life.

Today, I want to focus on another value or character which is important for us to be firm in God and stand strong and this is excellence. When we talk about excellence, we all recognize that it has to do with doing our best and doing things to the highest standard. When we talk about excellence, we also see in Scripture that the Spirit of God is called as a Spirit of excellence. Daniel is a wonderful example from the Old Testament of a man who excelled in everything that was committed to him. We also see that there is a comparison between him, and others (people of his times) and we are told that he was recognized for the excellent spirit which was in him. The king recognized him for the excellent spirit. We also know that the spirit that he carried was the spirit of revelation, understanding, knowledge and that is the same spirit in Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 2, we read about the Holy Spirit described in all these ways. The Holy Spirit is able to impart excellence in our lives. Today, I just want to encourage us whatever it is we are called to, let us pursue excellence. Even when we consider our spiritual walk with the Lord, we could have started at a certain level with God, but we see that Scriptures are always calling us to maturity and maturity has to do with us becoming like Jesus or being conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a passage in 2 Peter chapter 1 and verses 5 through 9 where the believer is being called to the next level and step. I just want to read this for us, from verse 5, it says, ‘But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.’ We notice here that God is calling us to a higher walk with Him. If we thought that we have already developed diligence in us, it is as if God is saying, ‘Come on, add faith to that.’ If we thought that we have faith, God is saying, ‘Come on, add virtue to it.’ God is really stretching so and calling us to a place where we can become like His son and represent His son, the Lord Jesus well to the world out there. In addition to that, we are called to fruitfulness, we are called to thriving and flourishing in Christ Jesus. This is God’s heart for all of us, God doesn’t want us to remain at the level where we are, but He says, ‘Come up higher, grow and become mature, move and go towards maturity.

’Friends, I just want to encourage us to take that step ahead, let’s make a better decision, let’s put in that effort and trust that God will keep honing us and causing us to grow in Him and pursue excellence. Let’s pray together, Heavenly Father, thank you that your dreams for us are so great, you want us to say yes to you and yield to you and come up higher in you. I pray for the Spirit of excellence which rested upon Jesus and Daniel to rest upon your people. Let that excellence be seen in each one of our lives and in everything that we do. We honor you and give you the glory, in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week's theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week's devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.