In society, success and excellence have come to mean the same thing. Many people can not distinguish between the two. If you were to ask 10 people to define these terms, many of the definitions would be the same or a variation of the same thought.
Through my reading, I have determined that as Christians, we need to understand these terms in order to be all that God created us to be. Success is a term that is usually imposed upon us by society. It is a way for us to gauge the progress of an individual or a company. Many of the tools we use to evaluate success are subjective and biased. Success to one person may not necessarily be success to another. As believers, we strive for success in our faith. We tend to gauge our Christian walk by comparing ourselves to others, which only leaves us empty and defeated. We can not compare ourselves to someone else. God created each of us uniquely. There is no one like us. We need to strive for excellence rather than success.
Excellence is the process of becoming all that God created us to be. For example, if you have a brand new car, you would follow the manufacturers guide to servicing your car in order to maximize the effectiveness of the car. It was created to operate under certain conditions. If we want the car to be excellent, we need to operate and maintain it to the specifications that we were given. It is the same in our lives as we follow Christ.
Jesus came to show us the way to have an abundant “Excellent” life. We need to follow His guidelines to be able to operate at maximum efficiency. We need to follow Christ the best way we know how out of the unique way God has shaped us. When we do this, we will relieve the tension between success and excellence. We were made to live for more
than just existence. We were made to be excellent.
-Randy Brown
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Define "excellent" then. But don't use your dictionary. What is the Lords definition of "excellent"? The writing seemed good initially but you made a point that apparently only you can see. Define "excellent" for us.
