Excellence Is…

I beginning to think that a lot of what we believe about God begins with how our parents taught us about being loved. God is our Father. He is our Perfect Parent. But, our human parents cannot be perfect and if they don’t have God’s heart in their parenting, life can be really rough. Frustration and hurt and confusion in a family…where does it come from? Unmet expectations. Misinterpretation. The sense that kids wonder if they will ever measure up. If a child messes up, or does not do anything quite right, if she does not measure up to the standard, if he doesn’t try hard enough, then the love is in jeopardy. Why? Because the love isn’t directed toward the child as he/she is, but it’s directed towards the image of what he ought to be.

If any of us grew up with the sense that one or both parents expected perfect every time we did something, we may very well be fighting this battle. The Perfectionist struggles with results that are flawless, and if he is a believer, life can get rather murky. That life becomes performance-based, works-oriented, guilt-motivated; a  “faith” that leaves him mentally exhausted and spiritually spent. Not at all the way our Creator intended life to be!!

I’m thinking that some of the words read in the bible have been misunderstood just simply because the translation wasn’t spot on with the original meaning. For example when Jesus said:

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”? (Matt 5:48, NIV)

Now, before I started to investigate how perfection gets in the way of our relationship with God, I totally avoided this passage (silly me). Oh, I read it, but just passed over it. God is asking me to be like Him? Are you kidding? There’s no way! Or maybe I can. Sure, I can do this. I’ll just keep expecting myself to be totally correct, always right, no mistakes, pure and perfect…then I can follow this command. Right? Not at all. It is important to read any words from our Lord in context. He was telling His followers to treat others, particularly those that you don’t like, with the respect, with compassion, and with godly love.

Dan Blanchard, a Christian therapist, who teaches about the struggles with perfectionism explains this wonderfully:

Doesn’t that teach perfectionism?  Not at all.  First, in context, the Greek word translated “perfect” is “complete.” The point Jesus is making is that we’re not to show partiality, picking and choosing whom we will love and whom we will not, i.e., “Perfect your love: Let your love for those around you be complete.”

Beyond that, a child of God is called not to be literally perfect, but to excel. If we do not have a target, we cannot hit it. If we do not have a goal, we cannot achieve it. If we do not have a model, we cannot emulate it.  This is our challenge. It is what we daily aspire to. Not to mediocrity. Not to “averageness.” But to do work and relationships—life itself—with excellence. The very nature of God and the resources He provides empower us toward excellence. And this is the critical difference.”

Look at this paraphrase of the same passage: “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” (the Message)  It is so important to understand this. Our Lord said that love is fundamental to Christian expression and living. It is the means by which men will know that we are believers, that God is true, and that Jesus is a Savior. “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” John 13:35

When the word “perfect” is translated from the Greek katartizō, which means “to make fully ready; to put in full order; to make complete“. We become complete in Him, through HIS WORK, not ours!  It’s all about our attitude, about what motivates us. Striving for excellence can be such an exciting, realistic, hopeful challenge because it is backed 100% by God’s promises.

Excellence is…possible!

Excellence is within our reach!

Isn’t that good news?

There have been times where I felt a sense of excellence, it had a lot to do with my attitude and my motivation. The attitude of  “I can do this! And I can do it really well.” was in my heart. And my motivation was to bring God honor and glory—to please Him. When I’m in sync with God the effort is amazingly joyful. With God behind your intent and the effort, a ‘failure’ can be seen as part of the growing process.  Here’s some incredibly good news:

“Make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.” (2 Peter 1:5-9, NLT)

Did you get that? It’s step by step. Steady and sure. One day at a time. Make every effort to RESPOND to His promise. What is His promise? The words preceding this passage tell us:

“Jesus has the power of God, by which he has given us everything we need to live and to serve God. We have these things because we know him. Jesus called us by his glory and goodness. Through these he gave us the very great and precious promises. With these gifts you can share in God’s nature, and the world will not ruin you with its evil desires.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

• Excellence is willing to be wrong.
• Excellence is risk.
• Excellence is accepting.
• Excellence is confidence.
• Excellence is journey.

He promises everything we need to make it. He promises us the power to become closer and closer to His nature!

That is incredible. And true.

(a good read: God Speaks Today: Embracing Imperfect)