The Spirit of Excellence
(week 41, 2002)
Olubi Johnson
This week I want to speak to us about developing a spirit of excellence.
In Psalm 8: 1 and Is. 28: 29, the Bible speaks of God as being a God of excellence.
Excellence is the quality of doing things completely, efficiently and thereby perfectly. It is defined as having good qualities in a high degree.
We need to develop a spirit of excellence in all we do both spiritually and physically. So many Christians lack a spirit of excellence in both spiritual and physical endeavors. In fact if you have true excellence in spiritual things it will show up in the physical things you do. If the spirit of excellence does not reflect in what you do physically, even though you appear spiritual, then what you really have is more of a spirit of religion and legalism, rather than the Holy Spirit working in and through you to do His good pleasure, since God is a God of excellence.
We need to develop a spirit of excellence so that we can let the excellence of God shine through us to others so that they can glorify God and be drawn to Christ (Matt. 5:16).
The spirit of excellence must be shown firstly in spiritual and then also in physical things. Today many people and ministers with enough money do things that are physically excellent but do not have excellence in their spiritual lives: in honesty and integrity, prayer and the study and practice of the Word.
These people do not have the spirit of excellence of which we speak.
The spirit of excellence of which we speak is not just about having money to do physical things excellently.
Daniel: An Example of Excellence
The spirit of excellence is exemplified by the life of Daniel. He was excellent in both spiritual and physical things.
Dan 6:1-5
It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
(KJV)
Daniel was a powerful witness of His God both to the King and His ministerial colleagues (Dan. 6: 25-28).
He developed the spirit of excellence by:
Purposing or determining in his heart to do the perfect will of God, by not defiling Himself with the meat from the King’s table, even when this kind of abstinence was not popular, nor convenient for his flesh (Dan. 1:8-10).
He was diligent in his prayer life: praying regularly three times a day in the middle of a hectic governmental schedule (Dan. 6: 10).
He diligently read and studied God’s Word so he was able to discern the times: the number of years and seasons of God’s purposes for Israel (Dan. 9:2).
He was careful and diligent in the exercise of his physical duties so that no fault was found in him or what he did (Dan. 6: 4).
By copying his example and doing these same things in our lives we too can develop a spirit of excellence.
