Mediocre or Excellent Gifts

The definition of being mediocre is: of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate; rather poor or inferior. No where in the Bible does God want less than our most excellent effort. The sacrifices that were unworthy were rejected, but the sacrifices that were the best were always accepted and honored.

Philippians 4:8 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."

1 Corinthians 12:31 "But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way."

Striving for excellence means:

-to do our best and to be content to leave the rest for God.

-to live at peace with God, knowing that we are giving -- with His help -- our best efforts.

-to use our gifts to the best of our ability, but ultimately putting people first.

-to work like this: Colossians 3:23 (NIV) "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."

-to humbly depend on God for our abilities, strength, and results, and to give Him glory.

-to live in contentment and peace, knowing that God is pleased because you are working for Him, and doing your best.

Often unbelievers have higher standards for Christians than Christians do for themselves. When it comes to our work for God, let’s make sure we are holding ourselves to the high standards set in God’s Word. We have the opportunity to “make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10) to people around us by the way we do God’s work.

Excellence carries with it the sense of what is vital. In the Greek, excellence means to bear apart or to differ between; as with metals, you learn to tell one from another, the greater from the lesser. So things of excellence are things of greater value.

We should be able to test for approval the things which are the most valuable in life. None of us operates in life without some scale of values. The question is not whether we have a scale of values; the question is more which scale of values we choose. Do we choose God's highest values or some set of values we may prefer?

Where there is no scale of values, utter confusion follows. If you want to live a flustered life, then live life without an adequate set of ultimate values. In this situation nothing is of value, nothing of importance. To live life with everything of equal importance is to live life at a trivial level. Lesser things are as important as greater things.

If we choose as our ultimate value to make and save as much money as possible, then we have chosen a lesser value in God's economy. If we choose to put God's glory first instead of trying to be perfect, then we live by God's scale of values. It is a matter of what comes first. If our main objective is just to get by, then we are number one in our values and God is number two.

We need to decide what is important.

We must be excellence in our walk with Jesus, so we never hear the words “depart from me, I never knew you.”