Phillipians 1:10 That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;
In the church today, there is a growing trend. That trend is instead of seeking that which is excellent, we settle for the good. Instead of striving for excellence, we settle for good things. However, as Christians, we should never settle for good, rather we should strive for excellence. We make good the standard and excellence a goal only a select could ever reach, when in reality, we should set excellence as the standard that each and every Christian can and should reach. Let’s look at ways we have settled into good rather than excellent.
- – We give instead of go— We settle with God that I give to missions so I don’t have to go! Instead, we should strive for the going with giving! So often, we use our pocketbooks as a way to appease our conscience and settle for good rather than do that which is excellent. We could never go, so we give. When it should be that we all strive to go and give as we go! We should be willing to go take the gospel to the whole world. Some may not be able to do that, but at least we could go to our local area and take the gospel. We think because we gave to missions that exempts us from going. But that is us settling for the good.
- – We want faithfully attending, tithing Christians serving in our churches instead of sending them to go— We want our young people to have the Christian, American Dream. That is they can have a good job, a car, a home as long as they faithfully attend church, serve in the church and give. Instead, we should be pushing everyone not to even look at the American Dream because the American Dream is not Christian at all! Rather, we should push for excellence and ask all to consider giving their lives
to go to the ends of the earth with the message of salvation. Let’s stop letting our young people settle for good and get them to strive for the excellence of getting the gospel to the world!
– We pray instead of go— We take the mindset that I can’t go and no one in this church can go, but we can pray. Rather, we should look at going and praying! We should say, “I will go if God allows me, but I will also pray as I try to go.” If God doesn’t allow you to go then pray, pray, pray. So often, we see where Christ tells us to pray for laborers and we think that praying alleviates our need to go. The truth of that verse is that we should pray for more to labor as we are laboring to go!
None of the things above are bad things. If you are unable to go, you should give and pray, but so often, we set those as the standard, when in all actuality, going is God’s standard of excellence! Let’s stop settling for good and push ourselves and those around us to strive for excellence. This is what God wants us to do, but in America we have made this form of comfortable Christianity the standard. God never intended it to be that way. He wants us to give up our comforts, step outside our comfort zone, live our lives for Him and take the gospel to the whole world!