Great Attitudes: EXCELLENCE

If we are going to engage “excellence” it will require 100% effort 100% of the time. Natalie Gabal helps bring about an awareness of what happens when 99.9% is the standard. Consider this year that:

• 2,000,000 documents would be lost by the IRS
• 12 babies would be given to the wrong parents each day
• 291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly
• 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions would be written
• 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes would be shipped

Excellence starts in the MIND. It has to do with the way that we think about God, ourselves and others. From this it grows into the way we think about business, marriage, and family. The second step has to do with our WILL. Disciplining the eyes, the hands, the feet, keeping moral tabs on ourselves and refusing to let down our guard are qualities of excellence. People of excellence know how to turn right thinking into action even when the emotions don’t agree.

Philippians 4:8

“Finally; brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Fix your attention of these six specifics

1. Not unreal far-fetched dreams, but things that are true, real, valid.
2. Not cheap, flippant, superficial stuff, but things that are honorable and worthy of respect.
3. Not things that are wrong and unjust, critical and negative, but that which is right.
4. Not things that are carnal, smutty and obscene, but things which is pure and wholesome.
5. Not things that prompt arguments and defense in others, but those things that are lovely, agreeable, attractive, winsome.
6. Not slander, gossip and put-downs, but information of good report, the kind that builds up and causes grace to flow.

It should be of no great surprise that we act out precisely what we take in. In other words we “become what we think.” Proverbs 23:7 states, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is.” The secret of living out an excellent life is merely a matter of thinking thoughts of excellence. It is a matter of programming our minds with the kind of information that will set us free.

Three Questions

1. As you think through the major decisions of the past six to eight months, have you pleased the Lord or have you fed your ego?
2. Have you begun to take your personal goals and desires before the Lord for His final approval?
3. Are you willing to change those goals if, while praying about them, the Lord should lead you to do so?