Week 7 – Excellent

I can’t believe it’s already week seven! Since it’s been a while, let’s take one last look at the full verse we have been dissecting over the last several weeks:

 “Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.” Philippians 4:8

This last week, we are looking at the final phrase from Paul’s instructions. There are two descriptors in here, but really I think it boils down to the word “excellent”. Something that is excellent is considered to be “very good of its kind” or “superior”, while something that is praiseworthy is that which is “deserving of approval or admiration” (see here for a deeper dive into things deserving of our admiration). Based on these definitions, that which is excellent is, by default, praiseworthy. So “excellent” is where we’re going to direct our focus for this week.

It’s interesting that this topic is coming up this week, as I recently joined the launch team for Jordan Raynor’s new book “Master of One” (check it out here!). I’ve spent the past week reading my advance copy of the book and…y’all, I’m only a few chapters in, but let me tell you now it has been absolutely eye-opening. It’s totally changed my perspective on excellence as I’ve begun to realize that, because God is the pinnacle of excellence, and because I am His child and called to reflect God’s glory here on earth, it is required of me to conduct myself in excellence in everything that I do. As he puts it: “We are the physical representations of God in this world, which is precisely why God has called us to work with excellence, doing everything for His glory.” (Seriously, just pre-order the book—it’s full of gems just like this. So good.)

Although Jordan’s book focuses primarily on excellence in our vocation (specifically, mastery of a single vocation at a given time), it makes sense that this principle would apply with equal weight to our thought lives, as the only way we can be excellent in what we do is to be excellent in how we think.

How can we make our thoughts excellent? We can dig around and find all kinds of verses in the Bible about excellence, but here’s the thing—if God is the final authority on excellence, then I think it makes the most sense that in order for our thoughts to be excellent, they should focus primarily on Him. We should dwell on His greatness instead of getting caught up in the minutiae of our days. We should ponder His glory instead of becoming mired in our problems. We should reflect on His unending grace and love instead of allowing ourselves to be frustrated by our inevitably frustrating co-dwellers on this earth.

In short, allow God to consume your thoughts rather than allowing anything else to do so!

And with that, I’m going to wrap up this challenge. I pray that you’ve been able to make some headway in allowing God to help you take back control over your thoughts…but don’t stop now! Keep practicing, keep praying, and don’t let your guard down—the enemy loves nothing more than to hijack your thoughts, but as God’s child you have the divine power to not allow him to do so. God bless!