Quotes:
“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
“Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.” -William Makepeace Thackeray
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle
“Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.” -Ralph Marston
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” -Booker T. Washington
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” -Pat Riley
“Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley
“Do your best, and be a little better than you are.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley
“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
― Abraham Lincoln
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“It’s hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.” ― Dolly Parton
Proverbs 31:10-29
Excellecst [H5927] “a-la”, meaning: to go up, ascend, climb, rise above.
(Also used in Scripture as a mist/vapor rising up. Our lives are but “a vapor”.
Excellence [Webster’s 1828], The state of possessing good qualities in an unusual or eminent degree; the state of excelling in anything.
Let’s consider “Replacement Theology”… that is to say, replacing man’s theology for Gods.
Man’s Theology:
Emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually, and collectively; however, preferring the individual.
Humanism and secularism… non-theistic; No God but ‘self’.
May the 2nd was the National Day of Prayer; Humanism called a National day of Reason for May the 2nd. One of their slogans was, “Reason is better than prayer.”
Humanism rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth.
It is said that the highest day celebrated in Satanism is your own birthday.
In the middle of the word, “sIn” is the letter “I”; it’s all about ME, MySELF and I. SIn is about SELFishness; SELF-centeredness.
Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
Some would say: “Trust your heart.”
Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
What is a man/woman/child to do?
Let’s take a case study: Daniel
Daniel 5:1-13 “1- Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. [He was shallow, not excellent.] 2- Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. 3- Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. 4- They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. [This was a direct insult and degradation to the God of the Jews.] 5- In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. [This was prophesied by Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 45:1-4.] 6- Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. 7- The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. 8- Then came in all the king's wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. 9- Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonied. 10- Now the queen [Josephus identifies her as Belshazzar’s grandmother, Nebuchadnezzar’s wife Amyte, If this is correct it would make her maternal aunt of Cyrus whose armies lay outside the wall.], by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house: and the queen spake and said, O king, live for ever: let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed: 11- There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father [Josephus says Nebuchadnezzar was his grandfather. It was common language of this day to call a grandfather, father.], the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers; 12- Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation. 13- Then was Daniel brought in before the king…” [By this time Daniel is “full of days” and had been a captive for 60 years from his youth making him around 80 years old.]
Daniel had a “more excellent spirit”.
That is why he was sought out, that is why he was directly used of God.
He did what-was-right-because-it-was-right.
Daniel 6:10 “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
Over 80 years old now, he had been praying this way for a long time and he just keep on doing what-was-right-because-it-was-right “as he did aforetime.”
If you want to accomplish great things and be a great person, you have to have a more Excellent Spirit within you.
Psalm 51:10, David said, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right [H3559, “kun”… “coon”; meaning to be firm, stable, established, fixed.] spirit within me.”
“A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.”
To have a “right” spirit within you, you must be firm, stable, established, fixed… solid; Built on the firm foundation of God’s Holy Word.
Philippians 2:5-9 “5- Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6- Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7- But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8- And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9- Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:”
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
A more Excellent Spirit.
There is none more excellent than that of the Lord’s.
Isaiah 61:1 (Luke 4:18): “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;”
II Corinthians 3:17 “Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Luke 11:13 “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
