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Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d... -
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Crafting Excellence Amid Constant Shifts
The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri... -
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Doing the Work Before the Work
In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su... -
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My friend Eugene has a black belt
My friend Eugene has a black belt in martial arts. During a sermon taping, I once held a block of wood as tightly as I could, right in front of my face, while Eugene did a 360-degree spin and splinter... -
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Excellence, the Jeremiah Way
In Jeremiah it is clear that the excellence comes from a life of faith, from being more interested in God than in self, and has almost nothing to do with comfort or esteem or achievement. Here is a pe... -
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The early Christian church conquered because the Christians of those days out-thought, out-lived, and out-died the pagans. -
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The Construction of Utopias
One of the seductions that continues to bedevil Christian obedience is the construction of utopias, whether in fact or fantasy, ideal places where we can live the good and blessed and righteous life w... -
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Striving for excellence versus striving for superiority. Striving for excellence means striving to become better in some regard, to improve, or at least not to get worse, especially as we age;47 it is... -
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Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation. -
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Only Babies
British author Leonard Ravenhill told the story of a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village where they saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one of the visitors ask... -
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Qui cessat esse melior cessat esse bonus (He who ceases to be better ceases to be good) -
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”. -
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It is particularly significant that Christ's people, who have tasted immortal knowledge, serve him with excellence. -
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A Christian should constantly seek ... highest standards and employ the most demanding comparisons for [his self-] evaluations. -
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A Christian Business: What Does that Mean?
While from the outside there might not be immediately noticeable differences between a well-run company reflecting a gospel worldview and one reflecting primarily the world-story of the marketplace, i... -
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Excellence vs. Flawlessness
Like so many people, I once associated excellence with flawlessness. The excellent person never makes mistakes, is always consistent and confident, and is continuously applauded by scores of imperfect... -
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Whatever You Do…
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” said the apostle Paul, “as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23) ...[H]ow you do anything is how you’ll do everything. Dr. ... -
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What it Means to be a Master
How would you define a master? Denise Levertov, the American poet, offers one definition by comparing a master to a Mountain: Not one who one imitates, emulates even, but rather, a powerful presen... -
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Curse The Shortness of Life
The politician Helen Violet Asquith (later Bonham Carter) was once attending a dinner with Winston Churchill, who initially seemed lost in abstraction for an awkwardly long period of time. Abruptly he... -
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There is a peculiar gratification in receiving congratulations from one’s squadron for a victory in the air. It is worth more to a pilot than the applause of the whole outside world. -
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Excellence in Biblical Terms
While written almost 30 years ago, this poll of Christian leaders provides some interesting fodder for how to define excellence from a Biblical perspective: What, then, does excellence—as it is descr... -
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No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. -
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Excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. -
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A Surprise Performance
One summer, the composer Edvard Grieg stayed at a small Norwegian hotel. A restless child also resided there, constantly annoying the guests by attempting to play the piano, producing nothing but disc... -
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God’s ideas are not always obvious, and are always more clever than we can imagine. Even though the circumstances may be the same as many times before, God may have a different and better idea. So we ... -
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Beethoven is Everything
The renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini once led a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in London. His mastery and the orchestra’s precision resulted in thunderous applause from the audience. At ... -
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Success vs. Excellence (Part II)
Success offers a hoped-for future goal. Excellence provides a striven-for present standard. Success bases our worth on a comparison with others. Excellence gauges our value by measuring us against ... -
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Praying One Shovelful at a Time
Richard J. Foster tells a story about his youth, working among the Inuit people of Kotzebue, Alaska. He found that the Inuit people he was living among “had a deep sense of the wholeness of life” with... -
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Criticizing Everything
In life, whenever someone achieves success, criticism usually follows—regardless of their skill or the effort they’ve invested. An old story illustrates this truth. A woman crafted artificial fruit so... -
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The Value of a Stradivarius & our Answering our True Calling
Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ...
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