Author and speaker Joyce Meyer says the opposite of excellence is not doing what we say we’re going to do. She gives an example of a furniture store she visited, at which an employee told her she’d reach out to Meyer with important information later on about her purchases. However, Meyer never received the promised correspondence, and she kept reaching out to the employee, who kept apologizing and never following through.
“If we’re going to call ourselves Christians and put bumper stickers on our car and wear crosses around our neck and carry big Bibles and go to conferences, can we at least try to do what we say we’re going to do?” Meyer asks.
Meyer says the Holy Spirit has to teach us self-control in order for us to experience true freedom. Now, works aren’t what get us to heaven. But there are things we can do that are in obedience to Christ and will bring us closer to Him, thereby benefiting us too.
“Real freedom is not the liberty to do anything you want to do, anytime you want to do it,” Meyer says. “It’s the freedom to not have to if you know that not doing it is going to actually be better in the long run than if you did it. …
“We all want to see the glory of God in our lives. We want to see His excellence and He wants to show us His excellence, but He also wants us to choose to be excellent.”
To watch the entire sermon, click here.