Do you have an excellent spirit?
I am all about excellence: it is a high priority in my life. My goal in everything I do is not to be average or ordinary, but rather to be excellent! One of my philosophies of life is that I am engaged in the relentless pursuit of excellence!
Society also places a high value on excellence. Multitudes of books, seminars, and the like inspire and teach how to be excellent in the things we pursue. Excellence is almost always rewarded and promoted.
Of greater consequence than what I value or what society honors God places a high premium on excellence, especially excellence in our spirits! The fruit of an excellent spirit will be revealed by our attitudes, emotions, and conduct. God is never content with average, status quo, or mediocre when it comes to our spirits. He challenges us to demonstrate an excellent spirit.
When man finds a person with an excellent spirit, he always rewards and promotes that person. When God finds a person with an excellent spirit, He always rewards and promotes that person. If you want to be rewarded and promoted by both man and God, demonstrate an excellent spirit!
Of all the great Bible heroes, it is only said of Daniel that he possessed an ‘excellent spirit.’ A quick review of his life reveals first how Daniel’s excellent spirit causes him to gain favor of the eunuch in charge to request an alternative diet and God rewarding his spirit by blessing Daniels and his friends with ten times the wisdom of their peers. Daniel found great favor with both man and God. Next we find Daniel interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image representing world powers. Daniel was rewarded and promoted to great honor as ruler over Babylon and chief over the wise men.
Then we find King Belshazzar terrified by the mysterious handwriting on the wall. The Queen calms him and recommends he call for Daniel to interpret the writing “…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” (Daniel 5:12). Daniel interpreted the handwriting and once again Daniel was rewarded and promoted to great honor as the third ruler in the kingdom.
Ultimately, “It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.” (Daniel 6:1-3). Daniel is once again rewarded and promoted to great honor above the 120 other leaders. According to the text, there was one and only one reason Daniel was promoted and preferred above the 120 other leaders… his excellent spirit. No one could lay a finger on Daniel. His peers tried to plot against him but failed miserably and received the death penalty. After Daniel’s deliverance from the lion’s den Daniel again prospered.
Daniel served in the vicious world of politics in the administrations of four world leaders and maintained an excellent spirit throughout his life. Twice the Bible references his excellent spirit, which kept getting him rewarded and promoted by both man and God.
We understand how challenging it is to maintain an excellent spirit. It is easy demonstrate a wrong spirit, but much harder to demonstrate an excellent spirit. Both man and God are attracted to excellent spirits. “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another” (Psalm 75:6-7). “All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits” (Proverbs 16:2).
Both man and God reward and promote an excellent spirit. Our daily prayer should be: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). A person with an excellent spirit will be rewarded and promoted!
