Excellence is, in fact, a relationship. There is only One is truly and perfectly excellent. He alone is the sum and definition of what excellence is and does. So the one who is excellence, in His grace, came to you when you were in a state of anything but excellence, and by grace offered you the promise of actually becoming a partaker of His divine nature. He then connects you to purposes and goals way higher, way grander and more glorious than you would every have sought for yourself... Your hope of ever being excellent in His eyes and doing what is excellent in His sight is found in your relationship to Him and in His grace that not only forgives and accepts but radically transforms. And He calls and empowers you to display His excellency and the excellency of His grace. It is only this excellency that has the power to free us from the false excellency of human pride and the mediocrity that results when we are okay with ourselves and our world just the way they are.
Paul David Tripp

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BBD 10.22.02 Peaceful Living

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#1 · October 22, 2002, 2:09 pm

Posted by: wrather <wrather@...>

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The Burning Bush Devotional
10.22.02

Peaceful Living

“Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”  - I Timothy 2:1-6.

Three 16-year-old boys in Elgin, Illinois were a little bored last month so they started playing a game.  The game involved splashing gasoline on their shorts, setting them on fire, and then rolling on the ground to try to put out the flames.  One of the boys ended up going to the hospital after receiving second-degree burns.  How sad that they felt they had to liven things up in such a dangerous way. 

So many times we are like those boys in Elgin, Illinois and we do not really appreciate having quiet and peaceful lives.  Many of us have been blessed with years of peace and quiet.  We have been able to go to work and other events without being in fear of our lives.  For many across the world that peace is being replaced with fear.  Irrational violence has reared its ugly head from Washington D.C. to Australia.  Organized and orchestrated violence has reached out and shattered peaceful lives from New York to Bali.

I have a new appreciation of peace.  How wonderful it is when you do not have to be afraid.  What a great blessing we have been given to live quiet and peaceful lives!  It appears, however, that the peaceful lives many of us have known may soon disappear if it hasn’t already disappeared.

What would God have us to do at this point?  If we would have peace we must pray.  We must pray for all people, all leaders, all those in authority so that they would come to know and be led by the Prince of Peace.

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