PATHWAY TO GREATNESS

CHAPTER ONE

EXCELLENCE

According to Aristotle” we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit“

Excellence is another name for greatness and it's derived from the word excel which means ”to be superior“. To excel in life does not mean that you are perfect for according to the Bible no one is perfect except God Almighty. God was not asleep when he mentioned that no one is perfect for He said in James 1:5(NIV) ”if any of you lacks wisdom he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to him“. God in this place did not say if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask his fellow man and he shall receive, no, the Lord said ask me and you shall receive for every good and perfect gift comes from Him. ie why He said that no man is perfect and would ever remain perfect except God Almighty

WHAT DO WE PURSUIT IN LIFE
Many things are been pursued in life, some which are money, power, came, etc. But according to the census made by the economists Maris wan is unlimited (ie that mans want can never be known because a man wants money now and when he gets it he goes for power or anyother thing, making his want unlimited).
  But in everything man pursues in life, the only place and thing he gets is greatness. According to the first paragraph greatness also means excellence; and what is really excellence?.
  Excellence is not the same thing as perfection, in the biblical sense of the word. Excellence is a process that is never attained to perfection but attained in stages and it is always to be pursued.
According to James 1:5 in the first paragraph a man should always ask God for wisdom if he lacks but in this age it is hard to see a man admit to be unwise. The only one that surprised God during his life time was Solomon the son of David the grandson of Jessi. When God asked him what he wanted from Him (God), the only thing he asked for was wisdom, knowledge and understanding, which made him the wiseth man ever liveth.
  A philosopher has said, A wise man is he who knows that he knows not and amits that he knows not but a foolish man is he who know that he knows not but claims to know.
To excel, a man must have wisdom. A man who can discover that he lacks wisdom is a wise man and will attain excellence soonest. It takes an excellent man to discover he lacks excellence; foolish men are anxious to discover areas they have excelled inorder to be congratulated or congratulate themselves. But wise men are always agressive to discover the areas in life they have not excel in order to improve upon them. And the point is that whatever you do in life weather you are a journalist, a barrister, a man of God, you should never sit down and count your achievements rather struggle to see the areas in life where you have not achieved anything or where you do not know what to, for Paul said in the letter to the Philippians in Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV)
”Brothers, I don't consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus“.
  Paul in this letter said.....yet to have taken hold of it. The question then is hold of what?   It's hold of excellence, he believes he has not taken hold of excellence and that he is forgetting all his previous years of excellence and straining forward to excel in what God has called him for which is heavensward.
   Don't sit back and think that you have arrived for you have not arrived yet, you still have things to achieve. This is exactly what happened during the time of Jesus and his disciples in mark 9:33-37 Jesus was trying to teach his disciples the principles of excelling which you must accept being the last and being a servant before you can think of being great in life.
In conclusion what every man pursues in life is EXCELLENCE but it's not perfection.