Excellence or Obedience

Been reading a book entitled, "Every Man's Battle." It's a great book that talks about the struggles that all men have with sexual impurity. One of the chapters talks about the mixing of standards that we have with sexual purity as well as all other aspects of our life. We so often take a standard that God has for us, and since we deem it impossible, we take what we feel is ok, or "not that bad" and mix that standard with God's standard. Through this we just cancel out God's standard all together. We're then left with something that we, along with many others around us, see as acceptable. We've created our own standard, which is in direct contrast to what God originally designed. It's at that point that we have to take a step back and determine if we are shooting for excellence or obedience (as it was put in this book). When living a Christian life excellence is described as finding ways to seem perfect by using mixed standards to achieve it where as obedience considers it merely comfortable to seem perfect. Obedience requires a fixed standard for which we are to shoot. As Christians we sell ourselves and God short when we try to be excellent. God wants obedience.