Approving Excellent Things

It is a mark of Christian maturity to be constantly evaluating what we are doing and why we are doing it. Paul exhorts us to put everything to the test and approve the excellent things. This can include choice of friends, spending, time, entertainment, leisure activities, appearance, etc.

To be excellent means to be different because of superiority. Not every choice is an excellent choice. Excellent does not just mean lawful. Within all of the lawful things, there is a certain amount of gradation of what is excellent.

How do you determine what is excellent?

1. Excellent choices begin with love
   If you don't begin with love, your choices will be skewed. Paul assumes his object of love to be love to God and love to others. Choices come down to pleasing God or pleasing ourselves. Choosing excellent things means choosing things that please God and positively affect other people.

2. Excellent choices depend on our possession of two things

• our possession of knowledge
  This means having an understanding of what God says on the topic at hand. But we can't just know about Christ. We must know Christ to know God's will and make mature choices.
• our possession of judgement
  Possessing judgement means being accustomed to putting knowledge from God's Word to use and being skillful at using God's Word to make decisions. This judgement comes with time. Therefore, older Christians often are better at making excellent choices.