Top 7 Bible Verses About Mediocrity

Here are seven Bible verses about mediocrity in the hopes that you can avoid it in your life.

Colossians 3:23-24 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

When we are working at our job, the Apostle reminds us that it’s not really an employer we work for but it’s the Lord and it is from Him that we will receive our rewards, not from our employers. A pay raise and a nice 401k are nice, but only for this life. Those things done for God are eternal and will last forever; those things we earn in this life are worthless in eternity and will all pass away. Working for men it’s not; working for God, it is.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.”

We can’t bring anything with us and to prove that point, at a funeral I did recently, the grieving family members wanted to put something in their departed love one’s pockets to “take with them” but there are no pockets in clothing provided for by funeral homes. They figure, they can’t take anything with them, so why would the deceased need pockets. They don’t, so all we can do is give it our very best and do it for the glory of God.

Ephesians 6:7-8 “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.”

Even though this is about serving in the church, the principle is still the same. God doesn’t want mediocrity…He wants excellence because we’re “serving the Lord, not people” and since these are God’s children, we will receive rewards from God for the way serve them (or not). It doesn’t matter what a person’s status in this life is (slave or free) because God doesn’t show partiality like mankind does (Rom 2:11).

Colossians 3:17 “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

The Apostle Paul covers everything in the Christian’s life; work, deeds, thoughts…you name it. We do everything and anything for God’s glory and never for our own. We do everything in His name, not ours. By acknowledging that any good we do is ultimately from God, we are being thankful to God by giving Him the credit, honor, and glory for all we do. If we do things contrary to God’s will, we’re not glorifying God but sin.

James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

God doesn’t want any more religious people. He wants disciples after His own heart or the heart of Jesus Christ. Even though it’s more about a relationship than religion, and that relationship being with Jesus Christ, true and undefiled religion that God accepts is that of visiting the orphans and the widows in their affliction or suffering. Part two of that is to keep one’s self from being stained by the sins of this world. A lot of people talk about religion but for the Christian, it’s more than a belief; it’s an active faith that is action oriented. It’s what you do more than what you say.

Matthew 18:9 “And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

Jesus is using hyperbole or an extreme form of exaggeration in this verse because sin is so serious. He wants us to take extreme measures and not just live a mediocre life in Christ, but live an extraordinary life in Christ. One example was a young man I was mentoring who struggled with pornography and it was starting to destroy his marriage, so I suggested that we put on an Internet, password-protected filter and that I would call him every couple of days to be his accountability partner. I also suggested him move his computer into the living room so that everyone could see what he was viewing. If he wasn’t willing to do this, then I suggested getting rid of the Internet. I ask him, “Is having the Internet worth wrecking your marriage?”

Second Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

We were not born again to be born into mediocrity. God wants us to excel in all we do and for His glory. There is no room for average in the kingdom. Besides, we should have a deep desire to live a holy life, hate the sin when we see it, and to live a life of obedience to God. That’s what new creations do. They have new desires to live a life pleasing to God and they have the desire to hate evil and to avoid it. The old desires in our old hearts have become new desires in a new heart bent toward obeying God.

Conclusion

Christians are not called to mediocrity but to excellence. That is the clarion call for all believers. God doesn’t want to save us just to sit back and rest in that. He wants us to reach out to the lost and make a difference in this present world. Christians are supposed to be salt to season a bitter, sin-stained world and to be a light where there is much darkness. That doesn’t sound mediocre, does it? God gives us His light and brings us out of darkness s so that we’ll go back into the darkness to bring others into the light.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.