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# Better or Excellent?
- URL: https://amemamem.com.br/en/better-or-excellent/
- Published: 2025-04-17T22:47:19.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T21:46:32.000Z
- Description: From childhood we are taught to compete.
- Author: Airton Humber
- Tags: #en, #de-melhor-ou-excelente

## Because living is more than competing, it is giving yourself completely.

## The logic of comparison

From childhood we are taught to compete. To be the best in the class, the best on the team, the best at work. But "being better" is a goal that always depends on someone else being worse. It traps us in the measuring stick of another. What happens when there is no one worse nearby? Or when no one is watching?

## Better is relative. Excellent is true.

Being better is always an outward effort. Being excellent is an inner choice. It is when we stop comparing ourselves with others and start comparing ourselves with who we were yesterday. Excellence is born from personal surrender, from the pursuit of being whole, true, present. It does not depend on recognition from outside, but on a transformation that happens within.

## Jesus did not seek to be better: He was excellent.

Jesus did not come to defeat the religious leaders, nor to compete for popularity. He was excellent in surrender, in love, in obedience. He lived completely. And for that reason the Father exalted Him. In Him there was no competition, there was conviction.

## Christ in us does not seek to be better: He forms excellence.

The formation of Christ in us does not make us better than others, but it transforms us. It makes us walk with more truth, more humility, more depth. Being excellent is allowing the Holy Spirit to lead us in this daily process of being perfected.

## An example Jesus told: the Pharisee and the tax collector

Jesus gave us a parable that clearly illustrates the difference between being better and being excellent. Two men went to pray. A Pharisee said: "God, I thank you that I am not like other men…" He wanted to be better than the others. The tax collector, without lifting his eyes, said: "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." He was sincere, humble, whole. Jesus says that it was he, and not the Pharisee, who went home justified. The Pharisee was better in his own eyes. The tax collector was excellent before God.

## An even more excellent way

Paul closes chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians by saying: "And now I will show you an even more excellent way". And he begins chapter 13 speaking of love. Love is the beginning of the Spirit's work in us. It is when we stop trying to be better and give ourselves completely. Not to compete. But to love. And to live. Truly.