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.
Living the Christian life is not something we live out half way.  Living our lives for the Lord requires us to give it our all for Him.  When we work towards a pursuit of excellence for Christ in every area of our lives, doing so will have positive benefits to those around us, but most importantly to our relationship with Christ and our spiritual maturity.
As we become husbands, fathers, leaders, or servants, we must seek to represent Christ with a pursuit of excellence.  Those we may oversee or those we report to expect us to come through.  If we do not, we let others down, and we lose out.  On top of that, we hinder our ability to impact lives for Christ.
Our salvation is not based on our works, but faith in Christ.  It is by grace through faith in Christ we are saved.  However, that does not give us the license to “sluff off.”  On the contrary, that should compel us to reach for a life of going above and beyond.
Living to pursue excellent performance in our lives is not only difficult, but impossible; unless of course, you focus solely on the power of the Holy Spirit.  But that does not mean there will be conflict between our spirit and our flesh.
We will fail at trying to pursue excellence, especially in every single area of our lives.  But it can be done if we surrender and cling to Christ.  He should be our first priority, because He is our goal.