“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge…”

Professor Richard Thaler writes of how he increased the overall total points on an exam from 100 to 137 to gain greater performance from his students.  In fact it worked, even when the 137 point test was harder than the 100 point exam.  Why?  Well, there are many guesses as to why we respond to a higher bar, even if it artificial, but for sure when we are given a task that if we feel like we can perform above average and even exceed something like a 100 points, then we are more motivated.  I’ve long been an advocate of raising the bar when we can to give the higher achievers more to strive for and the rest will collectively rise to follow the leaders.

Why do we think that God gave us such wonderful promises and the example of perfection in Jesus?  He raised the bar for us!  We can strive for moral excellence because He did so for us, giving us divine reason to strengthen our faith in Him.  If in doubt that there is more in store for us, look no further than how we are given more and more when we give more and more of ourselves back to Him!

Reference:  2 Peter 1:5 (New Living Translation)