Matthew 5:8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Psalm 51:10 — God, create a pure heart in me. Give me a new spirit that is faithful to you.
You may remember the Ivory soap commercial that boasted it was 99.9% pure. Sounded like a great reason to use it, we always did. Of course, it helped that it was one of the least pricey bars of soap in the store as well…and it worked well at keeping kids, dogs, and even clothes clean!
Today I find so many items on the shelf that claim the same thing! My detergent is 99.9% dye free, my antibacterial soap kills 99.9% germs-on contact! My sheets are 99.9% cotton. And on it goes.
I began to think about 99.9%! Why not 100%, it’s so close! I am not really sure, but I have a theory. If they said 100% we might have a higher expectation of the product. With that 1 tenth of 1 percent not possibly not pure, we kind of expect some form of ‘less than’ in the product. If we diligently wash our hands, but still get a cold, well, it might have been that 1 tenth of a percent in the soap that didn’t kill all the germs. Catch my thought?
My husband used this illustration in one of his sermons, and it really struck a home-run with the congregation. He brought cookies into the sanctuary and began preaching. He remembered he had the cookies but not enough for everyone, so, who would like a chocolate cookie? Several hands went up and he gave each a cookie. He went on to tell them his full disclosure. “Before you bite into it, I should tell you, I did not have quite enough cocoa in the house. I improvised and picked up some of the dogs poop from the yard. It was only a little, like maybe a tenth of a percent. That won’t matter-right?
As you can imagine people groaned, wrinkled up their faces, and those with the cookies could not get them out of their hands fast enough!
Let’s change tracks to our Christian lives. Does God want us to be 99.9% believer? Of course not! Of course we think that we are not that 99.9% believer, but scrutinize your behavior and see if you may have missed the 100% mark somewhere at sometime. We all have. Our Pastor admitted recently that when his son was young he took him to a fishing derby. His son just had a birthday and was over the age when you did not need a license by a couple of weeks. Our Pastor let him slide in for free. Not a big crime, won’t keep him out of Heaven, but when they were at the next event and it was a larger fee and a greater amount of time past the birthday, his son announced to all the boys in the group; ‘Oh, it;s OK if we say we are younger, my dad already did it with me at the fishing derby’. OUCH! How much money did he save? How much integrity did he loose? By the way, I admire my Pastor for admitting to his congregation that he is human! We all are, yet we must continue to be diligent with our behaviors. Count the cost. Saving a couple bucks on a license, he realized was not the bargain he hoped for. His son had an indelible bruise next to his daddy’s name, until it was erased from his memory by better behavior.
Examples; Have you ever snapped at the clerk that may be taking longer than you think they should? .01%
Maybe it was your wife or child you snapped at. They will understand, right? .01%
Ever find something that does not belong to you and keep it rather than find the owner? .01%
How about calling in a sick day-when you are not sick, breaking a promise to do something because you don’t feel like it now, telling a credit card company a ‘little white lie’ so they forgive the late fee for the bill you forgot to pay.
All these behaviors add up to 99.9% pure! I don’t know about you but I am striving for 100% pure-100% of the time. Will I reach it? No, no one is perfect, but by setting up that goal I will be sure I am doing everything in my power to get it right! If I aim for the moon, I might just hit the stars. If I am for nothing, well, I always get it!
How about you?
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