When you listen, give 100%. When you work give 100%. When you play, play 100%. Pastor Fabian Steyn, recently preached about..."Why give 99 percent?"
Romans 12:1 and 2
"So I beg you, brothers and sisters, because of the great mercy God has shown us, offer your lives as a living sacrifice to Him- an offering that is only for God and pleasing to Him. Considering what He has done, it is only right that you should worship Him in this way. Don't change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but let God change you inside with a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to understand and accept what God wants for you. You will be able to know what is good and pleasing to Him and what is perfect." (Easy to Read Version-ERV)
Looking at these scriptures and a few others like James 2:22-25, we were reminded how we sometimes give only 99 percent and many times less because we are not doers of the Word. We are only hearers of the Word and therefore we do not see the results we are looking for in our own lives. We are not willing to give our lives to God completely. We are not giving 100% thinking perhaps even subconsciously, that what we are giving is enough. Sometime we even compare ourselves with others...making sure we are doing or giving more then them. What we may not know is that though they may be giving less...that is their 100%.
Many times we drop our standards...we compromise and our 100% becomes 99%! We allow Satan to erode us from within and we become Rootless and Fruitless slowly but surely. May bad things can happen when we do not take stock of our lives to give 100% and become content with 99%. Here are some statistics which were found by Pastor Steyn while he was preparing his sermon. These are from two different webpages.
In America this is what would happen if they settle for
99%
-The IRS would lose 2 million documents this year.-22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank account in the next hour.
-Telecommunications companies will misdirect 1,314 telephone calls every minute.
-2,488 books will be shipped with the wrong covers on them each day.
-More than 5.5 million cases of soft drinks in the next year will be flat.
-12 babies will be given to the wrong parents each day.
-Footwear companies would ship out 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes each year.
-The US Postal Service would miss-handle 18,322 pieces of mail every hour.
-Two planes landing at Chicago O’Hare would be unsafe every day.
-315 entries in Webster’s Dictionary would be misspelled.
-Doctors would write 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions this year.
-880,000 credit cards in circulation would have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic -strips.
-291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly.
-3,056 copies of tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal will be missing one of its four sections.
As you can see 99% seems good...but 100% is what is needed. You give your best in many areas of your life...Why not give God your very BEST. Give Him the PERFECT sacrifice. It is not impossible! Be PERFECT because God is perfect...He will not expect something from you which He knows you cannot do. He knows that you can give 100%. So give just that 100%.
