Anything Less Than 100% Isn’t Good Enough
Kathleen and I had the privilege of getting married and spending the first night of our honeymoon at the Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel in August of 1997 because the incredible generosity of her parents, Dave and Lynn Reid. When it comes to quality, luxury and pampering it was arguably the most memorable experience of my life. Our time there was truly “a once in a lifetime” experience because at the current room rate, I don’t anticipate we’ll be able to go back anytime soon.
The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain is a company that is known for quality. In fact the company holds the distinction of being the only company to win the prestigious Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award two times (1992 and 1999). Mr. William Johnson, the former owner of the chain credited with helping the chain become such an outstanding organization, said this after receiving the first award: “Quality is a race with no finish line.”
I believe Mr. Johnson is correct, competitive excellence requires 100% effort all the time. I don’t think it’s possible to strive for excellence by setting your standards at 85% or even 95%. Standards set at less than 100% eventually become reduced to acceptable or just mediocre. Fortunately for us Christ follower’s, we worship a God who is committed to a standard of 100%. Case in point: think about the word justification? Do you know what it means? Justification is the sovereign act of God whereby He declares righteous the believing sinner while that person is still in a sinning state. God doesn’t make us righteous because we still sin. God declares us righteous! How righteous does God declare us? 99% or 99.9% righteous? No, He declares us 100% righteous.
When I ponder on how sinful, how totally depraved humanity really is, the fact that God declares us 100% righteous is all the more remarkable. For the Christ follower, Jesus death and bodily resurrection was enough to for God to declare us 100% righteous. Anything less and we are not righteous but rather almost righteous. When the Lord said “it is finished,” He meant “finished.” 100% of the ransom for sin was paid so that we may be 100% forgiven and declared 100% righteous.
On the second day of our honeymoon back in 97 Kathleen and I took a red-eye flight out of Los Angeles to the beautiful Island of Maui to celebrate our new marriage. I don’t sleep well on planes so by the time we arrived to our exotic destination I was a little tired and cranky. As we were preparing to disembark the plane Kathleen asked me to help her with her luggage and I verbally responded by snapping at her. Of course by that point in the flight everyone around us knew we were on our honeymoon and ready to start are amazing journey of love and respect together. Boy did I get some harsh looks from our traveling neighbors at that moment. I’m pretty sure I heard one of the passengers whisper in Kathleen’s ear “it’s probably not too late to get an annulment honey.” Definitely not one of my finest moments in our 17 years of marriage to say the least. But I like to think that I was intentionally setting the bar pretty low so that anything I did from that point on resembling an inkling of kindness would be received by Kathleen with great warmth and gratitude.
When I think about that moment on my honeymoon and the countless other sinful acts I’ve committed in my lifetime it completely overwhelms me to know that God declares me 100% righteous. Let’s never forget that God gave us 100% so that we might glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.