Perfect Score! You Lose!

Guest post by Bill Goodwin

My father-in-law, Dale Nichols, was well known in his Northern Michigan home County of Emmet. Besides being one of the best and most knowledgeable potato farmers in the area, he also was well respected as an expert marksman with his deer rifle.

Often, he'd enter a shooting competition that usually attracted the finest marksmen in the Northern tip of the Lower Peninsula.

On one of those occasions, the field of competitors was reduced to just him and another well-known marksman. Fresh targets were set up and the two men were assigned a target number. Each shooter was to fire ten shots. They each took their turn and when they were finished the targets were inspected. Dale's target had just one hole in the center, each round of the ten stayed in the same hole. His worthy competitor had just one hole also dead center. They each had shot perfect scores! When the judges further inspected they realized that Dale's opponent had fired at a target not assigned to him. He was disqualified! Lost! Of course everyone, including Dale Nichols, were downcast to have a good competition end this way, but rules are rules, and all respected it.

When we go through this life, we too, can do everything right in our own judgment. We often say that we've not cheated at school, or work, or play, that we've helped our neighbors when their cows got out, or taken food to a needy family. The list of our life's good deeds could add up to a “perfect score” in our eyes, and yet we could still end up in the 'lost' column. You see, it doesn't matter what your score is, did you do it according to the Judge's standard? God's standard of judgment is based on God's Standard! Think of it! God says, “All the ways of man are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weigheth the spirits…There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Proverbs 16: 2, 25.

So you see, even God knew your score when He wrote that over 2000 years ago. If God knows your score, don't you think you should give more heed to the 'how' of it rather than the 'score' of it? Don't be in the lost column with a…PERFECT SCORE, YOU LOSE!!