BLESSED ARE THE PURE
A couple of years ago we went to Ottawa as my wife Joanne had some work to do there, so Thomas and I tagged along to check out our nation’s capital. One of the places we visited was the historic Canadian mint – where money is made – and we had a tour but unfortunately no free samples. One of the things we saw, secured behind some very thick glass, was a specially-produced coin. In 2007, the Canadian mint produced 5 special gold coins, each weighing 100kg, with a face value of $1 million dollars. That’s right, a million dollar coin. Don’t try to put that in the soda machine...
Why? It was designed as a showcase of a technological breakthrough that allowed the Canadian mint, already a world leader in the refinement of gold, to achieve a never-before level of purity – 99.999% pure. Less than 10 parts per million of other elements. The guides were quite excited to tell us about the mint’s incredible accomplishment of "five-nine" gold, and bragged about this incredible purity.
There is something appealing about purity. Whether in our gold or our drinking water, the idea of "purity" is appealing to us. Now what about our hearts?
(From a sermon by Steven Simala Grant, Blessed are the Pure in Heart, 4/15/2011)