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right thing until everyone else is doing the right thing. God rewards those who do the right thing early:
[57:10] Why do you not spend in the cause of GOD, when GOD possesses all wealth in the heavens and the earth?
Special Honor
Distinguished from the rest are those among you who spend before the victory and strive. They attain a greater rank than those who spend after the victory and strive. For each, GOD promises salvation. GOD is Cognizant of everything you do.
Author Malcom Gladwell in a podcast talks about basketball, and a legendary player named Wilt Chamberlain, who could score at will no matter the defenders around him. But he was a poor free throw shooter. One season, he changed tactics and shot his free throws underhand. Some people call this a “granny shot,” and it’s generally ridiculed. But it’s effective, and for that season Chamberlain went from 40% to 60%. Then, inexplicably, he switched back to overhand shooting and went back to being a terrible free throw shooter.
Chamberlain commented on it: “I felt silly, like a sissy, shooting underhanded. I know I was wrong. I know some of the best foul shooters in history shot that way. I just couldn’t do it.” He doesn’t want to look foolish. He’s a high-threshold guy. He needs everyone to be doing something new before he’s willing to join in.
What about the low threshold guy? Another basketball player, Rick Barry, shot all his free throws underhand. When his father first encouraged him to do it that way, his response was: “they’ll make fun of me.” But he tried and became one of the best free throw shooters of all time, sometimes shooting over 95% at a stretch.
Submitters should not be high threshold people. We should not need others to do the right thing before we do it.
Because most people may not even know what the right thing is when it comes to worship (30:30, 40:57, 45:26, 34:36). And blindly following the majority can divert us from the path of God (6:116). Instead, we need to follow what God says.
[30:30] Therefore, you shall devote yourself to the religion of strict monotheism. Such is the natural instinct placed into the people by GOD. Such creation of GOD will never change. This is the perfect religion, but most people do not know.
[40:57] The creation of the heavens and the earth is even more awesome than the creation of the human being, but most people do not know.
[45:26] Say, “GOD has granted you life, then He puts you to death, then He will summon you to the Day of Resurrection, which is inevitable. But most people do not know.”
[34:36] Say, “My Lord is the One who controls all provisions; He grants the provisions to whomever He wills, or reduces them, but most people do not know.”
[6:116] If you obey the majority of people on earth, they will divert you from the path of GOD. They follow only conjecture; they only guess.
Returning to the example of Rick Barry, Gladwell observes that he had the same initial reaction as Wilt Chamberlain—they both didn’t want to look like a sissy. The difference was that Barry thought about it and accepted the new technique because it produced better results. In other words, his drive to be a better free throw shooter was stronger than his worry about how people saw him. Barry had a low threshold. If your threshold is 0, you don’t need support or approval to do what is right. At the end of the day, according to Gladwell, someone like Rick Barry stood for “perfectionism.”
What does it mean to be a “perfectionist” submitter? It means we follow the perfect religion, one of strict monotheism (30:30). We do our very best not to pollute our belief with any kind of idol worship (6:82, 6:161). We devote our worship, our life and death absolutely to God alone (6:162, 30:43, 98:5). It’s about what God thinks and not what people think.
[6:161] Say, “My Lord has guided me in a straight path―the perfect religion of Abraham, monotheism. He never was an idol worshiper.”
[6:162] Say, "My Contact Prayers (Salat), my worship practices, my life and my death, are all devoted absolutely to GOD alone, the Lord of the universe.
[30:30] Therefore, you shall devote yourself to the religion of strict monotheism. Such is the natural instinct placed into the people by GOD. Such creation of GOD will never change. This is the perfect religion, but most people do not know.
[30:43] Therefore, you shall devote yourself completely to this perfect religion, before a day comes which is made inevitable by GOD. On that day, they will be shocked.
[98:5] All that was asked of them was to worship GOD, devoting the religion absolutely to Him alone, observe the contact prayers (Salat), and give the obligatory charity (Zakat). Such is the perfect religion.
We want to constantly be checking on our performance as submitters to God alone and asking for His guidance. We want to do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do.
Reference: revisionisthistory.com/episodes/03-the-big-man-cant-shoot
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[5:100] Proclaim: “The bad and the good are not the same, even if the abundance of the bad may impress you. You shall reverence God, (even if you are in the minority) O you who possess intelligence, that you may succeed.”
We, human beings, are social creatures. We seek to fit into our societies, we care
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