A lifetime of perfect scores

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin (1 John 3:4).

When you play darts, you want to hit the bullseye. When golfing, your goal is to get the ball into a very small hole. In basketball, you must get the ball through the hoop in order to score points.

Life is about hitting the target. Managers give targets for the sales staff to aim for; if you are a failure at reaching target numbers, you can expect to be shown the door. Soldiers who can’t hit a target wind up stuck behind a desk or working on a carburetor in the motor pool. Fail to aim your car properly, and you’ll end up stranded in the ditch or lying dead from a head-on collision.

Hitting a target requires accuracy and precision. It’s not enough to hit the sweet spot every once in a while; a good baseball pitcher must be consistent in his performance. Only the best hit the mark dead on, time after time after time.

God expects us to obey His laws perfectly. He demands 100% accuracy and 100% precision. Think about that. Imagine scoring a 300 every time you bowl. Imagine pitching nothing but perfect games for an entire career. It is just as impossible to impress God with your spot-on behavior.

Way too often, we miss the mark. Our efforts fall short; our successes are scattershot. The Bible has a word for this failure—that word is sin. To sin means that you didn’t hit the target dead center; to be a sinner means that you average a pitiful score when it comes to being a good person.

In baseball, weak batters can be sidestepped by putting in a pinch hitter. That’s what God did when He sent Jesus down to earth centuries ago. The Son of God is our substitute batter. Jesus has the accuracy and precision that we lack; where we fail to meet God’s lofty standards, Christ has succeeded. He takes the stat book of our lives, erases our miserable scores, and replaces them with His own. Because of this substitution, God awards us a trophy we do not deserve—the trophy of everlasting life in paradise.