Targets Part 2

Whether or not you share my yearning for hitting things with a round projectile, you have an aspect of target hitting in your own life as well. Everyone does. “What?!”, you say. “I’ve never even held a squirt gun.” Well maybe not. But the most important part of your life is directly connected to your aiming ability.

The Hebrew word hattat and the Greek word hamartia both mean “to miss the mark” and are translated in our English Bibles as the word sin. So in God’s eyes, to sin is to miss the mark in something we do or think; to be a sinner is to miss the standard he holds for righteousness. Scripture tells us that we have and will always miss the bulls eye, as we live out our lives before a perfect God who is the personification of absolutely scoring the bulls eye in all he is and does, from eternity past to eternity future.

The Bible also informs us that unless our target looks like God’s, we can’t actually be in right relationship with him now on earth, or be in his presence after we physically die. And we’re also told that there’s no way – it’s impossible – for us to ever hit the mark. To ever attain that perfect score. Our aim, by nature, is always off, falling short.

Here’s the fantastic news. When God looks at you, he doesn’t have to see your target. He can look at you and see Jesus’ perfect target instead. You can ‘trade’ targets with the only One who could make it possible for you to possess a perfect score. You see, along with the Perfect One, you’re dismal target was nailed to his cross so you could claim by faith his target for yours. You can be clothed in his perfection so that when God looks at you, he sees the sinlessness of Jesus. The total on-the-mark hitting of your Savior. Absolute bulls eye dieing in the place of pathetic fringe peripheral scoring.

And it’s not just a perception thing; not a pulling-the-wool-over God’s eyes. You can actually have Jesus’ sinlessness. That’s why he went through the agony of the cross. To die the death that’s required for the missing the mark of every single sin of every single person ever – including you. So that you can live victorious and free with his target instead of the one you were born with and make even worse as time goes by. That’s why they call it amazing grace. Completely undeserved. Partaken of by your faith – so totally free. Except for Jesus; it cost him his very life. But that tomb was empty and he was raised to life so that you can have life with him – now – and forever.

Targets Part 1

Hey, I’m just a kid at heart. If you know me, that comes as no surprise. If you don’t believe me, just ask my wife. Boys like to shoot things. Sorry, but we just do. I don’t think it’s genetic or hormonal. Perhaps cultural; maybe societal. But sheesh, I wasn’t intending on doing this major exploration into why. It just is. Some girls like to shoot things too and the guys that like to shoot things think the girls that do are cool. Just a note if you’re single and like to shoot things (hey, I’m just trying to help).

You can ask my brother. When we were little (I’m 7 years older than he is) I had the coolest BB gun around. Needing something challenging and entertaining to shoot, naturally I looked to him. I don’t think I really wanted to kill a bird, squirrel, or rabbit. They were so cool and fascinating. They never drove me crazy; my brother did. Only made sense.

We would be out in the yard (we lived in a very rural setting) and I would tell him to run and that I was going to shoot him. Being his usual pain-in-the-neck self, he’d protest, so to propel him along his way out into a fair target zone, I threatened to shoot him point blank if he didn’t get a move on. Me being the excellent brother that I was, I further requested that he not look back at me, so I wouldn’t shoot him in the face (very hard to hide from my parents and also having more repercussions than a leg shot). I might score a couple of good shots, maybe with the reward of a good scalp bump. Excuse me a sec while I stop laughing...

Ok. Ok. So now I want to shoot stuff again. I don’t want to hunt. And making people holler ouch is much more fun. Remember, I speak from experience. I’ve wanted to try paintball, but I don’t want to be a paintball geek. I want to make my friends scream OUCH !, not stain their clothes. I can do that with a bottle of catsup. So I’ve heard about this thing called airsoft. The guns shoot little plastic BBs and you can feel it, depending on the circumstances. So I want to get a group together to do this. I think it might be fun. Teams. Nothing really serious. No face paint or camo. Well maybe later. Just some welts, bruises, and some good laughs. Running through the woods to get to a flag first, that buddy on the other team that frustrated me last week getting a few rounds of BBs on his backside as I make him head for the hills. You get the picture. More in the next post.

Happy first day of the rest of your life!

Happy New Year to you! Today’s a fresh new day of a fresh new year. Cool huh? People reflecting on the last 365 days and looking forward with hopes and dreams for the next 365. Some regret the last 365 and scheme about the next 365. Others do a little of both.

The calendar. Many exist and their contexts determine their format. We currently use the Gregorian calendar (pretty cool because my last name is Gregory) which numerically centers on the incarnation of Jesus (fantastically cool because he’s my Lord). Our calendar is tied to the astronomical movement of our solar system and mathematical science (sorry, but once again cool because God created the universe, all the laws of physics, and enabled man to develop mathematical systems).

Although an infinite person, God created time. Yet he is outside of the demands and controls of time, he himself controlling it. What a seeming paradox. But God does not contradict himself. Allow yourself to think about how God thinks about time. He says in 2 Peter 3:8 “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

It’s interesting to read the context in which this particular verse is written. Peter has just discussed “scoffers” expounding their doubts of God in the last days. These scoffers don’t have the benefit of being able to understand God, his ways, and his Scriptures because they are blinded by the enemy of their souls and the Holy Spirit isn’t present in their lives to enable them to “be transformed by the renewing of their mind” by God’s truth (Romans 12:2).

In contrast to that blindness, Peter goes on to refer to God’s control of events, changing the atmosphere to one of eternal perspective, and reminds his readers, his “friends”, that our God does not view time in the same way of those ridiculers. Continuing on, he exhorts us to live lives of holiness and peace with God and to crave our future heavenly home.

In this amazing section of Scripture, we see the viewpoint of those in critical opposition to God in contrast to the works of God in the past, present, and future. Christ-followers are reminded that God’s patience allows more time for people to be reconciled to him through the cross. There’s a warning to beware of those that take God’s truth and twist and distort it and an urging to grow via the grace and knowledge of our King.

Remember that somewhat corny saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”? Perhaps it’s gotten a bad rap. After all, isn’t it true? We are eternal beings and will live forever. Some with God and some not.

2 Peter 3 is a cool passage to spotlight on this first day of 2009. I came to it via verse 3:18 and one thing lead to another. What great truths to turn in our heads and hearts as we begin a new unit of time in which to serve our timeless God, who gives us eternity with him through the blood of Jesus. Have a great day and have a great rest of your life by way of the Way.