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.
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.
