Hitting the Mark

Good Monday Morning Regular Joes and Janes;

This morning I want to talk to you about target shooting or shooting practice.  Whether you are getting ready for hunting season with your favorite rifle, just acquired a new firearm or are just doing some regular drills to stay in sharp on your skills; I am sure you have been out punching holes in paper targets.

Especially with a new rifle or pistol it is important to sight it in and find out where those rounds are actually hitting when you aim for the bulls eye.  It is amazing the number of bodily activities as well as technical adjustments to the firearm itself that are required to all come together to make the projectile punch a hole in exact center of the target.

Physical body control includes breathing, muscle control, and hand-eye coordination as well as creating muscle memory through repetition to allow repeated accurate hits.

Technical aspects of an accurate firearm include the fit of parts, smoothness of the action, correct adjustment of siting devices as well as the quality of the manufacturing and maintenance.

Excellent shooters spend thousands of hours honing the skills to repeatedly hit the target they aim at.

In the first three chapters of Romans, Paul examines the human condition.  He looks at all we can do on our own, whether Jew or Gentile to be worthy of salvation.  His conclusion is in Romans 3:10-12

10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

On our own we cannot spend enough hours in practice, trying harder, working longer, fine tuning our life to “hit the mark”.  We all fall short on our own.  The only way that we can hit the mark is by obtaining righteousness through faith in Christ.

Romans 3:21-26

21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Without getting this first essential step; accepting that only Jesus Christ’s shed blood and placing our faith in Him for out salvation, we cannot really begin to grow in our walk to be Christ like.  It would be similar to trying to hit a target with a rifle that didn’t have a working firing pin or trigger.

Once we have the basics down then we can work on all the details that are involved in perfecting our walk with Christ.

Are we willing to invest the time in “hitting the mark” to become more Christ like?  Do we have the same passion for Christ that we do for being a better shooter?  Are we using our time in a way that is pleasing to the Lord?

I encourage you to work on “hitting the mark” with the Lord this week!

Regular Joe