In olden times, when I was a teenager at church camp, we had archery classes. I tried so hard to hit the bulls-eye in the center of the target, but sometimes I would miss the target altogether. A few years later, in basic training, I found myself on the rifle range trying to hit the bulls-eye once again. This time I didn’t miss the target but there was not a tight pattern of bullet holes in the center either. I was not an expert marksman with a perfect score. My point is that perfection doesn’t come naturally to the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. We have all known perfectionists and have seen the stress that kind of life puts on them and the people around them. We just can’t attain perfection on our own.
God is perfect and he requires perfection of His children. If we break one commandment, we might as well have broken them all. God’s law shows us the way to live a perfect life, but
it is also a mirror that reminds us how imperfect we are without Jesus. “God’s law was given so all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.” (Romans 5:20) We need God’s help to hit the bulls-eye without a miss. Repeated animal sacrifices were required by the law as temporary fixes to cover the imperfections in God’s people. They were a mere prototype of Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice. The blood He shed on the cross is permanent and all we have to do is repent of our sins and admit that we can’t hit the bulls-eye every time on our own. He forgives and forgets our sins, covering them with His blood to make us acceptable in His sight. Then the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us to teach us how to live the way He created us to live.
None of this is new to those of us who have been born of the Spirit, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded from time to time just how imperfect we were without Jesus Christ in our life. Jesus said, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” (Matthew 5:17) He actually makes the target even harder for us to hit. He tells us we can’t just obey the law going through the motions with our actions. We must obey the law with our mind and our heart as well. (See Matthew 5:22-23 and Matthew 5:27-28) Jesus makes it clear we cannot hit the mark successfully without Him. When we accept Christ as our savior, it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (Galatians 2:20) and His perfection will hit the target dead center every time if we trust His aim and not our own.