One Mistake

Last night, I tuned in to the US Olympic Trials and ended up watching the women's gymnastics. It was amazing how balanced they were—how strongly they held their positions and how perfectly they completed each stunt. It blew me away...at first. Then I watched in devastation as one girl slipped off the uneven bars and landed flat on her face. She wasn't hurt physically; but when she got up, you could tell that her emotions had crumbled. One mistake—and her Olympic dream was over.

Now, I don't know much about gymnastics, but I do know that it is a sport of perfection. One mistake can cost you your entire performance. The judges are strict, and there's nothing you can do to get around it. In order to win (in this case, to make it to the Olympics), you must be as flawless as possible. Perfection is ideal.

Unfortunately, as humans, this is utterly impossible. We can't ever be perfect. Ever. At times, we may think that we come close. Some of the gymnasts I watched certainly looked as if they had achieved it...but none of them got a perfect score. The judges could always find something to mark them down for.

This realization reminded me of the tragedy of the human race—the fact that no matter how hard we try, no matter how close to perfection we think we have come, we'll never succeed. We will never be perfect.

You might be thinking, "Well, that stinks, but it's okay. No one ever said we had to be perfect anyway." But wait. Someone did say that. And that Person's opinion should matter more to us than anything. God, our Creator (and, may I add, our eventual Judge), has commanded us to be perfect. He says in Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (NIV).

Now you're thinking, "Wait! He can't say that. If He knows as much as He says He does, He would know that we can't possibly carry out that command!" You're right. God does know that we are unable to carry out His command. In fact, we're unable to carry out any of His commands. Romans 3:23 says, "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (NIV). We can't measure up to His perfection. No matter how hard we try, no matter how close we think we have come, we will always fail.

But, thankfully, God did something about that. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to live a perfect life and to die in our place. Jesus suffered and died for us, becoming sin on our behalf and receiving the punishment that we deserved. Because of His sacrifice, we no longer have to worry about living up to God's perfection. We failed. But Jesus didn't. And now He is offering out His hand, pleading with us to accept what He did for us so that we can spend eternity in Heaven with Him.

How cool is that?? The gymnasts who fell during their events didn't have anything like this. One mistake, and they were done. Their dreams of going to the Olympics were shattered instantly. The judges didn't come over and do the routine for them...but ours did. Our Judge came and did it for us. His perfection allows us (if we accept Him) to be made right with God. Because Jesus is perfect, we don't have to be. Of course, He still wants us to do our best to obey Him, but our deeds don't have anything to do with our salvation. We are saved because of what He did. In the words of the band Tenth Avenue North, "Don't live for God until you learn to live because of God. We're not living to be accepted. We're living because, in Christ, we already are."

What a relief that is...