Hitting the Mark

When Jesus was on Earth he never sinned. This is of course very important to us as Christians because he needed to live a perfect life for his death on the cross to atone for our sins. He lived out the life that actually hit the target when it comes to God’s requirements for salvation.

We, on the other hand will not hit the mark. The Greek word for sin, hamartia, actually means to miss the mark. There is a standard that we need to live up to, and every time we sin we fall short of that mark. God knows this and that is why it was his plan from the beginning to provide us with a savior.

However, before Jesus came, the Jews did have a word for hitting the mark, Kavanah. This wasn’t a way to obtain salvation, they recognized their sin and their need for the coming messiah, but it did describe the way in which they should strive to live. There are four things that they came up with that would help them Kavanah, that is, hit the mark. We need to Study, Pray, Love, and Live.

This idea of Kavanah is something that we should continue to understand today and keep as a litmus test for our Christian walk. We should be striving to become more Christ-like through Study of the Bible, an active prayer life, showing love to all of those around us, and living a life that emulates Christ. This is pleasing to the Lord and it will also help us live out the Great Commission.

Take a moment to think of these four areas in your life. Do we struggle with our study of the Bible, or is our prayer life lacking? Could we do a better job of showing love to people, or are we failing to live out the call of Christ?

We can’t obtain salvation for ourselves, but we do have the privilege of being a representative of Christ and we should strive to hit the mark as much as possible. We do this because our love of God and his love for us compels us.  He is deserving of all glory and he deserves obedience.  We should always remember that it is only by his gift of grace through Jesus that we can have eternal life, and it is exactly for this reason that our desire should be to hit the mark. 
 

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Josh Earhart

About the Author:
Josh serves on staff at Westchester as Associate Pastor of Student Ministries