Ready, Aim, Fire

Sin.

What does this word bring to mind for you? Going against what God wants? Doing something wrong? Or maybe the term seems antiquated and irrelevant.

In the original Greek the word sin means, "to miss the mark".

This past semester I took an archery class.  For those that don't know, I have horrible hand eye coordination.  The class was fun, but quite a challenge. It took weeks for me to actually hit the target! I tried and tried and tried. One thing I had to learn was how to aim. You hear people say "Ready, Aim, Fire", but sometimes when I shot it was more like "Ready, Fire, Aim"! Oh wait... Maybe I should aim BEFORE I fire...

Through the course of the class I did learn to aim and how to be in control of what I was doing. Am I a perfect shot? No. Not by any means. But I did make an A in the class.

Our life as a Christian is kind of the same way. We keep trying and trying to do the right thing, however, we keep missing the goal. The good news is the problem of sin is already taken care of. Jesus already died for my sins and yours and thank goodness he did! We, though, must keep in mind what Paul says in Romans, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (6:1-2 ESV). 


So what does that mean? What are we to do? Simply live. Don't allow yourself to be bogged down by sin because Christ has freed you from it! Keep standing your ground and be ready to shoot. Sometimes, yes, you will miss.  However, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.  So simply be the person God called you to be. Make sure to be ready and aim before you shoot. You are bound to miss if you don't keep that in mind.


So?


Ready.


Aim.


FIRE.