Bull's-Eye

Archery is a fun sport.  Many of us used to make bows and arrows of sticks when we were young(er).  There was nothing better than hitting the center, although most of the time the target wasn’t even hit.  We missed the mark most of the time.

The New Testament word “sin” means literally “to miss the mark.”   “Missing the mark,” is all about the archer.   We fail to be on center often because we don’t take the proper aim.   What is the cause of that failure?   Sin.

We sin when we miss the mark through sins of the spirit that are many more times deadlier than sins of the flesh.   Moral darkness causes sins of the spirit.   This darkness is caused when love is eclipsed by fear, jealousy, hate, and ambivalence.   It’s caused when we don’t hold Jesus front-and-center in our daily lives.   We tend to focus too much on sins of the flesh instead of what Jesus taught about the spirit and following his way.

Olympic archery competition involves very elaborate takedown recurve bows with counter weights and high-tech construction.   We’ve come a long way from wooden bows [I still love the Robin Hood-like long bows and Errol Flynn’s accuracy – split the arrow on the target].  According to descriptions of these bows, “During an Olympic competition day, archers can shoot nearly 100 arrows between scoring and practice ends, totaling about 4,000 pounds of cumulative draw weight under the extreme stress of competition.” 

We all need an Olympic bow to deal with the extreme stresses of daily life and to be sinless, or sin less.   With Jesus as our bow, we won’t miss the mark, and we will sin no more, or far less than we otherwise would. 

Let’s improve our aim and try for that gold medal, or silver, or bronze.   All we need to do is draw back the string of our Jesus-bow, and let fly those arrows we call good works.  Bulls-eye!

Deacon David Pierce