Aiming Right

 DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

AIMING RIGHT

2 Cor 13:11-14

11 Finally, brothers, good-by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13 All the saints send their greetings. 14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

NIV

The farewell of this letter has a few truths we should consider. The first is to aim for perfection. This is a general truth of life in that as you aim high and may miss the mark, at least you are higher than if you have aimed low and missed that mark. Settling for mediocracy never raises the level to anyway near perfection. However, the question remains that are we doing this by living in our normal day-to-day routines, just being mediocre at best. If this is what we are doing, then we are certainly not aiming for perfection. If we get distracted by simply doing good works, thinking that is how we aim high, then we are only deceiving ourselves, and simply living a routine again, just one of doing things. Still, we must find what it means to aim for perfection. That would mean to aim to be like Jesus. This is that transformation into the likeness of Christ, which is an act of God. We cannot transform ourselves; He is the one who does that within us. Yet we are told to aim for perfection, which says that we have a part of reaching for perfection, but at the same time, it does not imply that we reach perfection. Just as an archer aims slightly higher than the center of the bullseye, knowing the arrow is subject to gravity, even so slightly, so as it strikes the mark, we too must aim as high as we can, perfection, so that we might hit the center. Although we are not subject to gravity as an arrow is, we are subject to temptation, as we are in this body, which keeps us from attaining that perfection, but we must aim for it. That would mean we need to listen to the voice of the Spirit within more and more each day. That means we cannot be content with our spiritual condition day in and day out, thinking that we have reached some acceptable level of faith, thus remaining there, as if we had hit the mark and the race is over. Aiming for perfection is constant, unending, always keeping our eye on the target and always wanting improvement. Living routinely is the same as living in a rut, and the only difference between a rut and a grave is the length, therefore we cannot be content with living routinely, but we must keep our aim toward the mark of perfection, always willing for the Spirit to transform us from what we are today, into something more like Jesus tomorrow. In that way, we will at least have the right aim.