In any major sports league, what is the goal that each team desires to achieve? To be the best out of all of the other teams, and to win their title or championship.
No matter how each team did the previous season, that is their goal. They don’t dwell on their past mistakes, or stop training. They practice and try to play the best that they can.
I don’t want to boast about myself, but for an example, I always tried to do the absolute best that I could in school. In nearly every subject I was at the top of my class. I studied hard and payed attention during class, and the result was a straight “A” grade average.
One year, however, I had a little more trouble understanding a certain math class, and when the time for my third quarter report card came, I was shocked because for the first time I received a grade other than an A. I got a “B-.”
Determined to change that grade, I studied even harder that next quarter, trying to improve and learn everything that I didn’t before. I even participated in an additional math class, trying to become better.
The end of the school year came, along with the fourth and final report card for the year. As the teacher handed out the report cards to each student, I hoped that I had improved my grades. Some of my other classmates were happy to just get a “C” or “B” grade, but that was not what I wanted. I wanted to attain the highest score that I could. I wasn’t too concerned about my other subjects, like science, or English, as they were always easy subjects for me. I just wanted to bring my math grade back to an A.
Hoping for the best, I opened my report card and searched for my math grade.
I got an A.
Immediate relief filled me. I had done it. Instead of focusing on what I had done wrong, I studied even harder, determined to do the best I could and acheive the highest grade I could get.
That is kind of like the life of a Christian. Before someone becomes a follower of Jesus, their whole life before that point is like getting an “F” in every category. Meaning they failed. They were not walking in love and faith, according to the Bible. But the moment that they believe on the name of Christ, they have two choices: either they can continue to live in their sin, or they can do something about it and strive to become better, the best that they can be.
Paul is a great example to look to. Once a Pharisee, Paul believed he was doing what was right and correct. At that time, he believed that persecuting Christians and destroying churches was the right thing to do. Paul’s report card, so to speak, came when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Right then he had his two choices to either continue the way he was living, or change and strive to become better. Paul sounds like the kind of person who strove to be the best he could be. Everything that Paul thought was gain to him before his conversion, he now counted dung.
Everything that he had done before becoming a Christian, he threw away, determined to be the best he could for Christ.
Here is Paul writing to the Philippian church.
“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:7-14
Paul didn’t consider himself to be perfect, or act like he had already attained salvation. He didn’t dwell in his past sins and mistakes. He forgot those things, left them behind, and strove to become the best that he could be, but never once feeling himself to be perfect. Once something is perfect, there is no room for improvement. Paul understood this and he constantly reached forward to become the best he could. He didn’t want a “C” or “B”; he wanted that “A” on his report card.
Becoming a Christian does not mean that you are perfect, but that does not mean that you do not strive for perfection. We always have room for improvement and things to refine.
The beginning of a life of a Christian is like that third quarter report card, and at that time we all have an F. We have one quarter left to change that F into an A. From now until the day you go to be with the Lord is your time to study and constantly perfect yourselves into the best that you can be for Jesus.
When the end of your time arrives here on the earth, let’s have turned that F to an A.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 