Archers

After yesterday's message (you can download the roughest of drafts at www.egm.org) some people felt the difficulty of pursuing God's standard of absolute righteousness. There was the true sense that we can never achieve the standard--which, of course, we can not. But our inability to reach the standard or in the language of yesterday, become the best archers we can, does not stop our striving for that goal. The Heidelberg Catechism says it well,
Q & A 127
Q. What does the sixth request mean?
A. "And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one" means,
By ourselves we are too weak
to hold our own even for a moment.^1
And our sworn enemies—
the devil,^2 the world,^3 and our own flesh—^4
never stop attacking us.
And so, Lord,
uphold us and make us strong
with the strength of your Holy Spirit,
so that we may not go down to defeat
in this spiritual struggle,^5
but may firmly resist our enemies
until we finally win the complete victory.^6
^1 Ps. 103:14-16; John 15:1-5
^2 2 Cor. 11:14; Eph. 6:10-13; 1 Pet. 5:8
^3 John 15:18-21
^4 Rom. 7:23; Gal. 5:17
^5 Matt. 10:19-20; 26:41; Mark 13:33; Rom. 5:3-5
^6 1 Cor. 10:13; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23

I also quoted John Calvin yesterday about the need for us to take moving forward in our faith seriously, ,"The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. Let nominal Christians cease from insulting God by boasting themselves to be what they are not, and let them show themselves disciples not unworthy of Christ, their master. We must assign first place to the knowledge of our religion, for that is the beginning of our salvation. But our religion will be unprofitable, if it does not change our heart, pervade our manners, and transform us into new creatures."

What I didn't quote of Calvin was his understanding of how difficult this can be and the celebration we should have when we make small steps, "But let everyone proceed according to his given ability and continue the journey he has begun. There is no man so unhappy, that he will not make some progress, however small. Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair because of the smallness of our accomplishments. Though we fall short, our labor is not lost if this day surpasses the preceeding one."

The only quibble I have with Calvin is I think we should not look at days, but longer term. We all know that not every day is better than the one before. But there should be a movement forward in the years of our lives so that we see a greater following after Christ now than we did last year or 10 years ago.