My Best Friend...

Can you imagine if someone came along the sports scene who was perfect? In basketball, he never missed a shot, never turned the ball over, never played out of control, not just for a game, or a season, but for his career. Or in baseball, he never misplayed a ball, never got picked off base, never made an out, not just for one game, or one season, but for his career. Or football; he never threw an interception, never fumbled, never dropped a pass, or never missed a tackle, not for a game, or a season, but for a career. Can you imagine the reaction? Of course, his team would love him, for he's a ringer, a can't miss. With the game on the line he will never let you down. But think of the opposition; they couldn't help but hate him, for he's makes the game unfair, he takes the element of chance out of it, he almost certainly spells defeat for you if the ball is in his hands. Your only option is to try and take him out of the game, to give up the ball, to make one of his teammates beat you- and they aren't perfect... He's the ultimate nightmare to defense against.
Well, he was here, though there's no record of him playing professional sports. He walked this earth, perfect. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to be his brother or sister? No matter what you did wrong, you were busted, 'cause if he knew about it and Mom asked, well, he never told a lie. He was the oldest, never made a mistake, never had an impure thought, or said an impure word, never cursed, or smoked, but he did drink and party, but in perfect moderation. He was Mom and Dad's favorite, the teacher's pet, the perfect friend. And you had to follow that act.
But more than that, he was perfect love, and perfect grace, and perfect forgiveness. He did no wrong, yet loved enough to sacrifice himself for others' wrongs, to pay the price for our errors, our fumbles, our turnovers. Though he never missed he was willing to take the heat for us when we did. He stepped up as the perfect friend, and offers us a choice; accept his willingness to take our heat as a free gift, or reject it and we can face the music for our screwups ourselves. Be his friend, enter into a relationship with him, or reject his offer like the opposition did. It's pretty cut and dried.
The whole deal is, we make it tougher than it is. We are called to be like him, so we focus on his perfection which we can never hope to attain. We build up a bunch of rules, regulations to make us "better" but we will never attain what we percieve as perfect. The reality is, when he calls us to be like him he doesn't want perfection from us, for he knows that's impossible. He wants us to learn to love, and forgive, and extend grace like he did. This is what it means to be like him. Stick the rules and regulations and learn to love one another without reservation. It's the difference between "Religion" and Christianity as he lived it. He snubbed the rules regularly; he violated the religious mores of his day repeatedly, but he he never failed to love, or extend grace, or forgive a wrong. It's walking the walk, not just talking the talk.
It amazes me how short-sighted we are. We live on this earth seventy to eighty years as a rule, and while on earth we are each faced with the personal dilemma of is this all there is? Or if there's something more after this life, what is it? Why are we here? It seems like we've got plenty of time to figure it out, but we get so busy with life that our time passes and we let the eternal just slide and focus on the temporal, the here and now. What is more important, what you do for these seventy or so years you're given, or where you'll spend eternity? That's a whole lot of seventy years strung together! We don't commit to him, who is either exactly who he said he was- or he was a raving liar and lunitic. Personally, there way too many facts to support his claims as true to discount him as liar and lunitic, so if he's who he claimed, then what he says must also be true. So why take the chance of screwing up eternity because we're so short-sighted today? Meet Jesus.