Batting a thousand

This past Thursday I went to a Cincinnati Reds game.  Every time a player would come up to bat their picture would come up on the board and display some stats about the player.  One such stat was batting average.   Bring from Alabama I didn't grow up caring too much about baseball so I wasn't sure how batting average was calculated.  Basically I learned it was the average of how successful a player was when he got up to bat.

The best batter on the Reds is a guy named Joey Votto and his batting average is 309.  The actual way it's written for the batting average is actually .309.  .309 equals 31percent.  So, what that tells me is when Joey Votto bats, the Reds best batter, he is only successful 31% of the time.  No wonder the Reds have a losing record!

Because it was baseball I decided to look up on my phone who the best batter in history was.  The all time world record batting average belongs to a guy named Ty Cobb.  I wasn't expecting perfection but I was expecting at least a .750 or something close.  But Ty Cobbs batting average is .367 which means the best batter in history was only successful 37% of the time!  That also means Ty Cobb failed 63% of the times he came up to bat.  Perfection in baseball is unobtainable.

It's the same way with our own righteousness, we can't be perfect.  We're called to try, just like every base ball player who steps up to the plate, but we won't come close.  Here's something to reflect on:

James 2:10 (ESV) For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

So we could try out best, give it our best shot, reach a .999 but if we fail at the .001 mark it's like the .999 doesn't even count.  In fact the best batting average we can have when it comes to life is 0.  We have no hope in ourselves, we can't even come close.  But here is the good news:

2nd Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) For our sake he made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

There's only one person in history who has batted a thousand or 1.000 is Jesus Christ.  Every time Jesus stepped up to the plate he got it right.  He lived a perfect life.  When Christ went to the cross he bore all of our horrible batting averages on himself.  He then replaced ours with his.  When God the Father looks at us he sees a thousand.  It's only by the death of Jesus Christ that it is made possible.  If you are a follower of Jesus Christ his righteousness is now our righteousness.  Let's remember and celebrate that fact this week.