A wrestler once asked his coach, "Can't I smoke and drink and have a good time and still wrestle?" The coach replied, "Yes, you can, but you can't win!" For the Olympics and similar world standard events, the athletes must smile and say "No, thank you" when people offer them fattening desserts or invite them to late-night parties. Pre-event interviews have given the impression that they have trained six hours per day, 6-days a week - a lot of dedication and very hard work.

The same work ethic applies to every sphere of life. Good grades come with effort. Good marks at school come with doing homework and swotting. A degree has to be earned. An apprentice has to develop his skills before he can be qualified. Successful careers and profitable businesses demand 100% endeavour.

But when it comes to getting right with God, self effort does not feature. The Bible says, "it is not by works.. which we have done but by His mercy He has saved us". Salvation from sin can come to us not because of good works, discipline, and great effort, but by the grace of God through faith (Eph 2:8-9).  Physically we might be very active and be able to run a 100 metres in less than 10 seconds, but spiritually the Bible tells us we're "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1). Great achievements don't make us right with God. None of us can be right in God's sight because of our position or importance in society. It is only by faith in what Christ did on the cross. If people could be made right with God by their own good works, there would have been no need for Christ to have died on the cross bearing our sins in His own body; there would have been no need for Him to have come as a Saviour. If our own deeds could be the basis of our eternal life, the coming of Christ would not have been necessary.

The problem, though, is that however hard we try, however much we might discipline ourselves, we can never come up to the standard that God demands. One of the Olympic events is archery. Suppose we were competing and all our arrows fell short of the target; we would probably feel embarrassed. We had not reached the Olympic standard. But that is what has happened with our lives - the best we do falls far short of the standard that God demands, and the Bible concludes that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). There are a large number of people, however, who think that because Christ has died for their sins, that it guarantees they will go to heaven, and they don't have to do anything - other than be "religious", live their lives decently here on earth, and then when they die they will go to heaven - it's like automatic! They reason that God is a loving God and therefore they will be automatically saved. That God is loving is true, but God is also a holy, righteous God, and that is certainly not what we are. We have fallen short, we have broken the rules - the 10 commandments - we have not loved God with all our heart, our soul, our mind (Matt 22:37), nor our neighbour as ourselves. God says, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15).

The Bible also teaches that "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement" (Heb 9:27). All of us, with the exception of Enoch and Elijah and those alive when Christ returns, have an appointment with death. We only die once and it is followed by judgement. It is a "one-off" occasion and we ought to prepare for it. David warned that there is only a step between us and death (1 Sam 20:3). Death can come at any time. That is the reason we ought to be ready at any moment to move out into eternity and into the presence of God. How many of us have made every arrangement for this life but none for the next life! And after this come judgement and God has committed all judgement unto the Son, Jesus (John 5:22).

It is still true though that God is a God of love, and He demonstrated it by sending His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to rescue us from the mess we have got ourselves into. That mess may be due to: (a) a tongue, which instead of praising God, swears and blasphemes, and tells lurid tales etc, or (b) it might be an appetite for lust, or (c) it may be we have hate in our lives, and anger, or (d) it may be jealousy or envy on how well others are doing, and so on. All of us have things that are wrong in our lives - it may be our thinking, the words from our mouths, or the actions we take, or something else. We have all failed. That is why God sent His Son to rescue us from this situation. He is the only One who never sinned - He did no sin, He didn't think sinful thoughts - there was no sin in Him. He was altogether pure - holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners (Heb 7:26). Even those who were at His execution by crucifixion had to confess that He was a righteous Man.

God had decreed that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. As a temporary measure until Christ died on the tree, God allowed innocent animals to be slaughtered to make an atonement for sin, but Christ's death brought all that religious system to a close. The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin, but when Jesus Christ came He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Praise God for that!. And God raised Him up from the dead and gave Him glory by exalting Him at His own right hand in heaven, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb 11:6).  People have some strange ideas about faith - there are many people who die as martyrs for fanatical beliefs. They can have ever so much faith, but it is in the wrong thing or the wrong person. It is not faith in ourselves, or some religious system, but it is faith in Christ we need, that when He died upon the cross He was bearing our sin in His own body on the tree. It is not a matter of "believing enough". Faith can only be "a little" but the amount of it is far less important than the object; it has value only to the extent that its object has value. Strong faith in an unreliable person produces nothing but disappointment.

Competing in the Olympics demands great effort and discipline, but at the end of the day, even the very best of the competitors only obtains a corruptible crown (1 Corinth 9:25) . Getting right with God requires faith in Christ, and obtaining an incorruptible crown. Towards the close of his earthly life, the Apostle Paul wrote "I have fought a good fight, I have finished  my course (race), I have kept the faith" (2 Tim 4:7). May that be the same for all of us.

We can think of life then as being a bit like a race, a race that finishes up in eternity. I'm sure we all want to get to the end of our race knowing that beyond the grave there is a winner's garland awaiting us. But it will not be because we have earned it and merited it, but it will be because Christ has done the work in dying on the cross, being raised the third day, ascending to the Father, and being now sat down in heaven. So we need to depend on Him and not on our own efforts.