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Slugging great, Babe Ruth boasted a career batting average of .3421 (34 percent), placing him 9th on history's all-time charts. Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams comes in 7th with an average of .3444. The highest career batting average is held by the infamous Tyrus Raymond Cobb (Ty), .3664.

That means that the best players in baseball history found success less than half the times they came to the plate. Even with all their experience and skill, no player has ever come close to perfection.

Baseball players are imperfect because perfection is humanly impossible. Impossible because humans are flawed and inconsistent...even at their best. There was only one man in all of history who could claim perfection, and that is Jesus Christ. It's debatable how Jesus might have batted had He played "the game," but in a sense He did pinch hit for you and me once, and He nailed a grand slam.

Since creation, God's standard has been sinless perfection. But that is an impossible goal, given the many commandments people have to follow. These requirements would be like living our lives playing a never-ending ballgame and trying to bat 1.000; no strikes, no outs, no fouls. The truth is, the longer we played such a theoretical game, the greater would be our opportunity to fail. The greatest players in history probably wouldn't make it through the second inning

The rules are simple...

To get to 1st base:
Know the game... God loves you For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

To reach 2nd base:
Admit your error... you sin and your game needs to be saved. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 For the wages of sin is death. Rom. 6:23

To get to 3rd base:
Enlist the power of the "big wood"...the Cross. And being found in appearance as a man, he [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Philippians 2:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Rom. 5:8

To make it home:
Sign up with God's team...receive Christ as your Savior. Everyone who believes in him [Jesus] receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Acts 10:43 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12

In life that setup for failure is called "falling short of sinless perfection." Yet that's exactly how high God's requirements for us are...and how impossible it is for us to reach it.

As God's Son, Jesus is uniquely qualified to turn the whole game of life and death inside out. Since He is God, He has all of God's character and ability. When He died on the cross to pay for our imperfections, He opened the way for us to make it onto His team. Any of us are qualified. The only requirement is that we don the uniform..."Christian."

You can sign up with God's team through a prayer like this:

Dear Lord Jesus, I know my life is full of errors, and there is no way I can bat 1.000 on my own. I need You to pinch-hit for me, and to cancel the penalty of my sin through Your work on the cross. I accept You as my Savior, the One who forgives my sin and gives me eternal life. Amen.