James 2:10 says, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” In the words of a friend from my small group “Now, that kind of sucks, doesn’t it?” Imagine working hard all week to keep your room clean, finish your homework, and stay on top of everything, only to fail by not taking out the trash. According to this, your whole week is ruined, shot, a total failure, like it was all for nothing.

That’s the image we get of how the law works from this verse. We can strive to keep it perfectly, and honestly we can be rocking it for a good little bit. But if we break just one small part, we’re guilty of breaking the whole thing. That means if you’ve done a bang up job following Jesus. I mean reading the Bible, going to church, giving that perfect tithe off your income, keeping your language clean, discipling a group from work. Then your child leaves a lego on the floor in the living room, and you get up early in the morning. Yeah you know where this is going. You stop on that little grenade of pain buried in your carpet. The pain shoots through your body like a jolt of electricity, and a phrase of what we’ll call colorful language comes bursting from your lips like Niagara Falls.

Yep the whole deal is down the tubes. One little lego ruined your streak of perfection and now it’s all over.

Another way to look at it is to think of it like a chain. Each commandment is a link, and together, they form a strong chain. But break just one link, and the entire chain is useless. Whether you lie, steal, hate, or gossip, by breaking that one command you’ve broken the whole law completely.

The truth is, we will never be able to fully obey all of the law. We try to be good, to do what’s right, to keep things as neat and tidy as we possibly can, but we mess up. It’s just that simple. Even when we’re doing our best, we slip. And in God’s eyes, stumbling once is enough to declare us guilty of all of it. It’s an all or nothing kind of thing, if you let the law be in the driver seat.

As impossible as this all sounds, there is some hope. Here’s the good news: that lego grenade is exactly why Jesus came. He knew you’d step on it and blow your stride of perfection. He knew we couldn’t fulfill the law on our own, so He did it for us.

The Bible tells us that Jesus lived his life perfectly. That means he didn’t sin. He didn’t cuss when he stepped on his little brother’s lego. He didn’t fly off the handle when Mary told Him to clean His room. Being a carpenter’s son, He didn’t fly off in a fit of rage when He measured once and had to cut three times. He did it all perfectly. And His perfection covers our imperfection. His sacrifice wipes out our failures. We don’t have to live in fear of breaking the law anymore because His grace is greater than our flaws.

True, it’s impossible to keep the law perfectly. And yeah, that kind of sucks. But because of Jesus, we’re not stuck in the suck of failure—we’re set free in grace.