I’ve always felt a bit sorry for February. It’s in the middle of winter. Its name is difficult to spell correctly, and even more difficult to pronounce. And it’s short. Two days shorter than the other shortest months. Every four years we throw it an extra day to help it out a little, but even with 29 days, February always falls 24 hours shy of the mark.

I suppose there’s an element of “rooting for the underdog” in my compassion for February. There’s also a certain amount of identification, because I understand what it’s like to fall a little short of a standard or goal. All of us know that feeling. We’ve all been there, in various circumstances of life.

We also should understand this from a spiritual perspective. “For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23). “All” is an inclusive, encompassing word; all of anything signifies that no exceptions exist. “Sinned” literally means “missed the target,” having failed to live up to the divine standard. “For there is no difference” means there is no distinction between people in this regard — Jew and Gentile, bondservant and free, male and female, black and white and every shade in between, we are all in the same boat as sinners, condemned.

And “fall short” — what does that tell us? In the original text, we find a single Greek word, hustereo. Thayer’s lexicon defines it thus: “To come late or too tardily; to be left behind in the race and so fail to reach the goal, to fall short of the end; metaphorically fail to become a partaker, fall back from.” As regards the righteousness of God, we are late arrivals; we have been left behind and failed to partake of that which God planned and purposed for us. In a word, we have fallen short.

Why? Because we sinned. We missed the target. God’s word set forth a standard, a mark for which to aim. The Word, personified in Jesus Christ, provided us an example to follow and footsteps to trace (1 Peter 2:21). But we didn’t hit the mark or follow the example. We fell short of what God wanted us to be.

It’s important that we understand that this “falling short” is not merely a matter of degree. February falls a couple of days short of the other months, but it is still a month in every sense of the word. With God, falling a tiny bit short and falling a few miles short are no different — short is short.

Adam and Eve ate fruit from a tree God had forbidden, and thus lost their home in Eden. Moses tapped a rock with a stick and bragged a little, and thus lost his entrance into the land of promise. By human assessment, they fell a little short. But to God, short is short. Short misses the target. Missing the target means separation from God — spiritual death.

So we know we’ve fallen short. What now? “For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed” (Romans 3:22-25).

God has provided the means of our justification, of making right our falling short. By setting forth His Son, God made our redemption possible — by His grace, through our faith (Ephesians 2:8). Through Christ, God has passed over the sins of those who have become subjects of His grace.