The Sermon on the Mount is the greatest sermon ever preached.  In it, Jesus gives his followers parameters of how to really live.  It is not about perimeter or peripheral living, but far more important.

For example, a horse has perimeters on a ranch but a parameter is more exact.  

Ask any airline pilot . . . they will tell you exactly what parameters are and what they mean.  In a word, they mean measured operations . . . operating within the parameters.   Para . . . alike, meter . . . to measure.
  
       

                                 
 
In aviation, a pilot knows you can get too fast, too slow, too high, too low, too hot or too cold.   Exceeding operating parameters is dangerous and illegal.    Pilots are most safe and happy when they fly by the operating handbook. Likewise we believers are most pleasing to God when we are living in the center of Biblical parameters.

I once flew with a captain who pushed the edge of many parameters.  He wanted changes to happen quickly.  He couldn’t wait to push off the gate.  He taxied the aircraft too fast.  He called for gear up too soon.  He wanted the flaps up right now and then accelerated to max speed before climbing to altitude.  It was his style to operate the aircraft at max mach, barber-pole speed. 

He would he wait until the last minute to descend from altitude and call for flaps at the max allowable speed.   He then waited till the last possible moment to get the landing gear down.  Upon landing he would brake the aircraft hard for the first high speed turnoff and taxi to the gate rushing to avoid other opposing aircraft.  He pushed every parameter.  It was hard work for me as a co-pilot.  I couldn’t wait to go and relax during the layovers.

I am the most relaxed when I am in the center of operating parameters . . . when every flight condition is nominal and stable. . . when every instrument indication is the center of the scale.   I am happy when passengers notice nothing, feel no g- forces . . . when changes occur at standard rate . . . when passengers deplane quietly, happy and relaxed.

Parameters!  The Christian life is best lived in the model of the Sermon on the Mount, living in the safety of the operating handbook . . . the center of limitations.  

I believe the best sermons are preached toward the scriptures, not away.  I believe the best marriages are lived in commitment, not away.  And I believe the best relationships are parameter driven, not peripheral. 
 
Today, flying has almost become an experience to be endured at the lowest common denominator of human behavior and courtesy.   Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen on the flight deck of our lives.   Parameter living is the way to live.