“Be perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
It sounds so good to call ourselves perfectionists. We have higher standards than others. We go for excellence. We don’t tolerate mistakes. Nothing mediocre about us. Nosirree. Only the best is good enough for us and our Lord.
It sounds good but it may be as self-destructive as anything you can do to yourself.
This means, of course, that we may be misinterpreting that well-known command of Matthew 5:48. Let’s think about it…
You and I are not capable of perfection. Maybe in typing a letter or baking a blueberry pie, we are. But not in a single one of the really big issues of life.
A man cannot be a perfect son, brother, husband, or father.
A woman will never be a perfect daughter, sister, wife, or mother.
The pastor cannot be a perfect shepherd of God’s flock. The church member will never fulfill his/her duties perfectly.
A major factor of human existence which you and I must take into consideration in every aspect of life is the flaw in us. We are flawed. You are a sinner; I am a sinner. We were, we are, and we will continue to be so long as we live on this earth.
We call that original sin. We were born that way.
As if that’s not bad enough, we live in a fallen world. Among other things, that means that everyone else is in the same situation as we. “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10, quoting Psalm 14:3 and 53:3).
When Isaiah was given a clear glimpse of himself, he saw two things that rocked him to his core: he was a man of “unclean lips,” meaning an unworthy heart; and what must have been infinitely more depressing to him, everyone around him was in the same depressing situation (Isaiah 6:5).
We are all failures in life. Starting with the first couple who arrived on this planet fresh from the Father’s hands, no one has earned straight A’s in righteousness on the divine report card. As God said to the Babylonian king, “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27).
That’s true of all of us. We have all “sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
So, where did this inner yearning to be perfect come from? And, isn’t it a noble thing to strive for the best we can give, to hit a standard of excellence? Didn’t God command it?
The desire for excellence is a good thing, a remarkable gift from the Heavenly Father, actually.
We were created for fellowship with a holy God. In salvation, the Lord makes us His sons and daughters. The Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence inside us.
That bodes well for our future. Suddenly, we are no longer satisfied to remain undone, unwashed, uncombed, and unclothed. When the demon-possessed man of Mark 5 was next seen, a couple of hours after Jesus touched him, people had to look twice. He was sitting and clothed and in his right mind. (Personally, I would not be surprised to learn he had also had a bath and a haircut. Smiling.)
In the miraculous act of renewal at the hand of the Savior, the man was given a new purpose in life, new goals to meet, new standards to live by, and a new self-respect that had never been there before.
Be ye holy for I am holy, the Lord instructs His redeemed (I Peter 1:16).
God expects us to live differently from now on. In fact, Jesus said, Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48).
There it is. We are to be perfect. Isn’t that what Jesus said? Open and shut case for perfectionism.
Answer: Yep. God’s standard is indeed perfection. Christ is perfect, and nothing imperfect will enter Heaven.
But wait. There’s more….
Thankfully, that is not the end of the story nor the conclusion of the discussion.
The simple fact is God does not expect perfection from us in this life. That’s a good thing, since He’s unlikely to get it! Here are two great scriptures–
–Psalm 103 gives us all the testimony we should ever need on this issue….
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor punished us according to our iniquities. (Ps. 103:8-10)
–And again:
He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust. (Ps. 103:14)
–Exodus 20. The chapter with the Ten Commandments has something extra special to add to this conversation.
You shall make an altar of earth for Me; and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.
And if you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your chisel on it, you will profane it. (Exodus 20:24-25)
Don’t miss the implications of this, friend. The God of righteousness gave us His plan, His commandments, and turned right around and told us to build an altar. The Commandments are His standard. His standard is perfection. But God knows us. He is mindful that we are but dust. He knows we are sinful. So, He made provisions for an altar.
Do we have a wonderful Lord, or what??
To repeat: God is under no illusions about sinful man. Even though He paid the supreme price for our redemption–His only begotten Son!–He knows that in the likes of you and me He got no bargain. He knows we are but dust!
Expect perfection from us? Not hardly. Not today; not ever in this life.
A friend of mind says her motto is: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. I told her my own motto is a variation of the same: If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.
In each case, I suspect she and I are doing noble things in wrong ways, one overdoing and one underdoing.
As human beings go, that’s about par for the course. And the critical point is that God knows this. He expected no less (and no more) from us.
This does not mean that God has lowered His standards. They’re still the same. But something else has changed.
God gave us Jesus.
What has changed is that Jesus Christ lived up to those standards for us. He has met God the Father’s requirements for humans. In His earthly life of sinlessness and in His vicarious death on the cross in our place, Jesus stepped into the breach and became our Savior.
Here’s how Romans 8 puts it:
What the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did–sending His only Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.(verses 3-4)
How’s that for a loaded sentence? The Apostle Paul excels at that skill, incidentally, which has guaranteed job security for seminary professors for the foreseeable future.
Suffice it to say here that Jesus became our Role Model, Example, Pioneer, as well as the Author and Finisher of our faith. When we “get into Him” at salvation, we share in the heavenly existence which He has achieved.
I just said more there than I can understand. But it’s true.
Love did something about our sin.
God is so compassionate toward imperfect, flawed man that He built into the system a failsafe plan for our salvation.
It’s called the altar and it is seen in the cross of Jesus.
Anyone who proposes to live a perfect life before God and thus entitle himself to Heaven on his own merits would do well to ask why God went to all the trouble of sending Jesus to the cross. If a life that pleases God can be achieved by our own goodness, God sure went to a lot of trouble for nothing, and Jesus suffered too much for too little.
The implications of this are enormous and many. Here are a few.
1) No wonder we love this gracious Lord so much. How tender He is in His dealings with us.
2) This motivates us even more to love Him and want to give Him our best in everything.
3) We need to quit imposing expectations of perfection on ourselves and start being realistic.
4) Likewise, we need to drop expectations of perfection on others around us, especially our children. Show them the same grace God shows us.
5) We need to cut ourselves and each other some slack. If God is merciful toward fallen, weak, frail humanity, we should be also.
6) We must forgive ourselves for our failures. In Christ, God has forgiven us. How can we continue to berate ourselves for our failures and shortcomings when He has wiped the slate clean and freed us to begin anew?
7) This is the “good news of great joy which shall be for all the people” sung about by the angel before the shepherds of Bethlehem that fateful night. It’s the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ which we preach.
A friend who was tormented with guilt over something she had done a year earlier assured me that she had confessed and repented and that God had forgiven her.
“But I can’t forgive myself,” she said.
“You have higher standards than God,” I replied.
“What a thing to say!” she exclaimed. “I do not.”
“Of course you do,” I said. “It’s easy for God to forgive me. But I can’t forgive myself because I expect more of me than He does.”
It got through to her that day that if God has forgiven her and wiped the record clean, it was absolutely fine for her to accept that forgiveness and get back in the game.
In setting high goals for ourselves, it’s good to go for excellence so long as we are reasonable in our expectations. And that we not let our failure in achieving the goals destroy us.
There! I’ve said it. It’s not perfect, but I shall now click “post” and send this little essay on its way.
I pray that on its outward path into cyberspace this word will encounter some of the Lord’s struggling children who are fighting the battle against defeatism and discouragement which are often the offspring of perfectionism.
God bless you. Rejoice in the promise that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Romans 8:1)
You are saved. You are loved. You are God’s. And you are going to Heaven.
In this life you are anything but perfect. But you will become flawless when you see Jesus. After all, no impurities–only holiness–make it into Glory.
Whew. What a great subject!