By Shenalyn Page
Does God really expect me to be perfect?
Yes.
Jesus is pretty clear about this: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
Now, before you have a full-on panic attack, take a deep breath, and let’s find out what Jesus means. (There’s good news coming, so keep reading!)
What Is Perfection?
What would you expect if I told you I have a perfect apple for you? An apple that looks gorgeous and tastes even better, right?
Flawless. That’s how we tend to think of perfection today. We live in a world in which people get brow lifts and nose jobs, curate their social media pages, and sometimes do unethical things to “improve” their personal brand.
But the biblical concept of perfection is more than a flawless exterior. Perfection in the Bible is about maturity and wholeness. This verse in James 1:4 illustrates that idea well: “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
Biblical perfection is about growing until we become just like Jesus. It’s an apple that is fully ripe and delicious, not just one with a shiny skin.
“But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18).
Does that Mean Being Sinless?
Ultimately, yes. That is absolutely God’s goal for you. He wants you to be perfectly holy because He knows that means perfect wholeness and happiness.
You don’t want an apple with a worm munching its way through the center. Leave it there and the apple will soon be completely rotten. In the same way, God doesn’t want any sin left in you. He knows that any sin, even the smallest one, will eventually destroy you if it is allowed to grow.
However, God also knows that we are utterly incapable of sinless perfection. “There is no one who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46). “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
Then why does Jesus command us to be perfect when He knows it’s impossible for us? Keep reading. That is the really good news!
How to Be Perfect
Do you remember playing in the mud as a kid? How did you get clean afterward? Did your parents scold the dirt on your face? Or scrub your face with a mirror?
LOL! Of course not. Neither of those would have gotten you clean.
They scrubbed you clean with lots of water and soap, right?
The same is true for us. We can become perfect only when we give God permission to clean us up and make us like Jesus.
There are two parts to this clean-up process.
First, God uses His law as a mirror to show us how unlike Jesus we are and how badly we need to be cleansed of sin (Romans 3:20; James 1:23, 24). But we need not despair, because Jesus freely gives us His perfection to replace our flaws and sin.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
When you accept Jesus as your Savior, He forgives your sins—then God looks at you just as if you’d never sinned. That’s what justification means.
Our Savior then starts the second phase of our clean-up process. The big word for it is sanctification. In simple terms, it means that as you build a friendship with God and try to do the things that make Him happy, He will make you more and more like Him (i.e., perfect).
This is what it means to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12, 13). It is simply cooperating with God and letting Him transform you from the inside out. He’ll do an amazing job at it if you give Him permission!
Becoming perfect is really about the process of growth God takes us on as we follow Him. Just like the apple doesn’t know how it grew to be perfect, you won’t be able to trace all the ways God changed you. But if you stay with God and try to live like Jesus, He will change you when you aren’t looking. One day, you’ll look up and see Jesus coming in the clouds, and He’ll say, “My child, you’re ready to come home.”