You don't have to be perfect, but

Nobody’s perfect.  If you thought you had to be, you’d go crazy (unless you think you’re perfect in which case you’re already crazy.)

But then there’s those pesky places in the Bible where Jesus and Peter say to be perfect and be holy in all your conduct.  So what do you do with that?

One extreme might be to melt into self-loathing for not measuring up.  But not measuring up has already been covered by Jesus on the cross in your place (if you’ve accepted that – if you haven’t you could read this).  Reacting with self-condemnation could reveal that you think you earn God’s love and acceptance thru your conduct.

Going extreme the other way can be flippantly saying, “oh well, nobody’s perfect” and giving the impression that you’ll be the judge of the reasonableness of any expectations of your conduct.  Which is understandable if you think falling short gets you rejected by God.

What if you thought of it as a personal thing instead of an impersonal standard?  Personal as between you and God.  If it was personal, would it change how you think of being told to be perfect?  If you were a parent and you had expectations of your kids, what would you want their reaction to be when they didn’t measure up?

• Oh dad I’m such a horrible person you must hate me I wouldn’t blame you if you kicked me out of the house I’ll try to do better so you’ll love me
• Oh dad, nobody’s perfect…
• Oh dad, I’m so sorry.  It’s killing me that I’ve disappointed you.  I really do believe you love me and want what’s best for me.  I want to change, please help me, I can’t do this without you.

But I have a feeling when we think of being perfect we may not always be thinking of what God is thinking.  We may be thinking of a whole bunch of standards we’ve set for ourselves and that we’ve set based on what we think other people’s expectations of us are.  When we get those all mixed in with what God’s expectations are it can get very messy. 

The other day I had plans to get up early and get started on a couple of things.  I slept in about two hours.  I felt horribly guilty – worse than I do over some sins!  But it was only my own expectation, not God’s.  Sometimes I do the same with the expectations I think others have – disappointing them can become like a sin.  And sometimes I feel awful about saying stupid things or being so disorganized.  So is making something that isn’t a sin bigger than what is a sin, a sin?

Right now I’m thinking there’s three distinct things that should stay distinct:

1. Things that are sin – you’ve seen the lists
2. Things that are sin for you – personal things you have convictions over.  They’re not in the Bible or it’s not clear and you make a judgment call.  I’m convinced it’s sin for me to drink alcohol, but it might not be for you.
3. Things that are not sin but are more like mistakes and shortcomings -- yet you treat them as if they are sin.  You can subtly turn yourself into your own god with your own standards of your conduct.

Major on the big clear things that the Bible says are wrong – accept that standard.  And keep your conscience clear on debatable things.

Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged – J. I. Packer

The rest – your shortcomings and goof-ups and things you wish you did better?  Sure, try to improve, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

Comments

[Nancy]

And we all know it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful, right? ;-)