Perfection

Jesus gave a great speech to a bunch of people on a hillside. At the middle of this “Sermon on the Mount”, he laid down the challenge: we wouldn’t make it into heaven, his kingdom, unless we were BETTER than the professional religious leaders of the day! While the crowd was still gasping for air from those words, he dropped the bomb: “Be ye therefore perfect , even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect .” (Matthew 5:48)

And just so as not to be misunderstood, he defined how “perfect” perfect was.

For instance, everyone knows from the ten commandments that we shouldn’t kill. Fine, I’m not a murderer. But Jesus said that if you hate someone then you are guilty of murder! So to be perfect we need to control the very thoughts of our heart? If you’re like me, it’s a fulltime job just keeping your actions in check so that they don’t betray the darkest parts of your heart. We work hard to appear “good” but we fear the day that our friends or family see the true us deep down inside.

The scary thing is, what our friends can’t see, God sees just fine.

So, the bar has been set: “be ye therefore perfect” … right down to the core of your heart. If this is the “good news” then, at this point, it’s hard to see why.

But it gets worse.