Be Perfect

Someone I love very much recently said this: "Perfection is something greatly lacking in the world, and sadly, something I greatly crave. The conclusion? I am often disappointed by those close to me, and myself, for our inability to achieve what I only wish was possible." Another beloved person replied: "Perhaps you should lower your expectation from Perfection to Near Perfection so you are not disappointed as often..."

My heart cried out when I read both of these statements. This is what it said:

It isn't so much that you need to lower your expectations, but rather change your perspective. You -should- desire perfection in yourself and others. Jesus wasn't speaking idealistic gas when He said, "Be perfect;" His hopes for the world and yours align there. But striving for that will drive you mad, because you can't do it.

Jesus asks for your whole life, every aspect of you, not just a piece here or a portion of time there. You can't reach perfection on your own, or piece-meal in perfecting this part then moving on to the next; in His hands alone perfection will form. Your personality, your desires, your despairs and frustrations, even those things you see as vices now - everything that makes you uniquely you - will be given back with 10x the strength and perfect beauty. He makes ALL things new.

Jesus didn't come to prune a branch here or there; He wants to chop the whole tree down. He didn't come to cut out the failing organ and replace it with a healthy one; He intends a full-body transplant, even the pieces that seem to be working fine. He asks you to hand over the whole natural self, all the parts you deem good and innocent as well as the ones you think wicked, And then, you'll begin to find perfection rising up within you without your trying. The hard part is the surrender, but its also the easiest (and only) way to do it.

C. S. Lewis explains it much better than I could. He writes:

"[Christ] says, 'Take up your Cross and follow Me' - in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute He says, 'My yoke is easy and my burden light.' He means both. And one can just see why both are true.

...In a battle, or in mountain climbing, there is often one thing which it takes a lot of pluck to do; bit it is also, in the long run, the safest thing to do. If you funk it, you will find yourself, hours later, in far worse danger. The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing.

It is like that here. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is remain what we call 'ourselves', to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time to be 'good'. We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centered on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short [and maybe even reduce the weeds]: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown."

The grass-seed is the good in you. The wheat is the perfection Jesus demands. Even if you managed the impossible task of removing all the weeds on your own and keeping your grass trim, your grass will never become wheat. That requires Jesus not only putting it there, but growing it, too. God wants to make you a miniature copy of Jesus Christ, while KEEPING what makes you YOU intact. All the good things within you were put there by God, and they are not the same good things He gave to your neighbor or your brother or your friend. You have a uniqueness to you that God wants to expand and perfect, but He needs to work with ALL of you to do so. He can't make the good perfect if you don't give it to Him, and you can't make it perfect by trying to turn grass into wheat on your own. Give that up. "I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. (Philippians 3:9).

So Jesus calls us to be brave, to actually give it ALL to Him, to be perfect. That sounds great. How do we do it? Where's the easy part, Craig? C. S. Lewis had an answer for that, too, which I will end this post with:

"That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. When He said, ‘Be perfect,’ He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

... This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else."

The beloved individual who started this conversation said not only does she crave perfection, but she is often disappointed. My advice to her is to go in for the long haul. I have given word-sentiment to this for years and only recently begun to allow God to chop down the whole tree, to take on the full surgery. But frankly, I'm tired of disappointment. I'm tired of despair. And I'm already experiencing the Joy amidst the pain, and I guarantee you, its worth it. It's the only way.

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace [and perfection] apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.... If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."