Perfection.
We all know in our heads that it’s unattainable but most of us continue to strive for it some area of our lives or just give up completely.
And yet seeming perfection in others, though we seem to admire it in the media, actually puts us off or discourages us in our pursuit. We avoid people who seem to have it all together and are “perfect” because we don’t feel we can measure up. Without trying, they make us feel bad about ourselves. The ugly enemy Comparison rears its ugly head. Comparison teamed up with Unattainable robs us of the joy we can experience where we’re at right now.
Most of us have experienced that same thing with God. He’s perfect. We’re not. So we either strive for perfection or we give up and lose hope.
God was very aware of this dilemma. It happened at the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden. As soon as Adam and Eve rebelled, they became imperfect and tried to hide from God. They knew that their sin would be exposed by the light of His perfection.
That’s why God came to us in imperfect, human form. Though Jesus never sinned, He walked this earth in the same imperfect type of body that we do. He experienced the same emotions. He experienced betrayal, denial, loneliness, rejection, temptation. God had become man and took on imperfection so that He could relate to us, so that we would be able to approach Him, so that He could touch our lives. So that Jesus could ultimately die for our imperfections, our sins, and make us perfect through His blood. The stain of His blood wiped out the stain of our sin. If we know Him, if we have accepted that gift of salvation, we are now perfect in His eyes! That thought is so much bigger than I can even grasp.
There are so many false pictures of perfection in this world. Airbrush and surgery have made almost anything possible. Social media can make each of us sound like we are on top of the world, a type of competition to see whose life is “most perfect”. But all of that will leave us lacking, because someone’s “perfection” will only shed light on our not-so-perfect lives.
It took the life of a more-that-perfect God becoming a less-than-perfect man to draw us to Himself. In a broken world, perfection alienates, but real draws us in. Makes imperfect sense…
So how should that affect how I live my life? If I want to live my life like Jesus asks me to, I have to be willing to take off my “perfect” facade to expose my “imperfect” reality. At my most real, Jesus is most evident in me. And that is the whole darn point, right?
Isaiah 53:2 – He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
Hebrews 4:15 – For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin.
