Be Ye Perfect

When you think about being perfect, do we really know within, what that means? Perfect (out of a dictionary) is to be without spot, fault, blame, or failure. It is, to be in order, complete, in harmony and in control. So how many of us meet the requirements of being perfect? I have failed that test, Yikes! You can count me out! Do you do everything right all the time? Is there anyone who has everything in order or in control?

Trying to be perfect within ourselves we deceive ourselves into thinking that perfection can be obtained through what we do, or that it is in our behavior etc… I used to have a hard time thinking that I was acceptable to others much less to God. Being so imperfect myself, I would constantly question how I could ever measure up.

So how do we "aim" for perfection? Heb 12:14 says that we are to pursue peace and holiness, without which we cannot see God. The key is to pursue the One who is perfect. We then seek peace because Christ himself is our peace, and then holiness because God is holy.

I have played the piano for my church for 21 years and recently our church brought in a new music director, who wanted a different type of music than what I was used to playing. It wasn't that he was insistent or critical about it, but I struggled with how I could measure up to what he wanted to do in the music. I had to seek the peace of God in order to quiet my heart and put to rest the matter of being perfect as opposed to perfection in the music I was playing.

It had to stop being a matter of how well I was able to do or not do. Then I had to seek holiness which purifies your heart and how you see yourself. It turns you from looking "to" yourself, to looking "at" yourself through Gods eyes. He sees you through the blood of Jesus as perfect, which cleanses and purifies our hearts from sin.

I have known a few perfectionists who through trying to be perfect or acceptable in their behavior made themselves sick in their bodies. I knew that I didn't want that process to start happening within me. It had to stop being about me, and my abilities or "lack there of" and be about His business, and ministering as unto the Lord.

Peace and holiness is the "perfecting" that God works in us. Then we can consider and believe what the Word says about us. We can be perfect as He is perfect, "because" we are accepted by God Himself, and He sees the finished, perfected work that we are becoming.