“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48, NASB)
It is hardly arguable that the United States Open Championship is the greatest test in professional golf. It is notorious for being played on difficult courses that have tight fairways, firm and challenging greens, demanding pin positions, and thick, high rough. It places a premium on accuracy, especially off the tee. However, it is a test of all 14 clubs as well as the mental game. Since 1930, the US Open has produced more winners with scores of even par or worse than any of the other majors, with a total of 35. It is golf’s greatest challenge.
Golf presents most of us with challenges regardless of the course we play; nonetheless, every June we watch the game’s greatest players humbled by the USGA’s setup. This can be expected again at this year’s US Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.
Jesus understands that we are a work in progress.This week makes me think about some of the greatest challenges Scripture presents us in following Jesus. I don’t know about you, but for me there are many. I don’t even have to look past the Sermon on the Mount, early in the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, to find several. Although, for me, there is one that jumps out more than any. It is today’s verse.
At first glance, many of us discount it, because we all know that we have no chance of being as perfect as God. However, as I have grown in my knowledge of Jesus’ teaching, I could not help but question how God really expects me to obey this verse. At face value it makes me think that Jesus is commanding me to be perfect just as he and the Father are. As a sincere follower of Jesus, I refuse to discount any of his teaching, but this appears to be nonsense. So, I dug a little deeper and found some great insight to this verse.
I discovered that our common English translations fail us slightly. The word translated as “perfect” may not be the best translation. Especially, when you consider there are actually two different Greek words used.
When the verse first says, “you are to be perfect,” it uses the word teleioi, which is better translated as mature, or becoming mature, like an adult. The second usage of the word is teleios, which means fully mature or completed. The verse might be best translated, “You are to become mature, just as your heavenly Father is fully completed.”
Jesus understands that we are a work in progress. He invites us to be students (disciples) of him. He desires to lead us into completion, but there is no expectation of flawlessness in our journey. It is a process. Jesus wants us to set our eyes on the end goal that has already been set before us—his likeness.
I want to encourage you as you watch the US Open this week, wishing you could play like the players you’re watching at the top of the leaderboard. Call it an exercise in remembering that no matter how far short you feel your game is of the great players you are watching, you also are a work in process. God doesn’t expect error-free perfection from you; he only expects your pursuit of the likeness of his Son. In that pursuit, he will mature you.
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Josh Nelson
June 13, 2018
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.