Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48, NASB)
Have you ever really felt like you played perfect golf?
The author of the book Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, Dr. Bob Rotella, states, “If a golfer chooses to go after greatness, whether he defines greatness as winning the U.S. Open or winning the championship at his club, he must understand that he will encounter frustration and disappointment along the way. Tom Kite played in and lost more than a dozen U.S. Opens before he finally won. Big improvements require working and chipping away for years. A golfer has to learn to enjoy the process of striving to improve.”
Improving in golf to reach “perfection” has a much different meaning in our Christian faith journey. The process of achieving perfection will be complete when we see Christ face-to-face. (1 Cor 13:12; Phil 3:21)
Do you think that our opening verse is impossible to achieve? As far as I know, the only perfect person was Jesus.
The Hebrew word translated as “perfect” is Tamim, which means “whole, sound, healthful” and “having integrity.” The Septuagint- the Greek translation of the Old Testament- uses the word teleios (the same word used in Matthew 5:48) to mean perfect in the sense of “complete” and “entire.”
Jesus is encouraging His followers to strive daily to be more like him. (Romans 8-29). Striving to be perfect in our Christian life is what Jesus expects. The process is described here:
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).
Jesus was made perfect through suffering, including temptation. Because he shared our flesh and blood, he was subjected to the same temptations and pressures of sin as we are, yet he triumphed consistently over sin, remaining free from it. He established his freedom from sin through his costly obedience to the Father and decisive victory over it at the Cross.
Dr. Rotello says he “wants his students to chase their dreams every day and come to the end of their days with smiles on their faces, knowing that they did all they could with what they had”.
When we reach the end of our days, we want to see Jesus smiling at the right hand of God and saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Prayer: Thank you, Jesus, for living a perfect life to atone for our sins and give us access to heaven. We look forward daily to seeing your light shine on our faces as we pursue perfection in our daily walk with you.