You Are To Be Perfect

 May 23, 2014

You Are To Be Perfect

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too.”

1 John 5:1

What is the hardest commandment of God for you to obey? For me, the call to love God’s children is by far and away the most difficult command for me. While John refers to the children of God as those who believe Jesus is the Christ, Jesus made it clear that his followers are to love all people: friends and enemies, those we think are fellow Christians, as well as those we are sure don’t care for Jesus.

The issues that make this a difficult command for me run very deep. God’s call to love is not a call to have warm fuzzy feelings about other people. It is not a call to just have passive good feelings toward others. God’s call to love is a call to invest ourselves into the lives of others. Others are lonely, needing affirmation and understanding. Godly love sees these needs in others and reaches out to include them within the mantle of our genuine concern. However, to extend my mantle of concern is to open my heart to them. I cannot embrace their hopes, fears, dreams, joys and disappointments, and at the same time keep hidden from them the hopes, fears, dreams, joys and disappointments of my life. That’s the tough part for me. My default position is to be very private, my deepest feelings hidden from others.

Sometimes I feel like responding to Jesus the way his disciples did when Jesus told them it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God! (Matthew 19:24) “The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked” (Matthew 19:25).

I wonder if Jesus was smiling when he said that. Maybe he gave a wink and said, “Just kidding”; but then I remember that in the Sermon the Mount he said something similar. Talking about loving our enemies, neighbors and those who persecute us, he said, “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Seriously?

Confronted with my own reluctance to let my guard down, and become open and vulnerable with others convinces me that I will never measure up. I’ll never be perfect, but the Hound of Heaven won’t let me give up on Him, or myself. First he reminds me of the precious teaching of my friend Brennan Manning, “God loves us unconditionally, just as we are; not as we should be. Because no one is as they should be.” (All is Grace by Brennan Manning) Then the Holy Spirit reminds me of the words of Jesus, “Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible” (Matthew 19:26).

So, I press on.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.