Yes, You Can Be Perfect

How many times have we heard “No one is perfect”, “Only God is perfect”, “We can’t be perfect on this earth”, and frankly speaking, a part of me gets irritated every time someone makes such a statement, especially if it’s a spiritual leader.

If being perfect wasn’t possible, the Bible wouldn’t have asked us to be perfect. The Bible also didn’t say we should wait till we get to heaven to be perfect; it said we should be perfect now just as our Father is perfect. (1 Peter 1:15-16).

Now the Bible also said that all have sinned; it didn’t say all are still sinning. You see, when we agreed to give our life to Christ, God expected us to do just that, give Him our lives! He didn’t expect us to still hold any part of it. If truly we have given him our life, he puts that life in the hands of Jesus who died for us. This means that God doesn’t see us anymore, he doesn’t see the person who ‘sinned’. He doesn’t see the person who was born a sinner. He sees Jesus Christ.

Now because of the gift of free will which God also gave us, just as we opt out of any subscription service, we can choose to opt out of the whole “born again” life. So you wake up one morning and you’re like “Flip this! I’m done with this Christian life.” This means we tell God we no longer want Him holding our lives. Once we do that, God doesn’t see us through Jesus, he sees us as man, and man cannot be perfect on his own. Man can only be perfect when placed in Jesus Christ.

“When a person works, wages are credited as an obligation, not a gift.” (Romans 4:4)

If you want to be perfect, you just have to place your entire life in him. It stops being about you and starts being about him. In that state, sin no longer defines your standing. You are received as pure, holy and righteous in Christ.

Many times I hear people tell me how they can’t keep up the consistency of living for God. Frankly speaking, many times, I’ve felt so disappointed with myself and my inconsistencies that I felt God might slap me one day. Every time I said I would do it right, I did it wrong.

The mistake I made and the mistake we often make is “trying” to remain righteous before God. We look at our lives and dare say “I’m not doing it right”. Here is the hard truth: you cannot earn it. Stop trying to achieve through effort what grace has already offered.

“To the one who does not work but trusts God, faith is credited as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5). We can never work our way into righteousness. If we do, then the grace of God would be useless, wouldn’t it? Faith in Christ wouldn’t be the foundation of the Christian life if we could use our efforts to attain righteousness.

If you keep “trying” to overcome that addiction or that one sin that you know separates you from having a perfect relationship with God, and you succeed, you’ll attribute the success to your effort and hard work, thereby disregarding the value of grace. But if we let Jesus take control and deliver us from our inadequacies, the glory can only go back to him.

Jesus wants every part of your life. Perfection is possible but only when your life is in Jesus Christ.