“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”(Matthew 5:48)
Seriously?! You’ve got to be kidding me. Most days, I can barely make it passed breakfast without entertaining some unloving thought or speaking some harsh word in reaction to spilled…whatever. Unless I’m all alone, then I can be really Jesus-like.
His words seem impossible. But that’s His point. He wants us to see our desperation. Righteousness does not come from us. We have heart issues. When left to ourselves, we hate rather than love our enemies.
Yet we live most satisfied when we walk in His ways. It’s how He designed us. Our soul awakens when we live in the freedom of “love-regardless.” But we can’t do it apart from Him.
That’s why our radical God poured out His grace and mercy on that tree. He forgives and cleanses all our imperfections through the blood of Jesus. Our call is to believe that His grace covers it all.
But even after we believe, we still wrestle against the selfishness within. We still make mistakes and overreact to life. Like yesterday. Remember…it was Mother’s Day.
I woke up early to spend time with God then wrote a blog post about how God is our refuge through the constancy of motherhood. And would you believe that within about eighteen minutes of clicking “publish” I overreacted to the high levels of whining and had to run to my Refuge-God, believing His grace to be enough.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
We won’t be perfect. We will make mistakes possibly within minutes of closing our Bibles. But our God is grace. And we’re desperate for Him. For the sake of our soul-peace, we have to believe that when we confess the daily evidences of our imperfection, our God faithfully cleanses from all unrighteousness. All of it. Gone.
We can’t be perfect, that’s why we need a Savior.
For those joining me in memorizing Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount,
here are this week’s verses. Keep rehearsing it, friends:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Matthew 6:1-2
Fill me, Lord…
Do you wrestle against guilt over your mistakes?
How do we rest in the grace and merciful forgiveness of our God?
Your post sounds similar to what Paul was saying to me last night in Romans 7. God is so faithful to reiterate His Word to us by using different mediums to present a truth we need to hear. Thank you for sharing this post. I get so frustrated with the person I am since I’m not acting like the person I think that I am. Praise God for His grace!
Praise Him for grace!
Perfection is never the goal and over-rated…Sometimes we get perfection and holiness mixed up…”Wholeness, completeness’ is more the idea in the Hebrew and without God we will never be whole and gratefully his mercies are new ever morning and His only expectation is like Jesus we depend constantly on Him for our strength.
Yes. Depend constantly on Him for our strength. There’s no other way to live. His holiness is pure perfection, infinitely glorious. I’m so thankful that He “remembers we’re dust” and lavishes those new mercies each and every day. Blessings to you!
Beautiful. Just beautiful. Thankful for your encouragement & “realness” (not a word) Love you 🙂