Monday Munchies...What does it mean to be perfect?

Sorry I skipped a week; school is getting hectic and all that crap. (I have two exams tomorrow, so y’all pray for me if you think about it). Anyway, to make up for it, I have a pretty good one, or at least I think. I’ve been thinking about this one a lot. I feel like its something God has laid on me to talk about, and ask questions about. Hopefully this might clear up so confusion around here. In any case, J-Webb needs to keep me honest here because I might be talking about things over my head.

What does it take to be perfect? Does perfection mean a life without sin? Does perfection mean never making mistakes? In Matt 5:48, Jesus tells us that we are to be perfect. It is important to note that this is a command. In taking a direct look at my own life and seen how “unperfect” I’ve been, I’m kinda leaning towards an idea that it’s impossible to be perfect as far as sinless-ness (aside from Jesus, who had to be sinless). The theological idea of original sin would back me up, because it says that people are born sinful…think about it, do you have to teach a 2 year old to lie? What’s more is that if we were capable of being sinless; wouldn’t that void the necessity of Jesus dying for our sins? If we could possibly go without sinning, wouldn’t that be our requirement for salvation, being good enough, like the Jews and the Muslims? This presents me with a very interesting logical conflict. Would Jesus give us a command we cannot follow? I don’t believe He would. This leaves two possible conclusions, either it is possible for us to be sinless (something I very much disagree with), or Jesus was speaking of some other form of perfection.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the book of Matthew are what is commonly known as “the sermon on the mound”. In order for us to understand what Jesus is saying, we have to know all of what He is saying. The commandment for us to be perfect comes at the end of a paragraph during this sermon where Jesus is telling us to love people. Specifically, Jesus is telling us to love our enemies. I don’t have the knowledge to get into this idea completely, but I will pause here to ask a brief question…if you love your enemies, are they still your enemies? Y’all think on that. Anyway, Jesus goes on to tell us that God loves everyone, including people who are His enemies, people who rebel against Him, by how He makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on everyone. Jesus showed us the fullness of this love when He died on the cross for us, because unless we are sinless, then we too were enemies of God. This is perfection. Love is once again the answer. We are to be perfect in our love. We are to love everyone, just as God loves everyone, even our enemies.

I feel that its nessacary to credit Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a good bit of these ideas, but as usual, my ideas are my own, and no one has to or even should accept them just because I have said them.

I’m calling attention to this to say, even though we should strive to not sin, that’s not the point or the thing that matters. What matters is that we strive to love. We as Christians shouldn’t focus so much on what not to do, but focus more on what to do. We should be perfect, just like God is perfect, in our love for others. Y’all think on that and get back to me.