Be perfect,
therefore, as your
heavenly
Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:48 NIV
As he related these events to me, I thought
about God’s Word in Matthew 5:48. While
giving his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke about loving our enemies and described
how even the non-believer is able to love those who love him. But to be like
the Father we must do more than that. We
must pray for our enemies and love those who do not love us. In this we must be
perfect.
Have you ever felt trapped in a
situation that, at first, appeared ideal? Have you wanted to move away from a
situation but found the only apparent escape blocked by an unbreakable brick
wall predicament? Have you tried to love someone who behaved unlovely to you?
Unlike the dictionary definition of Utopia,
God’s love is not an idealized perfection. It is perfect. His Word does not
make a request to be perfect if we want
to or if we feel like it. It is a
command; be perfect. You might say, “I
can’t.” You are correct. But God never
requires of you and me something that He is not able to accomplish in and
through each of us.
We are made perfect only when we believe
in the Christ of John 3:16, for only then does God the Father see us through
the blood of His One and Only Begotten Son. Only then does the idealized
perfection called Utopia become less attractive as the reality of the love of
God covers us. Only then will our love abound to the glory and praise of God
(Philippians 1:9-11.)
Therefore, it is in the complete giving
of our heart to Christ that we may live in the reality of God’s love. Then an
earthly idealized place or situation becomes less alluring and the reality of
living in the love of Christ becomes our place of perfection.
©JP 2013
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