Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

That’s setting the bar kinda high, don’cha think?

Exactly

Beloved, you know we can’t be perfect.  I know we can’t be perfect. Jesus most definitely knows we can’t be perfect.  So why does he call us to perfection?

Two reasons that I can think of.

First, in one swell foop he destroys any lingering notion we may have had of making it to heaven on our own.  Jesus just finished laying out an impossible set of standards for love and forgiveness; now he follows up by telling us that we can never ever even one time fail even a little teeny bit in that love and forgiveness. I don’t care how hard you train in the high jump, nor how impressive your quads are, nor how amazing and fluid your technique–you are not going to clear a bar that is set infinitely high. So get over it.

Or, actually, don’t get over it.

You see what I did there?

There is One whose love is perfect, who can clear the bar no matter how high it is set, and he’s the focus of the second part of Jesus’ command. The Father is capable of the kind of love and forgiveness that we can only imagine. And while we can’t love perfectly on our own, we can tap into that love.  Just as we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, and renewed by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, so we can love with the love of the Father. In him, through him, by his grace we can be who he has called us to be.

At least, that’s what I think he’s saying. But what do I know?

Be perfect, Beloved.

In him.

Happy Monday