Nobody’s Perfect

Nobody’s Perfect

How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

Galatians 3:3

By that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy.

Hebrews 10:14

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.

Philippians 3:12

Nobody’s perfect, right? So why did Jesus say, “You are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)? And why did Paul say that he was pressing on to possess that perfection? It sounds impossible. Is it worth it to even try?

If you belong to Jesus, you are perfect right now in the sense that God has taken away all your sin. You stand before God in perfection—not on your own, but on the perfection of Jesus. He has taken your sin and given you his perfection as a gift. In this way, you’re perfect.

But while Jesus has made you perfect, he is still at work in you to make you holy in the way you live day to day. This is what the writer of Hebrews means when he says that Jesus “made perfect those who are being made holy.” This is an ongoing process as you move away from your lingering imperfection toward holiness.

You will never have a perfect life to offer God on your own. Your perfection before God will always depend on the perfection of Jesus offered in your place. But the day is coming when Jesus will make you completely perfect in eternity. And every step you take now toward holiness is a taste of that coming perfection.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

Typically, why does someone say, “Nobody’s perfect”?

In what ways will we be perfect in heaven?

What do you think it means to “press on to possess that perfection”? What’s one way you could do that this week?