You're Perfect

Hello all of you beautiful people!

I’ve had this topic in my heart for such a long time, but I haven’t had the opportunity to write it down until now. Today, I am going to talk to you about the idea of perfectionism.

Webster’s dictionary defines perfection or the word perfect as, “A disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable: especially: the setting of unrealistically demanding goals accompanied by a disposition to regard failure to achieve them as unacceptable and a sign of personal worthlessness.”

Have you ever met a perfect person? I am talking about a person who looked great, worked out 3 times a week, no blemishes, had great fashion sense, good job, great friends, an intellectual, athletic, etc… I would hope that your answer would be NO, but nevertheless, I believe we have all had this perception about certain people in our lives. The truth is if we walked one day in their shoes, our perception of their perfection would be skewed.

I believe I’ve said this in a previous blog post, but as child I was expected to become certain things and it created in me these unsaid expectations that I at times make for myself. I believed that if I could keep it all together then everything would be fine. What I failed to realize was that the more I ignored my humanity when “bad” things would happen, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I tried to gain my composure in every area of my life that when I let myself down, I deemed myself unworthy or a failure!

As I began creating this blog post, I began to ask myself the following questions which I believe we should all ask ourselves:

Who told you that you have to be perfect?

Who told you that making a mistake was bad?

Who told you that God would not forgive you if you fell short of His glory?

Who lied to you and told you that if you are perfect, that life will go the way you planned?

I am reminded of the story of Adam and Eve. God created these two perfect beings that initially had the world at their fingertips. They never had to toil or labor for what they wanted. Though Adam and Eve had everything, like us, they were tested in their beliefs.

Genesis 1:16-17 says, “And the Lord commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” They were given everything in the entire garden except for one tree that they were not allowed to eat!

Now I am almost positive that you are thinking why would they mess up everything if they had it so perfectly?! I asked the Lord the same question as I was trying to figure out why I desired this idea of perfection. I derived to the conclusion that this idea of perfection kept me in control. It allowed me to have a pseudo sense of balance in my life that I subconsciously didn’t need God to help me. I gained strength from myself by having it all together.

Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was very crafty than any other beast in the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say you should not eat of any tree in the garden?”

Usually our state of mind is altered when we operate from a place of uncertainty. Instead of being still and allowing God to answer these questions for us, we forget what the Lord said and take it upon ourselves to answer our adversary. We take on burdens the Lord never asked us to carry. Not every question deserves a response, especially when the enemy comes up against us.

We see in the later chapter that Satan tried to trick Adam and Eve by getting them to believe something they never would have thought of. Pertaining to the idea of perfection, God never asked me to be perfect. He never asked any of us to have all the answers to all the questions in our lives. He did say, “Take my yoke upon you, because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:29)

Adam and Eve left a place of perfection (wholeness) to be in control of their own lives because to their prior knowledge they thought they knew better. When the Lord sought them, they were ashamed and covered themselves out of shame for what they had done.

Sometimes, I am so guilty of this, we take on everybody’s burdens and when we are going through something we want to hide like Adam and Eve. Life becomes so difficult that we do not want to deal with it because of the view that we have of ourselves.

I love what the Lord said to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:9 (NLT), “Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

God knows where we are! He knows what we feel like and we don’t have to hide from the very ONE who made us. He understands you try to keep it together. He understands your pain. He knows that you mask it so well. The Lord is so amazing that even when you hide, He goes to find you! He desires for you to come to Him NAKED, because He sees you past what you’ve covered yourself in.

I want to get you to understand that God is PERFECT. We are the ones who have fallen short of His glory. We couldn’t get it right even if we tried, so Jesus came to give us stability. He is CONSISTENT, even when you get inconsistent. He is PURE, even when you feel unworthy and dirty. He is HOPE, even when you feel like your situation is hopeless. We have to allow Him to become our standard. The way others view us should not dictate how we should live our lives.

One of my favorite rappers named Lecrae Moore said this powerful statement, “If you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection!”

The more we are transformed into Christ’s image and likeness then we will not allow man’s view of perfection to change us. Once we embrace our humanity, we will become relatable to others. We will no longer be afraid to show the areas in which we have fallen because we know Jesus has ALREADY redeemed us.

I wanted to end with Matthew 5:48 which says, “Be ye perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

WOW! That passage of scripture makes it seems like I contradicted myself right?

Well, for a couple weeks I studied this scripture and I realized that this idea of perfection means that we need to be COMPLETE in Christ. Jesus is whole. When we come into Christ, He makes us complete and whole. The more we live for the Lord, we will strive to be perfect in Him.

This week, I urge you to be perfect by resting in the fact that you are made whole! You are PERFECT because God made you in His image and likeness and He delights Himself in you. You are lacking nothing in Him and you are not bound by man’s view of perfection.

Love you all!