Reading “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” in Matthew 5:48 (KJV) reminds me of all my imperfections—which are many, to be sure. The imperfection I hate most in my life is that I’m not perfect.

Those who struggle with perfection know too well the feeling of never really being good enough. We are like those children learning to write the alphabet for the first time, who tear their papers up the second they see they have malformed a letter. It makes no difference that they made it to the “R” without a problem. If the “S” looks sloppy, then in the trash it goes. Practically perfect people are hard on themselves.

In psychological terms, perfectionism is the belief that perfection can and should be attained. When that belief transforms into thinking that anything less than perfect is unacceptable, problems set in. Through a perfectionist’s eyes, a person’s self-worth is determined by flawlessness.

Of course, ideas of perfection vary from person to person.

Perfectionists set rigid standards of performance for themselves and sometimes for others. They never feel they “measure up.”

One of my favourite movie lines comes from Mary Poppins when she humorously replies, “We practically perfect people never make mistakes.” Poppins, like most everyone else, links perfection to lack of mistakes. Sometimes Christians make the same error in reading the Bible. The word “perfect” in the above King James Version verse is translated from the Greek word telios, which means finished, full-grown, mature, lacking nothing, or brought to completeness. It is not about making mistakes or not being good enough.

God wants us to “be complete” by being spiritually one with his Son, Jesus Christ. This “perfection” is not a matter of looking good or performing flawlessly, but of Christ living in us.

The good news is that we are already perfect in God’s sight. It is a gift given freely to us. With Christ in us, we are brought to completion and we lack nothing.

Will we still make mistakes? Sure. But the perfection spoken of in this verse is not about what we do; it’s about what Christ does.

Reprinted with the kind permission of Christian Odyssey