Perfectionism
When severed from it's native realm, noted a Jewish scholar, a flower may appear extremely beautiful, but it is still dead. So it is with humanity outside the provided realms of Eden.
If you were to take a good, hard and honest look at yourself now in comparison to, say, where you were a decade ago, how much about what is essentially you has really changed?
We may be richer or poorer, fitter of feeling our age, living somewhere new or where we always have, but isn't it the case that at the heart of all this is still - you.
The "you" that gets up in the morning seeks to live in the 'white picket fence' boundaries of what you have deemed to be 'appropriate' living - no overt bad behaviour, lots of doing good when and where possible, and getting the general things done that you need to - a routine only 'disturbed' when something unexpected comes along. Sometimes, however, there's a nagging concern that you really would like to deal with certain things better - loving certain people, avoiding certain temptations, just being "more" than you currently are.
Admonition, guilt and even depression can be common because of this sense of missing the mark - that's why absolution needs to be front and centre in our corporate times of fellowship; this trouble can literally become something that can kill if our theology leaves us sinking here.
What matters is that we understand that everything necessary for our being 'other' than fallen creatures doesn't rest upon our estimation, right or wrong, of who we are. The 'bad stuff' may still be all too evident, but it's the 'good stuff' of another that counts.
"Holiness", when it becomes defined by anything but His death and resurrection, will always miss the mark - that is why single solution we're offered to this issue as believers is identifying in baptism with the "into" and "out of" of the death of Jesus - its an objective fact that cannot be changed, and will result in our becoming 'like Him' on that new first day.
What that amounts to, here and now, is that what you witness about yourself in this fading condition is what you will be to the grave, and that's important, because God has deemed it is these 'dead' creatures that, astonishingly, will be dressed in immortality, and see their messy characters adorned by the astonishing nature of Jesus Christ. It is those who trust in these very certainties, history shows, that naturally become friends of the one who is saving them, and that is the vital kind of being Holy that we all need.
Getting closer to being like our Heavenly Father really comes down to allowing the truth to inform our daily situation. Yes, we're sinners, says Paul in Romans 7. Yes, that means all manner of troubles, as he shows there, but he concludes such honesty by emphasising we cannot be condemned because of what God has done in Christ.
Sometimes, it's not our view of God that's the problem - sometimes it's that we are seeing a particular habit or hinderance in the wrong way. We naturally understand that there is a real distance to travel before said 'trouble' is refined or eliminated, but what we may not allow for is how God chooses certain ways and means as a manner of leading us to the only righteousness that avails for us in life and death. We 'fake' the Christian life when we deny such actions, and the consequence can be a 'perfection in the flesh' which truly perverts us from seeing where we are stumbling into a far greater trouble which is truly working to undo us.
If we remove 'grace alone', then the only other track available is keeping what we propose to be 'the law' - which always proves to be a diluted version of God's unrelenting requirements.
The polarity is often drawn between the legalist (one who sees nothing but law as good) and the antinomian (one who is set against the law), but the fact is that the antinomian is merely someone who has erected a new 'code' to replace the stated rules with his very own.
The only 'law' for the lawless (that, in truth, is ALL of us, by the way) is that "freedom" is only achieved by doing whatever, whenever, but this in truth leaves money worthless, food tasteless, sex pointless and life effectively drained of anything but an insatiable appetite for reducing ourselves to the gutter. Just like the prodigal, we conclude our decent hollowed-out and bereft of all wealth, needing to escape the agony of such folly - it's bad news.
The only 'law' for the legalist, however, is the same. By parading 'morality', they seek to display their own rejection of genuine rescue coming from elsewhere, stating to all that they are confident that they have what it takes to make it, and thereby placing themselves in a terrible trap. The immoralist may reach a point of recognising their total folly of their predicament. The moralist, however, can so raise the walls of pious independence that they sever themselves from mercy, as Jesus shows in the parable of the two sons.
The gospel tells us a vital, two-fold truth. No good thing resides in me, and yet, we were made to express and reflect the image of the Lord of glory. Everything now revolves around these two truths, and the single place they have been reconciled - the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We only 'find' what has been stripped from us in the humanity of Jesus, and that shows us the place where we finish (once glorified). Until then, it is all about our foretasting what that eternal union has forged and will marry forever.
In our service, our pleasures, even in our mistakes, God is seeking to bring about a growth that knows where genuine joy resides. This time now is about our journey of translation from death into life, so we comprehend that what is defined as evil is truly something which steals and kills and destroys - that is why we learn to eschew such activities. It isn't simply a matter of externally condemning a particular behaviour - it's understanding where that manner of act begins and what gives it the power to become so total within us.
Luther's last words were 'we are all beggars'. Without what sustains us from beyond ourselves, we are chained to a nature which would end us, whatever 'philosophy' we wear to adorn our manacles! Only Christ breaks the power of cancelled sin in the blood of His sacrifice at the Cross.
The Law is good if it shows us our limitations, and causes us to seek a better wisdom, given with out 'money or price'. Our dilemma is also good if it causes us to look outside of us for our true remedy. These 'tutors' provoke towards the single resolve at Calvary in our continual time of need.
Perfectionism leaves us bereft of our birthright, holding nothing but a bowl filled with self-righteousness, and anger at God for even suggesting you needed such a thing as redemption.
The pretence that we can, in effect, 'better' ourselves into true goodness and thereby heaven's gates will be flung wide will actually destroy genuine righteousness - that alone fixes us upon the saviour as our one true ark and seat of mercy - our only haven of absolute deliverance and freedom. Hypocrisy turns us into despicable bores and hateful caricatures of those actually enjoying heaven-sent life.
When we are left to our own devices, we become those without an actual chart or compass, swept by an inescapable tethering to broken and deceitful whims and follies.
The Christian understands this, and looks away from such a pathway of shipwreck, continually yearning for the founder and finisher of their faith to be merciful in our voyage. We know that pretence leaves us marooned, that 'faking it' just leaves us isolated and depressed. We must own an authenticity that satisfies us and those watching what we are. That often includes a deep vulnerability to one another in our times of need - a treasure more precious than any gem.
Join with a company, Luther wrote to Spalatin in his struggles, of hard-boiled sinners whose greatness is their genuiness of soul, for there you will need to make Christ far more than the paltry and trifling thing so often accepted by the pious! Here the Lord can be a helper and a healer of the those beyond childish, contrived sins, and a true redeemer of all that is shocking and evil.
Such life only resides beyond miserable religion.
Wisdom and freedom may often, in truth, amount to loneliness. It can be overwhelming in its true strength and stature, but it is certain to bring fellowship of depth and meaning, and it is a realm far better than the eternal loneliness caused by any strain of perfectionism, which never allows anyone to become a true counsellor or proper friend.
The present day is never going to be about trying to make a 'fair show' to impress. When we know Christ well, and He is enjoying walking with us, then true character is forged through the fire of genuine liberty.
We stand by such grace alone, and fellowship with God and men entirely because of this. We live to make it true and to make it known, for it is the world's true remedy.
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