48 ESV:You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
KJV:Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
NIV:Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
NLT:But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.Matthew 5:48
When Jesus said we should be perfect, he knew we could be perfect. Notice, he did not say when you get to heaven, you will be perfect..his statement was made in present continuous tense..right now..Be ye perfect.. not try to be perfect nor keep trying to be perfect..
Our aim as Christians is to be perfect like God, our Father. It is the joy of every parent, most especially, the Father when his children/offspring are a chip off the shoulder(that is, looks like him, talks like him, thinks like him, walks like him, even laughs like him). There is no intelligent parent that would want/be happy having a dull child, not that he discriminates dull children but that the child does not take after him, then, you start hearing statements like, "Are you sure, I am your father?" or "I don't know where you carried your brain from because it's not my own", etc.
Infact, if you check most parents that play favourites with their children, in most cases, you see that the children they love the most are either the ones that have sharp minds/mouth like them or the ones that are their perfect look-a-like.
If all these are applicable to men, talk more of God, our father, who created us in his likeness.. What do you expect?
God expects us, as Christians, to look like him, think like him,react to situations like him, if possible, laugh like him. He expects us to be like him, to carry his nature in every aspect of our lives, including today's topic: Perfection.
Yes, we are humans, we are still in our flesh, we tend to do the things we don't want to do and neglect the ones we are supposed to do, we are mere dust...I know all these factual excuses and Jesus knows them too, and that is why I love the amplified version of theme scripture, which says,
48 You, therefore, must be perfect [growing into complete [ak]maturity of godliness in mind and character, [al]having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity], as your heavenly Father is perfect.(N) Matthew 5:48(AMP)
From this passage, we can see that the perfection God expects from us is not a state/position of "no mistakes", rather, its a walk, a growth process into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character.. this just reminds me of Romans 12:1 &2, the MSG translation
1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Infact, Romans 12:1&2 is simply a summary of how we are to attain perfection with God and in God.
*This is a bit comprehensive but I ask that the Holyspirit enlightens the eyes of your understanding and helps you comprehend what "perfection" in God's sight means.
So, the next time, someone tells you or you tell yourself, "Nobody is perfect, only God", remember this,"Yes, Nobody (in some sense) is perfect", but God expects us to be perfect, meaning, we can be perfect and with God's grace and the help from the Holyspirit, we will be perfect, not just in heaven but even here on earth, RIGHT NOW.
Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is.. Shalom!
