I remember all to well when I learned I was going to be a Mama for the first time. I remember all of the thoughts and plans, each with the lingering expression of hope that I would be a perfect mother. During my pregnancy I tried to do everything I could to provide for my new baby ensuring it had what it needed to grow and develop. I was striving to be perfect, yet it didn’t take me long after holding my little one for the first time before I realized that striving to be the perfect mother was a very lofty goal. It was in reality a goal that I fell short of many, many times.
Each time I fell short it was because I was relying on myself for that perfection. I failed because I was looking for human perfection, within my own strength and that simply isn’t possible.
“God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.” 2 Samuel 22:33
Being made perfect is only possible in and through the strength of God. He alone can make us perfect, through the work of His Son. The only perfection that exists is Godly perfection.
“Let your heart therefore be perfect with the Lord our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.” 1 Kings 8:61
In walking in the commandments of God’s word we can be perfect even in an imperfect world. Our lives are to be the result of the work that God is doing, it is when we attempt to follow our own ideas or rely on our own abilities that things fall apart.
“The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.” Psalm 138:8
Anything that I ever accomplished in following God’s Word was made perfect by Him. There is nothing within me that is perfect, and there never will be until I set foot in Heaven; but, in Him I am perfect because He is perfect.
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48
When we show forth our Father through the work that we do for Him we show forth perfection in an imperfect world. He is able to take all that we are in our own limited abilities and make us perfect, because He is perfect. Even when we do not see perfection because we see as man sees, God is working all things to His will and purpose. In that there is perfection in an imperfect world. When others see God in us they see His perfection.
“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Hebrews 13:20-21
Striving to be perfect in an imperfect world, though humanly impossible as we view things, is to be perfect in the completion of the work that God called us to do.