Perfection is the Standard

My eyes shall be on the faithful of the land,

that they may dwell with me;

He who walks in a perfect way,

He shall serve me.

Psalm 101:6, NKJV

I am not perfect; far from it, actually. Just ask anybody who has spent any time around me at all, and they will tell you that I have flaws just like anybody else. I am not perfect, and I have never met anyone who was--although I've met a few people who thought they were. That was really what gave them away as imperfect; it bespoke of their delusional state of mind.

I am not perfect, but there is a God in heaven who is. I am not perfect, but God has One Son who is, who came our direction to show us how perfection could be achieved. I am not perfect, but God gave us His Word to tell us that perfection was the standard God upholds and expects us to meet. No pressure.

King David wrote the 101st Psalm and he said:

I will behave wisely in a perfect way.

I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.

I will walk in a perfect a way.

And then I think, "Really? David? I mean, really?" Remember, this is the guy who pillaged and plundered his enemies and lied about it. This is the guy who went for a walk at the wrong time of day, peeped into someone else's window while their wife was taking a bath, and found her so irresistibly attractive that he invited her over for dinner while her husband was out of town doing David's bidding. She came for dinner, stayed for breakfast, and a few weeks later gave David the happy news that they were expecting an illegitimate bundle of joy. David's response was to call her husband home, get him all liquored up and then send him to sleep with his wife, which the honorable warrior refused to do while all of his friends were in the field. So David's next step was to plot the man's demise, ordering him into the heat of the battle where he was sure to be killed. This is the guy who had more wives than he knew what to do with and still took one more in hopes of covering up his own failure. This is the guy who refused to correct or discipline his own children, permissively overlooking their unspeakable acts of incest, treachery and rebellion. This is the guy who numbered his people in his own arrogance, and when given the choice of punishment from God selected a plague that wiped out thousands of his subjects.

And yet he is called the man after God's own heart. How is that even possible?

David didn't meet his own expectations of himself, much less the expectations of God. How much better would his life have been had he lived by the standards he set, had he practiced what he preached? What if David had actually behaved perfectly and walked perfectly, never looking where he shouldn't have been looking, never thinking what he shouldn't have been thinking, never doing what he shouldn't have been doing? David hated sinfulness enough in the lives of others; what if he had hated it that fiercely in himself?

And then I have to ask, do I? Do I hate the sin in my own life that I tell people they should hate in theirs? Do any of us?

God expects perfection from us; but His Word also tells us that we cannot measure up. We are frail, flawed, failing human beings. All have sinned and fallen short of the excellence of God. None are righteous. In me nothing good dwells. How then do I have any hope of attaining the perfection that God tells me He wants from me?

I think David knew the answer to that as well. Since he himself was imperfect, he had to rely on the perfection of God and call out for the forgiveness that God makes available to all who ask for it. David was a man after God's own heart, not because he always did what was right, but because He knew how to get right through repentance. And we must all learn the same lessons. We must strive for perfection in our hearts and in our lives, but when we fall short, we must also run to the perfection of God to find help and mercy for ourselves. We cannot do it alone.

And until I get to heaven and all things are made new, I know that the most perfect I will ever be before God is when I stand before Him forgiven by His own grace. Thank you, Jesus, for that!