“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

What if your teacher told you that you could not move up to the next grade unless your work in her class was absolutely perfect? You would not be allowed to miss a single math problem or misspell one word on a spelling test. You would not be allowed to forget a single fact from your history book or even make one small slip-up when reading out loud. No mistakes allowed! Even your handwriting would have to be perfect!

This sounds impossible to you, doesn’t it? And it is. But in Matthew 5, Jesus tells the people of Israel that this same kind of perfection is required in keeping the law if they are to enter the kingdom of heaven. Not only does God require them not to murder; they are not even allowed to be angry with someone else without a cause! Not only are they to stay true to the man or woman they marry; they are not to even look at another man or woman with sinful ideas in their minds. Not only are they to love their neighbors; they are even to love and pray for their enemies! This is the kind of righteousness that characterizes God. He is absolutely perfect and holy. And we are to be like Him.

Impossible, you say? Have you already “blown it”? Of course you have. We all have! We can be thankful though, that there is One Who has already fulfilled God’s holy law perfectly. He has also died in our place, paying the penalty for all the times we have broken God’s law. Jesus Christ is God’s perfect solution to the problem of our sin. He alone is perfect, and only through Him can we have the perfect righteousness before God that He requires. What a wonderful Savior we have in Jesus Christ!

Only in Jesus can we be perfectly righteous as God requires.

My Response:
» Have I accepted Jesus’ gift of salvation?
» How am I showing my gratitude to Him for what He has done?
» Am I as a Christian trying, with His help, to live a righteous life?

Home Page