I’m perfect.

Oops – that was pride slipping in there. Maybe I’m not quite perfect.

In which case, I’ve also just told a lie. (Gack!)

Oh, like you’ve never fibbed before. (Uh-oh, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say. I’m getting in deep here.)

OK, I’m not perfect. There. I’ve admitted it. (Phew! That wasn’t too hard.)

So I can’t be all that bad. (Arggh! Pride again! It just snuck up on me!)

If I had been made perfect, I’m wondering what the implications would be…

1. Being perfect, I would never sin – never hurt anybody, always do the right thing.
2. Therefore being perfect, I would have no personal understanding of what sin is.
3. Therefore being perfect, I would never have a sense of wrong-doing.
4. Therefore being perfect, I would never be aware of my separation from God.
5. Therefore being perfect, I would never understand the power of sin.
6. Therefore being perfect, I may experience sympathy, but would never experience empathy; and any compassion would be academic and patronizing.
7. Being made perfect would have removed my free will, because I would be able to do nothing but perfect things.
8. Therefore being perfect, I would never have the chance to fail. I would never have the opportunity to succeed despite myself.
9. Therefore being perfect, I would never be stretched. I would never grow.
10. Therefore (also from #8) being perfect, when God told me to do something and I did it, there would be no just reward because there was no chance I’d do the job badly or fail to do it at all.
11. Therefore being perfect, I would never experience humiliation, shame or contrition; but I would also never experience forgiveness, rebirth, reward, praise and grace.
12. Being perfect, God’s righteous perfection wouldn’t astound me, terrify me or shatter my complacency because – hey lookee! Me too!
13. In fact, being perfect, I would be self-contained, so I would have no reason to reach for God.

On the other hand:

1. Since I’m not perfect, eternal damnation is not my guaranteed end.
2. Since I’m not perfect, Perfection took compassion on me.
3. Since I’m not perfect, Perfection chose to redeem me.
4. Since I’m not perfect, Perfection perfected me.
5. Since I’m not perfect, Perfection adopted me.
6. Since I’m not perfect, Perfection uses me (yes – Because, not Despite).
7. Since I am far, far from perfection, I have a great many chances to blow it completely… Ah, but when I get it right the angels go nuts and God Himself says, “Well done!”

And that last is really where I’m headed here. Amongst other reasons, I was made imperfect in order that God could give me a piece of His action – a task that He wanted completed. And each time I fulfill a task in obedience to His design, I – Mr. Imperfect – get the pat on the back from the Everlasting King of Glory.

And that, I think, is a pretty good trade-off.

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Tempted recently? Yeah, me too. Doesn’t matter what we’re tempted about – stealing, gossiping, lust, cheating on a test, cheating on your taxes, cheating on your spouse – it always seems to start the same way, doesn’t it? ‘Go ahead,’ this voice says. ‘Everybody does it. You’re a schmuck for holding back. What’s the harm? You’re not hurting anybody. It’s just a little thing really – so ordinary. It’s easy – nobody will know. Who’s going to find out? You deserve it. They deserve it.’

I mean, there’s a list of these encouragements … you know them by heart … they apply to everybody … and THEY DON’T EVER CHANGE. Ever. You could add a couple more that I’ve left off, but it’s a standing list.

So why do we have such a hard time with them? Why haven’t we figured out how to get past them and move on? Why haven’t they become so old that they are as hackneyed in reality as they sound on paper?

Why haven’t we gotten to the point where we just say, ‘Shut up!’ to the little voice that says them all the time?

A good salesman works hard at selling his product. He creates a desire in the customer – he sells the ‘sizzle’ – in order to get to the end result, the commit. He invests hard in the first to bring off the second. And make no mistake about it: the Tempter is a very, very good salesman.

Society has moved from a rigid ‘Thou-shalt-not’ set of values to a permissive one, and while I think that we prefer (for the most part) to not be living in the Victorian Age, I also think it’s true that we tend to be very easy on ourselves. Good at forgiving ourselves any little indiscretion. Skillful at justifying ourselves.

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So we do it. Whatever ‘it’ was. But, this was a one-two whammy – a sucker-punch. We were set up. All the time he was saying that litany of things, and moving us to the ‘sale’, he was anticipating the payoff. Commit the sin, the crime, the indiscretion and then it’s no more ‘yeah, go on – do it’. Now you hear him scream – ‘Look what you did!!!! You’re in for it now! Don’t you feel rotten? How could you have <insert sin here> like that?’ Oh, the glee in that voice. He stands before the throne of God and points the finger at … you. His primary role as the Accuser is in full play now. You are condemned by your own actions – what could be more wonderful to him?

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Well, there is one thing more wonderful: Thing is, it’s not just a one-two. There’s a three as well. And the saddest part of all is that we do the third part to ourselves (talk about being set up!). Because – especially if this is the second or third or ‘nth’ time we’ve done this – if it’s a habit, for instance – we say to ourselves, ‘I can’t believe I’ve done that again! What a worm! I can’t bring this to God – I’ve already done that and asked for forgiveness – I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven again. And anyway, I’m too ashamed to bring it in front of Him – to admit it – to confess it – to ask again for forgiveness.’

And this is the Accuser’s coup de grace – the cherry on the top. He didn’t work the sizzle for this – just the accusing bit would have been enough – this is a freebie that we hand him: We deny full and free access to God to ourself. This is neither God’s doing, nor that of the Father of Lies – it’s all us!

Here’s what one small book near the back of the Bible has to say about forgiveness:

Here are some essential facts that we must keep in mind when we reach this point:

1. God is big. Very, very, very big. Infinite. Don’t put Him in that box you’ve built for Him, ‘cause there’s no way He’ll fit. If you could put the entire universe into the box – you still couldn’t fit God in.
2. God hates sin. Very, very, very much. Yes He does – no denying it. We’d be dead if the message stopped here, but we can only fully live if we understand this. You see: until you ‘get’ that He hates sin, you’ll never ‘get’ what His love cost Him – so you’ll never ‘get’ the fullness of His love.
3. Standing in front of God, we are a Nothing. A small, infinitesimal zero. Less than a dust bunny by comparison. Slave to our own ego.
4. So here we are: nobodies – slaves in the worst meaning of the word (the way Paul used the word – bound by the habits and chains of our own perversions) – and sinners, standing guilty in front of an infinitely good God who hates sin.
5. Gulp.
6. And yet God loves us. Very, very, very much. Infinite love from an infinite Being. Love that works out a way to get dust-bunnies washed clean of their own filth. A love that does insane things – like sending His only Son to be killed by a bunch of slaves so that those very slaves themselves might not just live, but be adopted . Now let’s be honest – that’s insane.

So what does all this mean? God understands the bit about temptation; He understands about sin; He even understands about repeated, devastating, perverted, habitual sin. He’s seen it all. He’s seen you do it.

And He still loves you more than you love yourself. Like I said – insane.

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In the face of all this love blazing down from Heaven … we need to understand this little point:

For as long as we decide that our sin is too big for God to forgive;

for as long as we decide that God is too small to forgive our sin;

for as long as we are so sublimely arrogant as to believe that we make the choice about coming or not coming to God –

we will stay disconnected from God; sin will be our master, and we will remain blind.

And the Accuser will win a much more permanent prize.

The point is not all the sin.

The point isn’t that we should stop sinning (we can’t).

The point isn’t even that we should at least try to stop sinning (we should).

The point is that there is something far better than sin that we can spend our time – our lives – thinking about.

The Glory of His Grace is so overwhelming, and His love is so all-consuming that when we think about it in its proper perspective we have no time for petty things like self-esteem, self-worth or worry about sin.

Listen: you are eternal; you are immortal; you should reflect His transcendent beauty; you are a prince or princess, the child of Almighty God … and you’re wasting your time thinking about sin?

Get over it. You’re far, far, far too valuable to be focused on that junk.

Get in front of God and unload that guilt. While I’m certainly not encouraging more sin (shades of Romans 6:1!), I will point out the mathematically obvious – that the person who commits a thousand sins in a thousand days and confesses each one immediately is a far cleaner and more useful person to God than the one who commits one sin and can’t confess it for a thousand days.

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This turned up in Snopes today – an obituary written by the woman’s daughter:

Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing. Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

(more…)

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