"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure." (1John 3:1-3).

The bumper sticker that reads: 'Christians are not perfect, just forgiven' can be misleading. To be forgiven is wonderful, but in itself is not the hope of the gospel. The hope of the gospel is that we are forgiven in order to be perfected, restored to function so as to fulfill the purpose for which God originally destined us. As it has been said, 'God loves us enough to accept us right where we are, but too much to leave us there.' Though Christians are not already perfect, we must be willing to be perfected. This resolve to let go of our imperfections and let God remake us after His image in Christ is called 'repentance'.

Josiah Wedgwood was something of a perfectionist when it came to pottery. We are told that he would smash all plates that did not meet the high standard He set for the Wedgwood brand. Henry Royce of the Rolls-Royce company would dismiss employees who let standards for his automobile slide. Perhaps you know some who are considered 'perfectionists'. Human perfectionism is cruel because, we are incapable of fulfilling absolutely perfect standards (Romans 3:23). Our standards can only be relative. Athletes who strive for perfection and win championships, eventually lose strength and stumble (Isaiah 40:30).

God is the absolute perfectionist. He Himself is perfect. He made us to perfectly mirror His image and reflect His moral likeness. In order to do this, human beings were designed to receive and manifest God's life. According to His design, the life of the Creator would be indispensable to the creature for fulfilling the function of manifesting godliness. He made man to glorify Him through a disposition of trust and obedience we call 'faith'. The design was pleasing to Him for it was, in His words, "very good" (Genesis 1:31).

Though the life of God in man was forfeited through Adam's disobedience, God is committed to restoring His creation, but not at the expense of compromising His perfect standards of righteousness. These standards were revealed in shadowy form in the law given to Moses. Jesus upped the standards and the stakes of the law when He preached the Sermon on the Mount: "Be perfect therefore as your Father in heaven is perfect."

Rather than destroying us for our imperfections, God sends His Son to take the penalty for what we are (sinners) that we might become all that He is (the righteous image of God) (2Corinthians 5:21).

He can love us freely because, through Christ's substitutionary death on the Cross, His meticulous sense of justice has been satisfied (Hosea 14:4). If we are willing to let go of our imperfections and let God be God in us through faith in Christ, He can finish the work of restoring us to His true image and likeness. Christ, the law-giver, becomes the law-keeper in our hearts. He works in us both to will and do God's pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

God is so confident in His ability to perfect those who are willing to let Him do so that He calls those who trust Him 'saints' (holy ones). Today we are in the process of becoming what He has already made us to be: perfect. "Faithful is He who calls you who also will do it." (1Thessalonians 5:24). "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6).

Only Jesus makes it easy to live with an absolute perfectionist.

Becoming,