God’s supreme mandate to us is “Be you perfect even as I am perfect.” What should be our attitude when we realize our weakness and failure to live up to our ideal of doing God’s will?

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Transcript

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Our attitude. I began this series of talks with the observation that Jesus brought us the “good news” that we are all sons and daughters of God, our loving heavenly Father, and then asked this crucial question, “What does it mean to be and to live as a son of God?” Jesus taught that the first and most basic answer to this question is that as a child of God my part is to do my Father’s will. The series of talks that followed all centered on various aspects of the Father’s will for us. What should be our attitude when we realize our human weakness and failure to live up to the many, diverse, and demanding elements of God’s will?

 Be you perfect. The Father has issued the supreme mandate to his children, “Be you perfect even as I am perfect.” (Mt. 5:48) We, as God’s children, are directed to achieve a perfection in our own sphere that corresponds to that of the Father in His universal sphere of paradise righteousness and perfection. This injunction to strive for the perfection of divinity should be the first duty and the highest ambition of all God’s creature creation.

Our great imperfection. When we realize that as children of God our part is to seek to achieve God’s will in our lives, which is a perfection like that of the Father, we may feel that this is an impossible task and become discouraged. As we become more aware of our many past and present failures to live up to our ideals we may become disheartened. We may feel overwhelmed by our spiritual deficits and lack of spiritual progress.

We are finite, mortal, weak, and fallible. What should be our reaction to our imperfection and failure to do God’s will? First, we must firmly realize that although we are indeed sons and daughters of God, we are also finite, mortal, weak, and fallible human beings—and will remain so throughout our lives on earth. Further, we are subject to temptations to do evil and commit sin. In our efforts to become more perfect in the doing of our Fathers will, we must ever bear in mind our true human condition and weakness. We must realize that we start from a position of great imperfection. Even as we advance we will remain very imperfect (though less so) throughout our lives. We will continue to make mistakes and at times depart from God’s way, but this is because we are starting so very far from God’s perfection. We are only one evolutionary step above the higher animals, and many of our natural reactions are highly animalistic.

Human weaknesses. Indeed, we have many, many limitations that must be dealt with and managed. Fear is our great enslaver, while pride is our greatest weaknesses; both require great effort, discipline, and self-control to limit and hopefully master. Further, as we grow in power over ourselves and our environment we may become seduced by this power and descend into selfish action and evil doing. In our human weakness we are often confused, anxious, restless, uncertain, and unsettled. We fall prey to sexual temptations, selfishness, greed, anger, envy, jealousy, hatred, unforgiveness and the holding of grudges, adultery, and various other forms of evil and sin. Moreover, much of our human behavior is controlled and determined by the chemical and electrical forces inherent in our human nature. Perfection is our great idealistic goal, but we are far, far away from that goal. In our efforts to grow more perfect in the doing of the Father’s will, we must take all our human weaknesses into account, and realize that our fallible human nature is only our starting point. We must clearly realize our lowly position in God’s great universe and the long, long road ahead to the achievement of relative perfection in the doing of our Father’s will.

Humility. Jesus taught and exemplified in his life experience the proper reaction to our limitations and weaknesses. In his great “Sermon on the Mount” the first words the Master spoke to the apostles emphasized our ideal reaction to the great imperfection of our mortal estate. He proclaimed, “Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5:3). Humility is our great ally in our efforts to move forward in the kingdom of God. True humility before God is the proper reaction to our human imperfection as contrasted with the infinite and divine perfection of God.

The parable of the Pharisee and the publican. Jesus’ teaching of humility is well illustrated by his parable of “The Pharisee and the Publican.” In this parable Jesus taught, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week: I give ties of all that I get.’ But the publican, standing a far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted.” In this parable the Pharisee felt rich in spirit—egotistical, while the publican felt poor in spirit—humble. The publican was approved by God.

We must choose each forward step in the heavenly ascent. We are free will beings who must choose each forward step in the heavenly ascent. We are never advanced in the kingdom except through our own choice and action. This is true in our life here on earth as well as our life after death. We are not suddenly made perfect when we wake up in heaven. We will awaken with new and more spiritual bodies and minds, but our quest for perfection is an age long ascent.

Live positively as God’s children. As we seek to grow more perfect in God’s eyes we should realize that our commitment to discover and live God’s will is wholly compatible with a lighthearted and joyous life and a successful and honorable career on earth. We should not get down on ourselves because of past wrongs and the fact that we are so very far from being the ideal person we wish to be. Our part is to recognize and fully accept ourselves as we are, while we continuously strive to be better, to make spiritual progress, and grow in God’s kingdom. We must learn patience in our efforts to find God and become like Him. We must realize that spiritual progress is slow and gradual even though at times (such as in the making of a supreme decision) it may be punctuated by quantum leaps in spirituality. We need to live loyally each day as God’s children—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole.  And we must always remember that Jesus urged us keep a positive outlook, to “Be of good cheer” (Jn. 16:33) and to “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.” (Mt. 5:12)

Forgive others and ourselves. We should freely acknowledge past wrongs, ask for forgiveness, and resolve to cease these practices. We must learn to forgive evil doing, not only in others, but also in ourselves. It has been well said that, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.” God freely forgives his children but for us to open ourselves to receive this forgiveness we must first forgive others. Jesus revealed this in the prayer he taught his apostles, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Mt. 6:12)

Our direction and God’s judgment. What counts with God is not where we are now, but rather where we are going. Is our direction Godward? God’s will for us is not that we be perfect now, but rather that we are making adequate spiritual progress. In every dark hour of our walk with God the spirit of Truth will speak to us saying, “This is the way.” (Is. 30:21) We should not become discouraged; we must remember that as long as we are sincerely seeking to do the Father’s will we are going in the right direction. We should “Judge not,” (Mt. 7:1) but rather leave the judgment of others and ourselves up to God, our loving and merciful heavenly Father.

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