Perfection

from the January 14, 2013 EYC Update...

Perfection. 

We are a little obsessed with it.

Perfect families.

Perfect bodies.

Perfect grades.

Perfect (insert your unrealistic noun here).

Webster has 18 definitions of PERFECT, the first four are:

1. Being entirely without fault or defect: flawless

2. Satisfying all the requirements: accurate

3. Corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept

4. Faithfully reproducing the original

I am starting to wonder who creates the ruler that we measure this perfection by. 

Who decides what our own personal perfect looks like?

Jesus lived in a time when 'perfect' meant you had to follow a lot of rules.  Rules about how you washed your hands before you ate.  Who you were allowed to interact with.  How you dressed.  Sometimes we hear that Jesus was PERFECT. 

To us, now, we see his perfection.

To His society, in first century Palestine, he was far far far from flawless, accurate, and corresponding to the ideal standard.  He ate with tax collectors and let a sinful woman wash his feet.  He touched lepers and called fishermen to be his apprentices. 

Jesus' measurement of perfection looked very different than his society's.  It still does. As His people... our definition should probably look a very different fromour society's.

What if we stuck to just focusing on one definition of perfect:

faithfully reproducing the original

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1-2, 14