Christians miss the boat on “perfection” – The Arkansas Traveler
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Christians miss the boat on “perfection”

By • February 11th, 2010 • 11:19 am.

By: Carter Ford

You better be perfect 100 percent of the time or you’ll go to hell in a hand basket.  

This might seem a little extreme, but it is sometimes the message that we get from Christians today. If we are not absolutely perfect, we are going to hell. While I’m certainly not advocating that one should purposefully go and do things that he ought not, many Christians are missing the boat on these topics.  

In the traditions of the denominations of men today, the gospel of Jesus Christ gets clouded over by a gospel of judging, and church can be more like a competition of who knows the Bible the best. In this mentality, we get caught up in arguing among each other and constantly pointing the finger at everyone but ourselves.

Is this really what church or Christianity is supposed to be about? Not at all. 

So I guess the deeper question would be: What is Christianity really about?

How often we struggle with finding our real purpose in life. And chasing after happiness the way that society tells us often leaves us with a wide variety of feelings: trapped, guilty, depressed, addicted. 

But then on the other hand there is religion, which can make us feel constantly unworthy, choked by all these rules to follow. We sometimes don’t think we will ever live up to the standard that we are supposed to. We are discouraged and exhausted from simply trying.  

In the New Testament, we read of Jesus Christ coming to this Earth and preaching love, humility, forgiveness, grace and peace.  

So, just as the Black Eyed Peas did in 2004, I’ve got to seriously ask, “Where is the love?”  

Did God really send Jesus to this Earth to free us from “the law” just to place more rules on us? I don’t think so. Jesus came to this Earth so that we may be free from living our lives by a list of “thou shalt nots.”

We, as humans, are not great at living by rules. We want to break them; we want to walk on the edge of not breaking them and see how close we can get without crossing the line. This principle goes against the approach that God intended for us to have on life. 

Maybe we should try and give God some credit every now and then.  

Maybe, just maybe, He knows us better than we could ever know ourselves. 

Maybe we should have faith that God cares for us, He knows what’s best for us and He wants us to be happy.  

Maybe if we take to heart what is written for us and seek to apply it to our lives, we will discover the ultimate meaning of purpose and happiness in our lives. 

Maybe if our heart is chasing after God, we will no longer wish to do rebellious and meaningless things, things that make us temporarily satisfied but empty and alone in the long run.   

This does not mean that we will ever be perfect, but we can be free.

To my non-religious or un-churched friends, I urge you to give the Bible a second look. Don’t let any church or any “Christian” make you feel like you aren’t good enough to be saved. God has mercy on whom He wills, and if someone makes you feel this way, it’s that he or she has forgotten the very core of what Jesus came to this Earth to teach. 

The Bible says that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. His word is good news, peace, hope and comfort. It is not division, judging and condemnation.   

To my religious friends who feel like God is a million miles away, trust me, I’ve been there. Remember that no work or good thing that we do saves us. It is ultimately Jesus who saves. Jesus wants His people to be loving, unified and peaceful. 

If you feel like religion is doing you more harm than good, more division than unification, and causing more rebellion than encouragement, maybe it’s time to re-open that grand book and see what God is really about. You will probably be surprised at how insignificant the things that are holding you back really are. It’s so easy to miss the boat.  

I know some of you are thinking, “Who is this dude to tell me what to do?” I agree. I really have no authority to do so.  

What I am saying is not out of self-righteousness or a desire to throw the Bible in people’s faces. This is nothing other than the opinion of someone whose experiences have caused deep conviction, someone who has hit rock-bottom in the past and someone who is learning daily the meaning of living a life of happiness and purpose. I’m not trying to dominate the world with my beliefs and tell everyone else that disagrees that they are wrong.

Come to think of it, my Savior didn’t come to this world to dominate it by condemning everyone to hell. My Savior gave up His place in heaven to come to this Earth to teach peace, grace, love and forgiveness, and to not be so dang judgmental.  He did this only to be beaten, spat upon and crucified by the very people that He created so that I can be forgiven of my many shortcomings. Don’t I owe it to Him to at least attempt to sacrifice some of my selfish pride and desires to live for Him, to love people of all walks of life, to forgive and to strive for things that unify and don’t divide people? 

This is what Christianity is really all about. 

The New Testament says that Christ is the head of the church, but I’m scared that if Jesus walked into our “churches” today, we would reject Him, look down on Him and maybe even ask Him to leave. This would be the ultimate testimony that we are completely missing the boat, in my humble opinion. 

Carter Ford is a columnist for The Arkansas Traveler. His column appears every third Wednesday.

  • mikeyg35

    Here are my 2 cents:

    A. “Religion” become too sin conscience, and because of that, Christianity is seen as being judgemental and condemning

    B. Christanity has NOTHING to do with acts of sin. Sin was taken care of at the cross (payment for sin as a whole). This is grace, and how we respond to it (in faith) is ultimately what matters most (this makes “churches” like the Westboro church in KS and others completely misguided in my mind)

    C. Jesus does teach us to be perfect. When we receive Christ into our lives, our spirit is made perfect (Gal 2:20/ 2Cor 5:17). This is an often misread or misjudged mindset. We don't do good works or try to be “good little Christians” to get into God's favor. We do what we do because of who we are in Christ.

    D. It is our mind, and thus our flesh, that needs to be renewed, but will never be made perfect until Christ's second coming.

  • erinrosalita

    I agree with this, Carter, and I ultimately think Christ's message is one of acceptance and love. I feel that this goes deeper than the mere “tolerance” that is heralded in modern society–why should we just tolerate someone, who may be of a different culture or a belief system, when we can go above and beyond and LOVE them? In this way, I feel everyone can relate, be they Christian or be they Buddhist. Yet, Christ compels us to love our brothers and sisters just as he loved us–that's our mission. That's one of the main areas where I think we should strive for perfection.
    Great article, thanks a lot!

  • Bobticklyitchy

    Believe the bible or don't, but you can't have completely read and understood it and come away with this set of conclusions about what it asserts.

    I suggest reading it again or, perhaps, in the first place. It's up to you, but it would help.

  • Bobticklyitchy

    Please define tolerance and love in this context.

  • Bobticklyitchy

    This opinion piece reminds me of that scene in “Life of Brian” when they are taking us through the street with all the people prophesying and they focus on one of the Python crew making a prophesy so vague that is must be true and is certainly entirely useless.

  • erinrosalita

    This is obvious, but please keep in mind this is just my [humble] opinion.
    In terms of verbage, I feel like 'tolerance' is more passive, whereas 'love' is more of an active word. I picture the meanings of both words to be displayed on a bar graph, where there is a line displaying the lowest possible means of responding to a person that is still socially acceptable and not just plain mean. Tolerance, for me, hovers right above that. It seems to be more about absorbing something that is different and being unaffected by it. Love, however, goes above that “socially acceptable” line and reaches above into action. Love is embracing differences and acting on them positively, reinforcing the glorious miracle that is this: all of humankind is made in God's image but at the same time, we are all so different. That's perhaps a little confusing, what with my little mental graph and all, but the the distinguishing factor between love and tolerance, for me, is the difference between activity and passivity.

  • mikeyg35

    Would you care to elaborate on my points, or are you just going to stick with the false claim that I haven't read the Bible. Truth be told, I have read the Bible from cover to cover, and continue to read, study, and meditate on it today.

    The points I made, while imho are germaine to the article, are not the totality of my beliefs. For example, I believe in a previous post that it is not enough to tolerate someone. As Christians we must LOVE them, and see them in the way God sees them.

    Many so-called churches run into the problem of seeing people the way that the world sees them. Such a view leads people to believe that if you look like A, or act like B, or your income is C, you can't be born again. This is the “sin conscience” belief that I pointed out in my first post. When it comes to salvation (I said Christianity previously. Salvation is probably a better choice of word), sin has already been taken care of when Jesus became the sin offering (“He became sin, who knew no sin, that we become His righteousness). What it boils down to is whether or not you receive Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior by believing in who He is and what He had done 2000 years ago. Grace is given to ALL people. How we respond is up to us regardless of the acts of sin that we have committed or will committ in our lives..

  • Bobticklyitchy

    I only wrote three sentences and you already misunderstood it. That is largely my point. You ask if I will stick with a claim I never made. If you can in misunderstand three sentences, leave open the possibility that you can misunderstand thousands of sentences.

    B is false. You need look no farther than Paul's writings to the Corinthians to confirm that (although there are other places.) There are other minor, but fairly inconsequential points. This is the most glaring.

    In your response, however, you made other errors. The chiefest being your conclusion in your next to last sentence. It is simply impossible to defend that position with the entire bible.

    So like I said, believe it or don't. It makes little difference to me, but I suggest have a reason for believing what you do beyond those of your own invention. So to reiterate my point, you can't have read and understood the bible and come to that set of conclusions about what it asserts. It would help you to spend a little more time figuring out if you should believe it or not since your beliefs are in conflict with what the bible teaches.

    As I often say, I care far less about what people believe than why they believe it. You simply have no reason to believe what you do from what you say the source of your belief is. Agnostic, atheist, theist…whatever, have a reason.

  • mikeyg35

    If you weren't claiming that I haven't read the Bible and understood it or “can't come to that set of conclusiong about what it asserts”, than I apologize for coming to my conclusion of your comments.

    What I am asserting based on what I have read, studied, and thus believe, is that as a church we have become too sin conscience. To say that Christianity has nothing to do with sin is probably a poor choice of words. I certainly don't believe that as a Christian we shouldn't worry about sin. What I AM saying however, is that there are too many people who have an incorrect view of sin's role in Christianity. Sin separates us from God, and has since the fall of man. What saves us is when we choose to believe in the payment of that sin (Jesus). When Jesus was made the payment for our sin, in my opinion, it was for ALL sin, past, present and future. This is why I believe in the eyes of God, sin has already been taken care of, finished. Those that say “you can't believe saved because of x,y, or z sin” turns salvation into something we have to earn instead of being the free gift God has intended it to be (Rom 6:23/ Eph 2:8-9). It turns it sometimes to the extreme that “God couldn't possibly love you because you're x, y, or z”, which completely, imho, goes against grace (John 3:16).

    Does that mean we should go on and choose to sin? Absolutely not, and Paul talks about this a lot in Romans (4x as memory recalls). We don't choose to sin because of who we are in Christ. We are a new creation, with a perfect spirit (this is the “perfect” part). Do we still sin? Absolutely. Our mind and body are not yet made perfect. By transforming ourselves by the renewing of our mind we can become closer in relationship with Christ which ultimately lessens our desire to sin.

    If I am not asserting something correctly, please help me understand what specifcally I am missing. I appreciate anything/anyone that challenges what I believe in and why I believe in it.

  • Bobticklyitchy

    The bible teaches acceptance of some differences and rejection of others. It teaches to love everyone in the agape sense of the word.

    I can mesh your comments and mine with how vaguely you have stated them (which I don't blame you for given that you were as specific as the author.) I do not believe that they would mesh if expounded on though.

  • Bobticklyitchy

    Succinctly, you stated this claim “stick with the false claim that I haven't read the Bible”. I never claim that you did anything at all. I simply stated what it was possible for you to have done under certain stated conditions. If your stated beliefs in the first comment are misstatements, then you could have read and understood the bible. If your comment is an accurate reflection of your beliefs, then you couldn't have.

    To your basic response, you were certainly more accurate this time. What remains in this comment could be a substantive difference or a colloquial difference. I can't really know without establishing more premises. It isn't that important. Sufficed to say, if in the 2nd half of the 2nd paragraph you mean that people think salvation is too good for some people if those people are willing to reform, then I agree that is wrong to do if you profess to follow the bible. You could mean many other things from how specific you have gotten, but it is far more palatable in this form than your first attempt.

  • erinrosalita

    That's fine that you think that, we're just sharing opinions here. And keep in mind that our opinion columnist has a limited number of words in which he is allowed to express his opinion. Copy editors can be pretty darn strict.
    I believe totally in the concept of agape – pure, unadulterated, unconditional love – although it is a difficult concept for we humans to grasp. But I wish we could all just live and “agape” lifestyle.