Reaching Our End

We are asked to be perfect.  What does that mean? Perhaps when we hear it, we think of acing everything.  Perfect attendance.  100’s.  No mistakes. No faults, no weaknesses.  But how?  We are human. How can Jesus ask that of us?

In the Greek, the word translated into “perfect” actually comes from the word meaning “end.”  Not the end of something, but the end for which we were created.  And we were created for love and joy.  So perhaps Jesus was not saying that we MUST be perfect and make no mistakes, but rather we must always remember that we were loved into existence and that love and God is our end, that which our lives are directed. We are sinners and we are human – we will make mistakes but that doesn’t make God love us any less. God is our end. May we live our lives knowing this truth – the truth that our end is joy and peace and love, life with the Father, and when we live striving for that we will have reached our end.  So, when Jesus tells us to be perfect just as our Heavenly Father is perfect, He is saying to us, “Know that you are loved because you live in me and the Father and I are one, who is love its very self.”