I am a perfectionist. I have a tendency to expect perfection from myself. I expect myself to be a model Christian, to always be productive, to always act happy, to always do everything right, and I tend to believe that if I do these things, if I am perfect, God will be more happy with me.
But the truth is, I'm far from perfect. I don't always wake up at the time that I want to, I am not always productive, I loose my temper, and I don't always stick to my workout schedule.
But that's okay.
Because of Jesus, I don't need to worry about being perfect. God loves me just as much when I can't do anything right as when I seam to do everything right.
My goal in life should not be perfection, it should be to better display the glory of God and the furthering of His Kingdom. I need to remember:
God's glory is best displayed through my imperfections, not my perfections.
After all, we need Jesus because of our sin. A doctor can't heal someone who isn't sick. So why would Jesus die for perfect people? On the contrary, Jesus came because we are sinful, wretched, imperfect people. We need Jesus because we need saving.
We should seek to become better versions of ourselves out of thankfulness for Jesus. The purpose of life should not be to gain God's approval. We already have that! We seek self-discipline because we love God. And when we love God that much, we will grow to become better people, not perfect people.
So we humbly go before the Lord, out of thankfulness, out of understanding of who God is and who we are in light of Him, and remembering that we will always be imperfect as long as we are here on earth. We ask for God's help because, the only way that we can truly give all glorify God is by the help of God Himself.
We are no more beautiful that when we are at the feet of Jesus.
We can do nothing apart from Christ.
I can relate to these lyrics from "Lord, I Need You" by Matt Maher:
I'd like to close with this passage from Romans: