Be Perfect

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48

“If you live in the Logos, you will come to a different sense of yourself than the materialist. Instead of feeling that your desires are real while moral rules are restrictions on your authentic nature, you will find that love is your authentic nature and your selfish desires get in the way. They are imposed obstructions, signs of brokenness—what Christians call sin. …

The person who deserts his principles for his desires now appears to be traveling away from his authentic nature, not toward it. The person who sticks to his principles will experience an abundance of life more valuable than the gain of money or success he may have sacrificed. In this way of thinking, the shall-nots of the Ten Commandments are not restrictions on our true selves. They are a guide to clearing the path to our original nature so we can become who we truly are.

This is why Jesus says, “Be perfect . . . as your heavenly Father is perfect.” The biblical Greek of that command might fairly be translated as “fulfill your end, your nature, your purpose, your telos, as God fulfills his.” Live into the person you know you were meant to be, but are not yet. Or as the ancient Greek poet Pindar put it, “Become such as you are, having learned what that is.”

~ From the introduction to Kingdom of Cain by Andrew Klavan.