I often talked to my grandfather about questions that bothered me. He always had the right answers. It was clear to everybody that he was a man of God who was filled with the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom.
“I don’t get it!”, I started my question. “Yesterday, our professor told us that goals in management, business and life in general should be achievable and realistic. He said that people get disillusioned if they try to attain goals that they’re not able to reach. On Sunday, our pastor told us that the main purpose of our life and man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. I think he quoted something called Westminster Catechism or at least some shorter version of it. In the Bible God says that we should be perfect as He is perfect. Now, of course I know that human wisdom is fallible and limited, but for me it makes a lot of sense to define reachable goals to avoid disillusionment and discouragement. So then why does God define a goal of which He definitely knows that we can’t achieve it? I understand that it’s our eternal purpose to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, but what about the part that we should be perfect, just as our Father in heaven is perfect. That’s not realistic. At least not here on earth. Doesn’t He set us up for failure and disappointment by expecting perfection?“
“That’s a good question. It’s true that people get disappointed when they can’t reach their targets. But what do you think – with whom are they disappointed when they failed to achieve their goals?”
“Obviously with themselves.”
“That’s right! Human wisdom sets goals for humans. God sets goals for Himself. Yes, it’s true that He expects perfection, but He doesn’t only expect perfection, He also provides perfection. Paul tells us that Christ became God’s wisdom for us. He is our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. Christ is perfect for us and perfect in us. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive for perfection, which leads us back to your question. God knows that we will never be able to be perfect on our own, but He still expects us to strive for perfect holiness and sanctification. So why does He anticipate something from us although He knows that we can’t succeed? Why does He want us to aspire perfection although He knows that we will fail? Because He wants us to be disappointed with ourselves. The problem is that we expect too much from ourselves and far too little from God. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. God doesn’t want us to be great, He wants us to be humble. He doesn’t expect from us to be rich in wisdom, but rather poor in spirit. God doesn’t call for perfect human beings. He is much more interested in human poverty than human perfection. Every person is poor without God. Everybody needs God. Human wisdom tells us to avoid disappointment with ourselves. God’s wisdom tells us that disappointment with ourselves leads to an appointment with Himself. There is a lot of truth in the popular Christian saying that our disappointments are God’s appointments. Only when we really understand that we are nothing on our own, God can become everything to us. God reveals Himself to those who know that they have nothing to offer Him. Humans are poor and needy. God doesn’t expect anything from us, but He expects everything from Christ in us. When Christ is everything for us then and only then are we glorifying God. Through Christ we received a new nature and a new identity. We are perfect, because we aren’t who we used to be. We were sinners, but now we are saints. Our new nature is perfect. We already achieved God’s goal. When we fail, we don’t fail. It’s not our new nature that’s failing, but rather our old nature. We aren’t our old sinful nature anymore. Of course, here on earth we will always have to deal with our old nature. There will always be sin in our life here on earth, but we are forgiven and made new by grace and through faith. As Christians we are a new creation. We are perfect, because Christ lives in us. We don’t need perfection, because we already received perfection. What we need is a new perspective. We need to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. God provided our perfection in Christ through our disappointment with ourselves.”
Proverbs 9:10: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.