I was a bit of a perfectionist when I was a ten-year-old. I knew I should have spiritual goals, and I determined, In five years, I want to overcome pride, greed, and selfishness. Needless to say, I did not overcome pride, greed, and selfishness by age 15. I’m still working on those, decades later!
Are you a perfectionist? Many people suffer from one degree of perfectionism or another, and it damages their ability to move forward in life. It affects how they see themselves, and it affects their relationships—including their relationship with God. The hard part is that sometimes those of us who are in God’s Church believe that God expects us to be perfectionists.
We’re rightly serious about keeping God’s laws, and the world often says that’s why we sometimes struggle with perfectionism. But we know that accusation is not true, and we can see the proof in how the world is going crazy without God’s law. The problem is not law-keeping.
So, what is the problem? Let’s explore the question, Is perfectionism God’s way?
What Did Jesus Mean?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke of many deeply spiritual things, and He said, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). There it is, plain as day. So, perfection is our job, right?
The truth is that we can misunderstand what Christ said there. Let’s look a little deeper. When we use the word perfect, we probably think of it as being without a mistake—scoring 100 percent on a test. But is God saying that the only standard that pleases Him in life is for us not to make any mistakes?
Another of Jesus’ statements answers that question quickly and profoundly. In the parable of the talents, we read that servants were given different quantities of talents before their master went away. They were expected to use those talents, and when their master returned the first two had done something with what he had given them. But “then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours’” (Matthew 25:24–25).
Notice that this servant had not lost his talent; he simply had not done anything with it. It’s as if he was more fearful of making a mistake than he was willing to go out and do something with what he’d been given. And his master was furious with him, because he had not taken the time to invest his talent toward some positive return.
No, our life as Christians is not about our making no mistakes. That is not the goal that God has for us. Clearly, there’s something else. What does this word, perfect, mean? The Greek word translated as perfect in Matthew 5:48 is teleios, and it means “having reached the end” and become “complete.” We are familiar with television, teleprompter, telescope, and teleconference—tele essentially means “far away.” It refers to something afar, right at the end. So, this word, perfect, is not simply about avoiding mistakes. Christ is talking about our reaching an endpoint, crossing the finish line, and becoming complete.
What about the Old Testament? The word perfect shows up there, too. Many assume that the Old Testament is harsher and meaner, so surely the Old Testament requirement was to not make any mistakes, right? We even read that “Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9). But can you guess what that Hebrew word means? It’s the Hebrew word tamim, and it means complete, just like teleios.
Are there any other words translated in our English-language Bibles as “perfect”? Yes, indeed. Another Hebrew word that the King James Version renders as “perfect” is shalem. We read, “Let your heart therefore be perfect [shalem] with the Lord our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day” (1 Kings 8:61, KJV). But if you read that same verse in the New King James Version, you’ll see, “Let your heart therefore be loyal,” because shalem also means to be completed, faithful, finished—wholly devoted to God. We find that Hebrew and Greek words translated as perfect consistently mean whole or complete.
The common way we use perfect is “without mistake,” but even researching the origin of the English word reveals that it came from a Latin verb meaning “to finish.” The King James Version translators weren’t wrong—they were just using an older definition of the word. So, from every direction, we find that perfect does not mean what we often think it means today.
Perfection Means Full-Grown
Mr. Herbert Armstrong wrote in The Missing Dimension in Sex about the parallels between spiritual life and physical life: “As the human sperm cell is the very smallest of all human cells, even so, many newly begotten Christians start out with a very small measure of God’s Holy Spirit. Many may still be, at first, about 99.44 percent carnal” (p. 55). He wrote that an embryo doesn’t immediately look like a human being at conception, and newly begotten Christians don’t immediately look like their spiritual Father at baptism. When we are baptized, we are pure at that moment—sinless, innocent—but not yet perfect. If we were, we would be Spirit beings right then and there. But that’s not the plan, because perfection doesn’t simply mean sinless—perfection means full-grown.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus points us toward completion, telling us to strive toward the goal of being like God. This is very different from perfectionism. Yet we can sometimes get these concepts mixed up and put undue pressure on ourselves that does not help us move toward that goal.
We are to grow to be like our Father, and we are to grow to be like our elder Brother, Jesus Christ. That’s where we’re going. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:1–3). Sometimes we establish our own measure, our own imagination of righteousness, and that’s what we strive to attain to—but it’s not what God expects of us at all.
Notice the next verse: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (v. 4). The mainstream “Christian” world gets this verse wildly wrong, taking it to mean that Christ did away with the law. But that’s not what it means at all. The word translated here as “end,” interestingly enough, is related to the Greek word we saw earlier, teleios—referring to the goal, the completeness, the finish line. In other words, we don’t do away with the law, because it leads us and teaches us how to be like God.
This Article Is for You
So, who struggles with perfectionism? Brethren sometimes express doubts: Am I pleasing God? Am I making Him happy and am I going to be in His Kingdom? They’re striving to keep God’s laws, they’re walking this way of life, but they struggle with guilt. Maybe some, as we age, feel guilty that we can’t do some of the things we used to be able to do when we were younger. What about ladies in God’s Church? Sometimes homemakers, wives, and mothers can think they need to be the perfect homemaker, the perfect wife, the perfect mother—that they’ve got to always do everything at 100 percent—and they feel guilty if they don’t do everything perfectly in running a household. Single ladies can also be wracked with guilt, thinking, I don’t have the responsibility of taking care of a family, but I still don’t do things perfectly. Am I really pleasing God? Unrealistic expectations can lead to perfectionism, disappointment, and discouragement.
Men, too, can be overwhelmed and perfectionistic. We can sometimes expect too much from our wives, if we’re married—we can be too critical and cranky. We can worry and fret over our responsibilities. At our jobs, we may even become workaholics because of perfectionism. Now, don’t get me wrong—it is important to have high standards and strive for excellence. But sometimes our misunderstanding of how to strive for excellence can send us down the wrong path and hurt us.
What about teenagers and young adults? There’s been a lot written about the pressures on young people today. Sure, there’s always been peer pressure and social pressure, but the Internet and the online experience have taken it to a whole different level, creating an unreal world that can cause a lot of problems when people compare themselves to the images others project of themselves. Parents need to do all we can to help our children navigate through this world and understand it.
Immediate Results vs. Long-Term Success
It can be helpful to examine two conflicting mindsets—one of perfectionism and the other oriented toward growth. Sometimes, when we’re struggling with something we need to change, we can become overly focused on instant results, and we may fall for perfectionism’s lie that we need to change everything immediately. What if a person didn’t exercise at all for six months, and then did one round of daily exercises? Would that immediately make the person totally fit? Of course not! We would never assume that it would, because we understand that change takes time. So why do we sometimes expect that kind of instant change within ourselves spiritually? Perfectionism demands immediate results, while a growth mindset is focused on long-term success.
When I was a teenager I played basketball, but I couldn’t jump well. So, I found a book with exercises meant to help you improve your jump. The book said to jump as high as you could and mark that spot on a wall, and then do your exercises every day for two weeks. Then, once those two weeks were up, you were to test yourself and see if you could hit that mark or higher. Of course, the temptation was to test yourself every day. But the book said not to—because, day-to-day, you’re not going to see growth. In fact, you might even regress occasionally. But if you’re doing your exercises, eventually you’re going to see growth.
Mr. Wallace Smith has talked about how God is looking at the long term, like a farmer. Farmers must plan, prepare a field, acquire the seed, and sow the seed. There is no instant success. They put the seed in the ground, and they wait. As they wait, there’s growth—even when they don’t see anything happening. And sometimes we can’t see our growth—it’s imperceptible. If you sit down to watch a tree grow, it doesn’t take long to realize that nothing’s going to change right in front of you. But then you go about your business, and three years go by—and when you look at that tree again you know it was growing all the time, even when you couldn’t see it happening. That is the way our lives are, too.
We read, “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7). So, we are here to walk through our paces, to practice righteousness, to work toward being like God. We should never give ourselves a license to do evil, but neither should we discourage ourselves by expecting instant perfection.
Critical Disappointment vs. Patient Resilience
When we’re in a growth mindset, mistakes and correction don’t hurt as much as they do if we’re in a mindset of perfectionism, where mistakes or correction can crush us and even cause us to lash out angrily. If we’re horrified and disappointed when we make a mistake, we’re forgetting what the process of our lives is about. Perfectionism leaves us easily discouraged, while a growth mindset keeps us resilient.
The more we have God’s mindset, the more we have complete love. “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Perfect love is God’s full-grown, mature love. And the more we have that, the less fearful we’re going to be about the future. When we follow God and walk with Him, we stumble and fall, but we repent, get back up, and keep going—and God is pleased with us. We can be confident in that.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (v. 18). What does it mean to be made perfect in love? It’s not trying to attain to something that we work up humanly. It’s God’s love, looking at the endgame and seeing who we’re trying to become like—our Father and our elder Brother. We ask Them to put Their love in us—and the more we have it, the less we fear. Having a growth-oriented mindset builds resilience in us, because we’re not crushed when we make mistakes or receive necessary correction.
Another difference is that perfectionism is critical and demanding of others, while a growth mindset can accept mistakes with patience. Sometimes we can think, I expect a lot of myself, and that’s why I expect a lot from others, and we can use that as an excuse to be demanding, critical, insulting, or demeaning. That’s never what God is looking for.
As parents, it can be difficult to strike the right balance of expecting obedience without being overly critical. But we must strive for that balance—certainly, acts of deception or rebellion need to be dealt with based on the infraction, but we cannot be perfectionists who disdain or ridicule our children when they make mistakes. Yes, we’re going to be upset sometimes, but are we reassuring them? Are we showing them that we are genuinely trying to help them to grow? And is our own example showing them how to be successful adults?
We read, “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4–8). When we fall into a perfectionist attitude, we’re going to have the opposite of those qualities in dealing with other people. But if we’re in a growth-oriented mindset, we’re going to understand, They’re growing just like me, whether they are our children, or friends, or our coworkers. A growth orientation helps us be patient when others make mistakes, instead of being quick to condemn or ridicule.
As parents, we can help our children learn how to navigate a world where young people are increasingly struggling with pressures of perfectionism. When I was young, I beat myself up a lot, struggling with, Who am I? Where is my place in this world? What does it mean to become mature and to overcome, spiritually? Today, I am so thankful that my father and mother helped me navigate through that difficult time. Parents, don’t underestimate your ability to help your children navigate the challenges they face. Sit down and listen to them, walk through problems with them, come up with solutions with them. Find out what’s on their mind and help them figure out their life. What is a more important investment than helping our children understand how to face the world?
Distortion vs. Balance
Perfectionism presents a distorted view of the Christian walk, but a growth-oriented mindset brings a balanced and healthy view. Paul wrote, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” (Galatians 5:16–17).
So, how do we live a balanced and healthy life? We grow as we decide every day to follow the prompting of God’s Spirit instead of the flesh. And every time we follow the lead of the Spirit, we can think of that as one millimeter of growth on a tree—it may not look like much by itself. But as years go by, when we stack it up with every other millimeter, we see that it’s real.
And what about our failures? “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (vv. 19–21). If we’re looking at our lives and finding fruit like that, we need to reevaluate the path we’re going down. We can see the path we’re on from the fruit on the tree.
By contrast, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (vv. 22–23). What fruit do we find in our life? Do we have a sense of these traits developing in us? We’re not going to be perfect—neither without sin nor fully mature—until we are changed into Spirit. But are we growing in that direction? Are we trying to make progress? If we don’t see some of the fruits that we are seeking, we need to get on our knees and ask God for help!
Sometimes we’re in deep trials, struggling with difficult things happening in our lives, and we can feel, I’m not growing. Maybe we don’t have a lot of joy or peace at that time, but maybe God is teaching us longsuffering or faithfulness. When we struggle, we should consider that there may indeed be fruit, but we just aren’t seeing it because we’re not looking for that particular fruit.
We can become so fixated on our lack of perfection that we miss the very real fruit that is growing in our lives. In my garden, I have a plum tree that I love. When I go out and look at it in the early spring, its fruits are hard to see, because they’re green, like its leaves. At first, it’s easy to think there’s no fruit—but when I look a little closer, I see one. As soon as I see it, I can imagine what it’s going to taste like, and I’m looking forward to when it will ripen. Perfectionism can blind us so we don’t see what God is doing in our lives—growth that would be encouraging if we would focus on it. We need to recognize and be thankful for what God is doing as we ask Him for continual help in our growth.
Growing in Perspective
So, are you a perfectionist? Even if you are, don’t be discouraged. You just need to develop a different way of thinking about perfection—a growth-oriented mindset. God doesn’t keep a permanent record of our mistakes. When we repent, He removes our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). His eyes are on the finish line, and ours need to be on it as well.
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God” (1 John 3:1–2). We are only begotten—still in the embryo stage. Maybe we’re no longer 99.44 percent carnal—maybe we’ve grown since we’ve been baptized but we’re still 88.33 percent carnal. We may not feel like that’s enough, but it means we’re making progress and looking more and more like our Father as that embryo grows.
“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (vv. 2–3). This is growth. We purify ourselves because we can see, even if only dimly, that someday we’re going to look face-to-face into the eyes of our Father and our elder Brother and be like Them not only in glory, but in character. We’re in the process of that purification now, little by little.
Perfectionism is a trap that hinders us from making real progress on our path of spiritual development. Instead of being discouraged, we need to focus on genuine growth. We need to grow day by day, not stagnate in discouragement. We need to look forward to the day when we see God and are like Him. “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:3–6). The word translated complete here has the same root verb as teleios, because perfection and completeness are the same.
Brethren, if we’re striving to live God’s way of life, to obey His commandments, and to respond to His Spirit, we can have confidence that we are walking with God, and we will become perfect when we enter the Kingdom of God at the resurrection.