Perfection

"The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a man without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God." - W. T. Richardson. Many times, humans set up a sort of competition to strive for perfection in the physical realm. This pursuit is measured and compared to others – sometimes it becomes an obsession. In most cases these efforts are met with the realization that they will never achieve the end goal - or the goal is ever expanding. This can also be compared to a business management description known as the Peter Principle: “A  person tends to rise to the level of their own incompetence” - Laurence J. Peter (1969). If the goal shifts to perfection in the spiritual realm, a person may quickly face either exasperation or denial: there are too many errors for perfection. The truth is that only one person has ever achieved spiritual perfection, and at great cost. Only Jesus, God Himself, was able to achieve this result. God realizes this. The motivation for Jesus coming to earth was to accomplish what other humans could not. When Jesus returned to heaven, He left the Holy Spirit to help those who wished to eventually become perfect. The person who desires to be spiritually perfect accepts Jesus and is granted the resident Holy Spirit to help mold them into a godly person: towards greater dedication to God (sanctification) and finally spiritual perfection. This perfection goal is both immediate (1 Jn. 1:7) and future; it can be described as a unique independent spiritual journey. The Holy Spirit provides appropriate memories and prods to help Christians along this journey. Those who look for and yield to the Holy Spirit’s guidance will share in the reward given to the perfect Jesus.