You Must Be Perfect!

I rented Friday Night Lights last weekend. If you have not seen the movie, it is about a small West Texas high school football team struggling to win the state championship and the immense pressures placed on these young men by their community. Although I did not play football in high school, I found the community's attitudes in the movie strikingly similar to those in the small Georgia town where I grew up. At one point, the team's coach, played by Billy Bob Thornton, asks his players, "can you be perfect?" The players end up adopting the coach's challenge as their slogan -- "be perfect." As a Christian, the same demand is put on us by God -- " Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48 (NIV). Of course, we end up fumbling the ball most of the time. Unlike simply losing a football game, the consequences are much more dire. "Doing our best" or "trying hard" just will not be sufficient to appease a righteous and holy God. We have to play a perfect game. For each sin we store up more wrath against ourselves. However, Christ's perfect obedience has secured a place for his elect. Otherwise, there would be no hope. "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:2 (NIV). Thanks be to God!