ZA MAGAZINE // seek truth.

1 Peter 1:14-16
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Leviticus 11:44
For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.

I threw in the Leviticus verse so you know what Peter was referencing. We have the command: Be holy. Holy involves the idea of being set apart. That is, the nation of Israel was set apart physically because their nation was called to be different by God. The Levites were ceremonially set apart because they were called to temple service and they had to do certain rituals. Peter shows us that for Christians today, this setting apart is based on our conduct, our morals. So the command is indeed to be completely set apart from the sin of the world by having a consistently good moral conduct. As Jesus Himself said:

Matthew 5:48
You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Commentators are split on whether the word ‘perfect’ here means ‘complete’ or if it really does mean faultless. I tend to lean towards the latter, seeing it as a practically impossible standard which makes us more dependent on grace, but neither interpretation matters for the sake of this article, because both convey very lofty ideals.

With these in mind, I’ve prayed to God many times that I might be made perfect. I mean, wouldn’t it be great if you no longer sinned at all? If you never had to confess anything again, and all the stuff that you had done had been washed away by the blood of Jesus? If you knew that you didn’t waste a second of your day and you didn’t impede the Lord’s work at all? This would be great, right?

Turns out that God has never answered this one in my life. I still sin daily. I have Jesus to wash the bad stuff away, I’m still God’s kid, but it turns out that I’m not perfect. Why is this? Praying for a greater holiness all the way up to perfection isn’t a bad thing to pray, right? I don’t think it’s a bad desire; any Christian wants to mess up less and please God more.

This is not how the world works, and Solomon wisely points this out to us in a simile.

Proverbs 4:18
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

When you really think about it, what is a sunrise but an ineffective stage of the sun’s day? If we take away the aesthetic values of the sun and look at it purely from a functional standpoint, the job of the sun is to light and heat the earth, and it’s not really doing a good job of that when it’s on the horizon.

But we don’t think like that! When we see a sunrise, we’re grateful that there’s light once more and we appreciate the beauty of seeing it go up. We’d be ticked if the sun stayed on the horizon permanently, but we appreciate it while it’s there.

See, the nature of the universe that God created for us is that the sun gradually rises out of darkness. He could have created a system where maybe the earth was flat and the sun went out at night and He fired it back up in the morning, making the sun more like a glorified light bulb. But that’s not what He wanted. God wanted us to have natural days and nights, to have a moon that reflected the light of the sun to give us a night light…this is merely the order of the universe that God created.

In the same way, Christians aren’t “switched on” to perfection when they become Christians. Oh, sure, conversions can be instant and dramatic. But Solomon’s analogy here isn’t talking about the conversion, it’s talking about what happens after that crisis of faith where you accept Jesus. Christians are mandated to seek holiness:

Just as God has engineered the universe in such a way that we must endure a gradual sunrise, He’s also engineered our lives so that our pursuit of holiness is gradual. Could God make us perfect instantly? Sure, as easily as He could make the sun switch on and off. But just as there is beauty in a sunrise, there is also a purpose to our slow and steady advance as Christians. Perhaps the qualities of resiliency and fervor in seeking God that we cultivate in our pursuit is more desirable to God than instant holiness. Perhaps instant holiness would remove the need for faith in the same way as if God decided to show Himself in the sky every morning by switching on the sun. Perhaps God wants us to experience imperfection so that we can understand and better appreciate the perfection of heaven.

Such things are mere speculations, but the point is that God has made us in such a way that we will constantly be seeking His forgiveness, seeking His grace. He’s given us a huge goal, and in pursuing it we become holy people. As a friend of mine always says, “If we pursue perfection, we’ll achieve greatness.”

Our “full day” will come as we seek to rise. Find the beauty in the sunrise and look forward to the full day.

Grace and peace,
Brendan

Image credit goes to “shoebappa.”