Is anyone perfect? Matthew 5:48

   Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48 NIV).
   In the fall of 1991, I started reading the Bible every afternoon on the subway on the way home from work at my job in Washington D.C.  As a new Christian, a minister had told me to start Bible reading with the book of John.  So starting there I proceeded to read the entire New Testament.  Then I went back and read Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  In reading Matthew, I got to this verse.  In the midst of a huge teaching by Jesus, He states, “Be perfect.”  The subway had gone out of the tunnel and was above ground.  I looked out the window and I thought to myself, “That’s impossible.”  As I continued to look out of the window of the subway, I pondered, “Yet why would Jesus instruct us to do something if it cannot be done?”  That moment was monumental in my early Christian life.
   Being open to that which seemed impossible, I would gradually learn God can do what is impossible for people.  Once a person truly believes in Jesus, he or she is forgiven of sins, justified because of Jesus’ atonement for sins on the cross.  I had been justified, and I would realize I had been indwelled with the Holy Spirit as a believer in Christ.  Then comes a life of being improved by the Holy Spirit, being changed to be more and more like Jesus Himself, who is One with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  The Biblical term is sanctification.  It is a life long process in this world.
   Last night I watched a movie which I saw at a movie theater near Bailey’s Crossroads in Virginia as a young teenager with my family back in the early 1980’s.  Then I saw the movie a second time in the late 1980’s when I was watching some videos during spring break of my junior year at Virginia Tech.  Both times I thought the movie was extremely funny and I laughed out loud.  Watching the movie last night, I laughed sometimes, but less and less as the movie continued, and ironically, I ended up not liking the movie.  I felt there was much hypocrisy between what the star character advocated and what he did.  I was hurt when the name of Jesus was said twice in a mode of anger, definitely not a mode of praise.  These points and additional stuff in the movie not only took the fun out of the movie, but it left me feeling sad.  This movie I thought was so funny in the 1980’s had gone completely sour for me.  What happened?  The bottom line is I am not the same person I was back in the 1980’s, because I have been changed by Jesus.  I still make mistakes.  God still has much work to do in my heart.  And I have learned from the Bible that I will not be made completely holy until I am with Jesus in full in heaven.  Yet one thing I can say for sure is my heart is so much better than it was in 1989.  I am a changed person.
   Written in my journals over the years has been the statement, “The perfection process is a painful process, yet the perfection process leads to goodness.”  As we depend on Jesus, we are made more loving.
   Jesus is perfect!  I praise Jesus for all He has done for me.
Hunter