Week 21—Thursday Philippians 3:7-11
Week 21—THURSDAY
THE ULTIMATE IN IDEALISM: “BE YE . . . PERFECT”?
We would like to take up each statement of the Beatitudes and each subsequent statement in this opening chapter of the Sermon on the Mount and show how each statement is realism—a realism so far ahead of us that we think them idealism. But let us skip over to the last statement of the chapter: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father . . . is perfect” (Matt. 5:48, KJV). This seems the ultimate in idealism. In fact, it is the most matter-of-fact realism. For we are made in the inner structure of our being for just this—perfection and for this kind of perfection referred to.
We are made for perfection—the perfect God made us for perfection. And this striving after perfection is written into the whole process of living. From the lowest cell to the highest person there is a striving for a fuller, more abundant life. If the Bible says: “Be ye therefore perfect,” then everything within me says the same: “Be ye perfect.” Our striving after perfection is simply the culmination of a process we see in all nature. In everything there is a cry for life, more abundant life. In the Christian, this cry for life has turned qualitative—it is the cry for a particular type of life—the life we have seen in Jesus. We can be satisfied with no other type of life. He has spoiled us for any other type—it is this or nothing. In him we have seen the ultimate. He says here we are to be perfect as the Father is perfect, but really he was saying, “Be perfect as you have seen perfection in me, for you that have seen me have seen the Father.” Jesus couldn’t say that. So he refers us to the Father as the pattern. But it is the stronger for the silence—a silence which speaks in the sentence more strongly than through utterance.
O Jesus, we have seen you, and having seen you we cannot stop this side of being made into your likeness. This divine urge is the saving thing within us. It keeps us from sinking back into the fatalities of lower nature. Stir it, stir it within us. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The Divine Urge to be like Christ is upon me—may I feed and lead that Urge.