Resist the perfectionist within

Resist the perfectionist within

Sometimes a believer feels very heavy pressure to live up to the ideals and ethics of the Christian life. The virtues that are commanded of him are many, and all of them are divine in origin, so then, they are supernatural. God has made it so the natural can live a supernatural life. EPH 5:1-2 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

God made us new creatures at the moment of salvation and gifted us with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. As we learn the word through the ministry of the Spirit we come to really see how supernatural the way of Christ is that we are to follow. Often this is very exciting. To think that such a path, far from boring or religious as we might have concluded before, has been laid out for us to complete. It is an Indiana Jones (thank you Ron Dunlap for the awesome graphic) quest for the heights of spirituality. JER 29:13 'And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

I think it is true for most of us that in the beginning of this journey those heights seemed miles away, parsecs in fact (1 parsec = 19 trillion miles). It's like starting at the base of a large mountain determined to climb to the top. All the gear is packed and ready, food and water also. It's a long way so no point in thinking about the top. Let's just get started and enjoy the less steep terrain for a while. I have heard more than one Christian tell me that they struggled more with the spiritual life after years of learning the truth then when they started. This makes perfect sense. At the beginning, hardly anything is known and salvation and eternal life are shiny and new. It's like a child growing up in a family that is struggling financially. He may know that his family is poor but he knows nothing of the burden of earning that his parents and older siblings bear. For him, ignorance is bliss, and so it is with the Christian just starting out. It's a different story for the child when he grows up and has to earn a living for himself and his own family; so it is when the believer begins to see the magnitude and exaltedness of the spiritual life. The pressure has gone way up. HEB 5:13-14 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

As we get closer to the top of the spiritual mountain we begin to see the summit and our imagination suddenly shifts from the journey at hand to what it will be like when we finish the climb. This added push for the summit can produce anxiety as we start to find ourselves rushing to get there. We quicken the pace and tire out our muscles. Our heart rate increases and we breathe much heavier to supply oxygen to our starving muscles. I liken this phenomenon to the point in our spiritual lives when we have grown up to a place where we get close enough to really see the virtues of Christ and we begin to live in the image of Christ. Suddenly the reality of their magnificence, beauty, and sheer magnitude become much more explicit - so much so that they're almost scary. Yet we seem to want to quicken our pace and sprint up the rest of the way. But what we fail to realize in our new found excitement is that there is still a long way to go. We can't sprint there. It is here I think that we put undue pressure upon ourselves to carry out the virtues of Christ flawlessly. If you find that you are disturbed by anything short of perfection in yourself, then you have set your goals beyond your reach and you likely fall into guilt when you fall short. 1JO 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

We attempt to take more of the divine virtues (in quantity or in quality) upon ourselves then we have the capacity for. Sure, the top of the mountain is in view, but you're still only half way up. There's still quite a ways to go and you cannot be looking for the experiences of the top before you get there. It took you a good long time to get to this place and you can't rush the rest just because you can actually see it. You must continue one step at a time at the same pace and trust in God to take you to the top. DEU 31:3 It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you.

We're not the captain of our ship. We can't drive. We don't have our own steering mechanism. But what God has given us are gauges and dials that tell us when the ship is off course. When we take on more pressure than we can handle at any particular time in our spiritual voyage, the stress that is caused in our souls sends these gauges and dials into the red. Too much pressure brings stress, worry, fear, anxiety, dread, and presumption (imagining things that aren't reality). Accompanied by the loss of peace and tranquility, we know that we're way off course. We are to confess the sins that we see but what is going to stop the stream of these mental attitude sins and bring the gauges back to normal? 1PE 5:6-7 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.

I'm sure you know the answer already, but let's look at it in the analogy of the mountain expedition. First, you're only half way up. I'll go with half way because none of us really know how far up we've come. You don't know the day of your death and you don't really know what the top is truly like yet, so how could you tell? None of us arrive to the point where we don't need to climb any higher, so we'll just be content to say that you've got quite a ways to go.

So first, slow down and enjoy the current scenery! Your pace got you this far, why rush it now? We can't enjoy the top until we get there, so why not enjoy the terrain that we're on now? As we get higher the views become more spectacular, the air cleaner and fresher, and the terrain changes features - enjoy all of these things. You have more love and joy and peace than you used to, rejoice in them and enjoy them now. God didn't give any of us grow-meters with which to measure our pace of spiritual growth, so don’t worry about your pace. God is in control of such things and He knows exactly how to take you along and get you to the top. Relax and enjoy the hike. Php 1:6 He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Secondly, realize that you don't own anything, not even yourself. This simple point has really helped me a lot lately. The church isn't mine, my wife and family are not mine, and I'm not mine. It's all His and I'm more of a steward entrusted with the care of some things, but they all belong to God and He will ultimately take care of all of them. EZE 18:4 "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. PSA 50:8 "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. This isn't a reason to neglect any of those things, but simply to not put such pressure on ourselves as if we are the only ones responsible for them. If you have the heart of a good steward of the things that God owns but has entrusted to your care, including your own life, then God will cover the rest. Moses was called to lead Israel but he didn't have to figure out a way to split the Red Sea or get water from a rock. God took care of the things that Moses couldn't. In our analogy, the mountain isn't yours, and neither is the gear, the food, the water, the air, or yourself. And, we have a guide, our Lord has gone ahead of us and rests securely within us. God the Holy Spirit is our real-time mountain guide. JOH 16:13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth;" It would reflect poorly on Him if He couldn't get you to the top when you were willing to walk with Him. Remember, you are a steward of the things of God and not the owner. Caring for those things should not put excess pressure upon your soul, but rather give you such a joy in the realization that God thought enough of you to care for them.

Lastly, realize that there will be pressure. It must be understood that the voyage or the expedition that is our spiritual lives is full of perilous circumstances, but they are nothing to be feared. PSA 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

I've been on some hikes with my wife when the trail comes very close to a large vertical cliff that no one would survive should they fall off - and there's no railing. I'm scared of heights, so I walk as far away from it as possible. Sometimes we encounter steep hills where you have to climb the switchbacks which seem to switch back and back and back forever. I long for them to be over just as much as I long to get by the steep cliff as quickly as possible, but when we get to the top or the end of the hike it's so rewarding. In other words, I'm glad that we didn't just do something flat and boring (I always feel that way when it's over!).

God's journey for us is wrought with adventure, danger, testing, adversity, and prosperity and great rejoicing. God is not boring and so He didn't map out for you a boring climb. Lay aside the perfectionist attitude just as you lay aside every encumbrance. Lay aside the sin nature that so easily entangles you and recover when you fall (not off the cliff). Drop the undue pressure like a bag a bricks on the ground and remember that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. And… Enjoy it!

Phil 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!

I wish you all a blessed and soul prosperous 2016.

Pastor Joe Sugrue

Grace and Truth Ministries