NABLOPOMO Day 2: Monday Musings

Ok, I normally do my Monday Musings on Monday anyway so this isn't too challenging other than I got out of the habit.

I want to talk about an idea. An idea that my be a little different for people of other faiths, but being LDS there is a huge emphasis on being perfect. Christ gave that mandate to people and it is taken as a commandment as much as it is a vision of what is possible by many of the LDS faith. This can be tricky.

Be ye therefore perfect! But what kind of perfect. We normally think of perfection as completely without blemish, spot, error or any kind of fault. The trouble with this is none of us are perfect. None of us can be perfect. In a sense Christ's command to be perfect only makes sense if we understand that it is a command to repent and be made perfect through his atoning blood. In another sense it is a command to be perfect in a finished, whole and complete sense.

My other big thought though is that being perfect doesn't in any sense mean being better than others. I think this perspective is adopted by some people. They believe that if I am better than my neighbor or if they are more sinful than I am that make me more perfect, closer to perfection, better. This can be an extremely damaging perspective because it encourages people to find the faults in others to justify their own shortcomings.

Let's all be perfect! Perfected in Christ, complete and whole!