The end goal seemed like a good place to start in delving into Jesus’ teachings – which Jesus spelled out in Matthew 5:48, that “you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” To Jesus, nothing less than perfection for his disciples will do.
It seems like a tall order for either me to fulfill, or Jesus, because what he inherited in me is a far cry from his Father’s perfection. But he takes us on as his disciples to help us become perfect by his Father’s standards.
He’s like a highly skilled diamond cutter, who can tell by looking at a rough diamond what cuts need to be made for that particular diamond to shine to perfection.
And Jesus isn’t scrimping on the cutting either. Now that we belong to him, he’s settling for nothing less than the cuts necessary to make us shine to perfection too. And where we might feel satisfied with our progress, he isn’t. He won’t be satisfied until he’s got us to the perfection he’s after.
Or as John phrased it in 1 John 1:7, he “purifies us from every sin.” The Greek word for “sin” in that verse is hamartias (ha-mar-tee-us), meaning a structural defect or fatal flaw, which ties in rather nicely with the rough diamond analogy, because a defect or flaw in the diamond could lead to it splintering when being cut, and never being the beauty it could have been. Well, Jesus isn’t going to allow that to happen. He sees every defect and flaw in us, and he’s not about to let them destroy what he sees in us, and the final perfection he has in mind.
And he’s chipping away at us as far as he can go before we die, never for a second letting our weaknesses and flaws distract or discourage him. His goal remains fixed, to make us into something beautiful that his Father can say of us too one day: “This is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.”
In other words, it’s a perfection in us that his Father will love forever, want to live with forever, and live in forever too, as his eternal home. And a home fit for the Father isn’t a nicely renovated house with a few cosmetic improvements; it’s a brand new palace, a thing of beauty, without a flaw. And to Jesus nothing less than that for his Father will suffice.
Buck To Basics 