Perfectly Imperfect!

Many Bible passages trouble me. They push my limits; they invade my comfort zone; they require following Jesus as more commitment than I sometimes want to give. The worst, for me, came with Jesus’ statement, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We tend to define perfect as flawless or exact. Dang, that doesn’t sound like me at all. Humorously, the older I get the better I get at spotting my flaws. And we can’t quibble—the perfect used for the Father is the same grammatically as our target.

In the original language, the word includes being…

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Imperfect People and a Perfect God

Recently, a good FB friend, Bart, shared that he and his wife are leaving their church. Too many hypocrites, gossips, people who don’t live like Jesus. I get that; many have left churches for similar reasons. But we face a tension. None of us are perfect, as these words written to followers of Jesus affirm, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). So, if we proclaim we follow Jesus and sin, are we hypocrites? If only perfect people are allowed in church, how many of us would qualify? But…

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Cancel Culture

“Cancel Culture” has become common term lately, regarding Civil War monuments, the Founding Fathers who owned slaves, or the comments and actions that others or companies make that we disagree with. Sometimes strongly. So, we boycott them. We try to eliminate them from public discourse. Dictionary.com defines it as when people “are said to be canceled after it has been discovered that they have done something offensive. It involves calling out the bad behavior, boycotting their work (such as by not watching their movies or listening to their music), and trying to take away their public platform and power. This is often done … on social media.”

Yes, this touches politics, but not here. Let’s focus on how we, as followers of Jesus…

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