A few years ago, I spoke to a Christian woman struggling in her relationship with God. “I need help to pursue sanctification less,” she told me, “but not really less, you know?” I did know, because her story was similar to mine.
For most of my Christian life, I’ve wrestled with guilt and anxiety in my relationship with God, a struggle that ramped up as I grew in my knowledge of Christ and the gospel. The more I desired to obey God and seek his will, the more I was gripped with guilt and fear over the ways I’d continue to fall.
Over the years, I’ve learned an important lesson. As a helpful and freeing first step, those who struggle with this kind of spiritual perfectionism need to reframe the problem. If you want to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, you actually desire a good thing.
You Must Be Perfect
“You’re trying too hard. Just stop being so hard on yourself!”
“You just need to repent of your perfectionism and believe the gospel more.”
These are two common pieces of advice offered to spiritual perfectionists. Both statements hold a bit of truth—perfectionism can manifest in harshness toward yourself, and the gospel does speak to some forms of perfectionism. But while the first statement seems to downplay sin, the second is overly simplistic and adds to the perfectionist’s burden of guilt. Ultimately, both fall short because neither adequately accounts for the fact that the desire to be perfect isn’t a bad thing.
If you want to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, you desire a good thing.
As Christians, we’re called to strive for perfection. Jesus instructed his disciples, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), and Scripture contains many explicit calls to holiness. What’s more, the overarching biblical narrative teaches us that sinless perfection was the height humanity fell from in Eden. We were meant to be perfect.
The Christian who wrestles with spiritual perfectionism struggles because he knows he’s not who he’s supposed to be. Don Carson describes this struggle in an editorial titled “Perfectionisms”:
Occasionally one finds Christians, pastors, and theological students . . . who are afflicted with a . . . species of discouragement. They are genuinely Christ-centered. They have a great grasp of the gospel and delight to share it. They are disciplined in prayer and service. On excellent theological grounds, they know that perfection awaits final glorification; but on equally excellent theological grounds, they know that every single sin to which a Christian falls prey is without excuse. Precisely because their consciences are sensitive, they are often ashamed by their own failures—the secret resentment that slips in, the unguarded word, the wandering eye, the pride of life, the self-focus that really does preclude loving one’s neighbor as oneself. To other believers who watch them, they are among the most intense, disciplined, and holy believers we know; to themselves, they are virulent failures, inconsistent followers, mere Peters who regularly betray their Master and weep bitterly.
This perfectionism, writes Carson, isn’t rooted in prideful ego or an overrealized eschatology—those struggling “remain so uncomfortable with their wrestlings because they know they ought to be better.”
You Don’t Need to Be Discouraged
If the problem isn’t a desire to be perfect, how can a Christian who trusts the gospel yet still feels like a “mere Peter” be freed from this “species of discouragement”? While there’s no simple, one-size-fits-all fix, we can start by considering three ways God deals with us in our striving for perfection.
1. God frees us from man-made standards of perfection.
Sometimes, perfectionism stems from expectations shaped by the world rather than by God. But other times—and this can be more difficult to untangle—our guilt and anxiety stem from conflating human standards and God’s commands.
Some of us struggle because we’ve been in settings where extrabiblical practices have been upheld as scriptural mandates. Others of us have unwittingly adopted someone else’s personal convictions (e.g., regarding spiritual disciplines, schooling, church, or missions) as a God-given rule.
Whether we’ve come to carry extra standards because they were imposed on us or we’ve mistakenly taken them on ourselves, Jesus invites us to lay them down and take up the yoke of his commands, learning from him instead (Matt. 11:29–30). Through his Word and by his Spirit, he frees us from man-made standards to walk a path of obedience that is not burdensome but full of peace and joy.
2. God perfects us by his power and in his time.
Rather than change us instantly, God has chosen instead to conform us into the image of his Son over time. As he does this, he isn’t distant and impatient. Rather, he assures us of his forgiveness and our belovedness, even as in-process people (1 John 2:1). When we feel powerless to change ourselves, he reminds us that he is the One who works in us to act and will according to his pleasure (Phil. 2:13).
Often, those struggling with spiritual perfectionism aren’t living in willful or hidden sin. Still, the vestiges of their sinful nature cause them deep discouragement. Here, the weary believer can remember that Jesus knew we’d continue to sin, so he taught us to pray regularly for forgiveness. He’s powerfully and patiently at work in us, even when we’re impatient with ourselves.
3. God delights in our efforts to please and obey him.
Christian perfectionists often imagine God as harsh and demanding toward us. Scripture corrects this image by showing us the way he graciously receives his people’s service and faith—“she has done what she could” were Jesus’s words as he praised Mary for her precious gift (Mark 14:8).
God is powerfully and patiently at work in us, even when we’re impatient with ourselves.
If you’re struggling with discouragement as you seek to obey God, perhaps you need to know today that God doesn’t look at your efforts with displeasure. Rather, as a compassionate Father, he delights in your work to please him. He sees your desire to obey him and receives your earnest offering of obedience with grace.
Beloved child of God, though you aren’t yet what you will be, be assured that he who caused your heart to desire his perfection will bring it to completion—according to his standards, in his time and way, and with great delight.
The Gospel Coalition