Lesson 12: Perfection’s Source
Matthew 5:48 – “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

As we see above, no man knows perfectly and completely his fellow man. The mother that bore me, the wife of my heart, the children of my love, do not know me. They are all familiar with the sound of my voice, the touch of my hand, and my step on the stair; but all the depths that lie behind, held for ever sacred from the possibility of intrusion, of these they have no complete knowledge.

And yet we are perpetually in danger of taking our law of life from the opinion of some mortal who has no adequate knowledge of the perils and possibilities of our complex nature. How ridiculous! We may as well ask the mechanic to repair our watch or the deaf person to tune our harp as allow man, ignorant of the essence and intention of our complex life, to arrange for its conduct. The interference of a human being between another and God is a mistake and a blasphemy, whatever the name by which the interferer is called, whether it be priest, or teacher, or friend.

Equally foolish is man's attempt to govern himself, for it is equally true that no man has seen himself, neither does any man know himself. The old Greek philosopher said his last and best thing when he said, "Man, know yourself," because he thus brought man face to face with the impossible; and when a man is brought there, he is in the place where it is possible for him to acquaint himself with God and be at peace.


In our younger days we imagine that we know the possibilities of our being and are able to plan and arrange the whole line of progress. The years are startling revealers. As they pass, we discover new powers for good and evil that had lain dormant within, and of which we had absolutely no consciousness until some crisis arose and called forth to action the sleeping forces. How we trembled when we found that there was the power of murder lying hidden in our heart! How we suffered when we came to know of a surety that, in spite of all our earlier boasting, we too had the making of the traitor within, and might have kissed the Master to His death!

Remember those days of schedules, and programs, and pledges, and promises, when we proudly said we were masters of ourselves. Through what disappointments, and agonies, and wounds some of us have come to our first real knowledge that we are ignorant of ourselves, and cannot therefore govern ourselves.

This drives us to one conclusion. Our demand for perfection can only be met by our living, and moving, and having our being wholly within the Will of God. Our neighbor's law fails through the limitation of his knowledge. Our own program collapses because of our ignorance. The Will of God moving within the realm of His perfect knowledge leads us on to perfection and will at last set us in His presence unafraid.

Question: What perpetual danger are we at risk of embracing as our “law of life”?
Let's reflect on, even memorize: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” – Matthew 5:48