In my last article, “Am I Standing on My Perfectionism or on Christ’s Perfection?”, I shared how the Lord revealed my sin of perfectionism, led me to repentance, forgave me, and freed me from it. We also looked at one of Jesus’s teachings in His Sermon on the Mount (which we will return to today) in which He commands us to “be perfect . . . as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). In that article, we learned that true perfection is only possible for God’s children through Christ. While acknowledging that we need Him in order to be perfect is the right first step, we must also ask ourselves what the next step is. Once we root ourselves in His perfection, how will our lives change? How do we come to do the good works that Christ’s perfection calls us to?

What Jesus Meant by “Be Perfect” in Matthew 5:48

Let’s revisit our key passage, Matthew 5:43–48:

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor” and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Here, Jesus calls His children to love all people (friends and enemies alike) and to pray for those who persecute us. While these are certainly actions we take, they are also dispositions of the heart. Although it is possible to deceive others with the appearance of godliness, God sees the real you and me—He sees our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7). Therefore, even as Christ leads us to external freedom and outward holiness, He also leads us to internal freedom.

Moving from Christian Perfectionism to Biblical Wholeness

Jesus saw the deception of those who exhibited external freedom without the corresponding internal freedom. The Pharisees and scribes behaved perfectly before people—they read Scripture, went to the synagogue often, prayed multiple times a day (frequently in public), and even fasted twice a week.¹ Even though their behavior reflected righteousness, their hearts did not match it. Jesus said to them: “Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands’” (Matthew 15:7–9). Upon this text, Jonathan Pennington rightly states that Jesus calls them hypocrites “because they are not unified in heart and action; they actually do right things, but they are not the right kind of people because their hearts are wrong. In behavior they are righteous, but inwardly they are not; hence, they lack what God cares about—as Aristotle would agree, they lack virtue.”²

In this case, a perfect person is one who is wholly devoted to Christ. This means living a lifestyle of love and repentance—a life committed to repenting from sin and trying again in the Lord’s grace and strength. Pennington expanded on this idea by arguing that the Greek word translated here as “perfect” (teleios) is better translated as “wholeness,” encompassing the Greek and Jewish traditions of holiness, wholeheartedness, and undivided devotion to God.³ This is what the Lord desires: an undivided heart and behavior that aligns with the internal freedom such a heart experiences.

We come to experience this kind of internal freedom when we embrace how deeply God loves us. Many Christians know that God loves them, yet they do not feel loved by Him. I was one such Christian. I knew many truths about God’s love, yet I often did not feel His love.

God desires that we know and even experience His love. He longs for us to be “rooted and firmly established” in His love (Ephesians 3:17). And while the Holy Spirit certainly testifies from within our hearts that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16), we also have a part to play. Our part is to come to Him (Matthew 11:28) with a sincere, open, willing, and patient heart that expects and counts on Him to be faithful in fulfilling His promise to perfect His love in us (1 John 4:12). We can come to Him in prayer, gratitude, and even in complete silence, but we must come to Him. As we experience God’s love for our sinful hearts, we are moved to turn toward other sinful humans with that same love. This is when genuine external freedom begins to emerge.

Doing Good Works Free from Perfectionist Pressure

As our hearts are more and more aligned with the freedom of Christ, this freedom naturally radiates outward into our external lives, into good works. Loving actions are evidence of our freedom in Christ. When God heals and frees us from the impurity of our hearts, we grow to show kindness and love to everyone, both friends and enemies.

Jesus wants us to follow God’s example of impartiality: “he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). God loves even those who have rejected and mocked Him. He gives them life and makes them breathe (Acts 17:25). Because of Jesus, the Holy Spirit empowers us to show the love of God to all (Romans 5:5). Since we know that God loves (John 3:16), we can greet even our enemies with a smile without expecting a smile in return. Because God has provided for us (Philippians 4:19), we can use our material goods to help those who are in need, even if we never receive a thank you.

When we fail to act in love, the true condition of our hearts is exposed: We may still need deeper internal freedom. If it were otherwise, our good deeds would flow freely without expectation of anything in return. The way we live our lives exposes the place of our heart, so may we always seek both the internal freedom of pure hearts and the external freedom of good works offered to us by Christ. He will help us to love Him and others by living in wholeness, total devotion, and with an undivided heart. God is our good Father who longs to bring us total internal and external freedom.

If you liked this article, check out the related resources linked below!

Notes:

1. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 53.

2. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 79.

3. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing, 78.

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Author Bio

Camila A. Roldan Hernandez is pursuing a PhD in Theological Studies at Liberty Theological Seminary. Her research focuses on human flourishing through the gospel of Christ. She enjoys prayer, sharing the gospel, fellowship, exercise, traveling, and nature.

Related Resources:

Never Enough: How the Gospel Frees Us from the Weight of Perfection		Worthy | Identity Bible Study		Good Christian Girl
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