Be perfect as Your Heavenly Father

As it is said that blood cannot be deceived, children somehow resemble their parents. In other words, children can only follow their parents while seeing and learning from them, as well as their ways of talking, acting and thinking. The same is true of the relationship between the Father in heaven and His children. Those who believe in Jesus should be able to resemble the Father God so that they can reach the Kingdom of the Lord as well as this land. Genesis 1 records that life was built according to the image and likeness of God, which means that we were created according to the ministry of the Trinity God and built to resemble His character and appearance. Matthew 5:43-48 also teaches us that we will be perfect by resembling His perfectness. We should be perfect like Father God in this land and be able to honor Him by resembling His perfectness.

Don't be on your own

The Father in heaven commands His beloved children in this way. "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." This is the command of the Father to pray for those who persecute and love those who are enemies. This is not an easy task for anyone, however, as how can he love his enemies whom he should hate them to the death? How can we pray for him when retaliation is not enough for someone who persecutes us? No matter how much love and understanding a person is, he cannot do it with his own ability.

The Lord does not want us to retaliate against those who do evil for us. Peter says in 1 Peter 2:23, "When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly." Bible even teaches that he should be saved if there is anything to be saved when a person who has done evil is financially suffering. Therefore, we should not try to do these things on our own but make it possible by relying on God's power and seeking the help of the Holy Spirit. We should talk nicely about our enemies and answer their accusations politely and kindly if the Holy Spirit allows and we should not repay them with abusive language as stated.

Apostle Paul says in 1 Co. 12:3, "No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit." This means that Jesus cannot be the master of life unless it is act of the Holy Spirit, which means that he can be a child of the heavenly Father when he admits and confesses to Jesus mainly through the Holy Spirit. No matter how much you look for your Father, you cannot be recognized as a son if you do not reach His perfectness. The Lord once taught the Sermon on the Mount for his beloved disciples to go out to the world and play the role of light and salt. This means to become light and salt, shine light on the darkened world and act as a preservative to prevent the world from decaying. Furthermore, we can no longer be recognized as the son of God if we cannot play this role. We have to believe that people can recognize us as children of God when we shine on the Lord who shines in the darkened world.

Don't resemble the world

Matthew Chap. 5 uses tax-collectors and pagans as examples in explaining the world. These are the pronouns for the world and are people who live in the way of the world. The world is showing images of tax-collectors and pagans, and they love only those who love themselves and want to pay their respects only to the brothers they know well. However, the problem is that there are still many people who believe in Jesus but still live in the form of tax-collectors and pagans. God cannot recognize us as His children and we cannot expect the award from Him if we live in this way.

There is a joke that people who don't believe in Jesus are worried when they see the people who believe in Him. They don't know Jesus, but could see a lot of shame around believers as they are not exemplary to those who do not believe. They say they believe in Jesus but they are living extremely selfish and calculative ways. But the heavenly Father does not behave like that and He allows both good and bad people in giving sunlight and rain. In other words, God does not distinguish people by showing generosity and patience for the wicked as He creates and shares everything that comes from Him.

Therefore, we should give up our personality of willing to mate with the world if we want to resemble our Father in heaven at this time. Paul confesses this point in 1 Cor. 13:11 as his faith cannot grow unless he abandons the character that follows what the flesh likes. "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Paul was able to decide that his mind would grow and abandon a childlike life. Therefore, we should pray for becoming spiritual beings by not belong to the flesh but to the Spirit. In other words, we must pray for reborn of faith in the Lord by providing repentance for our sins and receiving His mercy on it.

Embrace the heart of the Lord  

Then what is the Lord's heart like? He followed Father's will thoroughly from the moment He came to this land to the whole process of public life. In other words, both His birth and death on the cross were achieved only by obedience to Father's will. By doing this, the Lord wanted to achieve Father's perfectness in everything and He was able to bear the desire to achieve Father's will only in hard and difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, many people still do not reach obedience like this. Not to mention those who do not believe, even those who believe are stingy in obeying God mighty Creator. They become enemies with others while thinking about their greed and interests first, and their relationship with Him can be cut off if they stay away from the Lord while chasing the interests of the world.

Jesus redeemed sin and death of the lives who were the enemies of God through the death of the cross. For this reason, there cannot be enemies in the cross but only love for the neighbor is shown as Romans 5:10 mentioned. "For if, when we were Gods enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" We must leave Him to avenge our enemies because we could be reconciled through the Lord when we were enemies with God. In other words, we must embrace our enemies and love them to the end as the saints saved through the grace of the Lord. While living in this land, we should devote our lives more in saving souls to preach the gospel of harmony.

In conclusion, the Lord preaches the practical lessons in Matthew 5:48. There is a deep sense of truth in the saying, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" and it presents a clear goal in our faith lives. The ultimate goal of a believer's life should be to resemble the heavenly Father and to emulate our Father's characters of mercy, compassion and love. As Paul mentions in Chap. 3 of Colossians, we should be able to find the wisdom of heaven to complete this mission. "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." It is difficult for anyone who thinks of the earth to reach God's righteousness and to show that he is perfect. We should seek the wisdom from above only by thinking of what is in heaven and resemble His perfectness if we follow this wisdom. Therefore, we need to achieve the perfectness the Lord expects by resembling our Father in heaven as I sincerely hope that at this moment.