No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~ Romans 8:37-39

Of all the false gods there is probably no greater nuisance in the spiritual world than the “god of one hundred per cent” for he is plausible. It can so easily be argued that since God is Perfection, and since He asks the complete loyalty of His creatures, then the best way of serving, pleasing, and worshiping Him is to set up absolute one-hundred-per-cent standards and see to it that we obey them. After all, did not Christ say, “Be ye perfect”?

This one-hundred-per-cent standard is a real menace to Christians of various schools of thought, and has led quite a number of sensitive conscientious people to what is popularly called a “nervous breakdown.” And it has taken the joy and spontaneity out of the Christian lives of many more who dimly realize that what was meant to be a life of “perfect freedom” has become an anxious slavery.

It is probably only people of certain backgrounds and temperaments who will find the “one-hundred-per-cent god” a terrible tyrant. A young athletic extrovert may talk glibly enough of being “one-hundred-per-cent pure, honest, loving, and unselfish.” But being what he is, he hasn’t the faintest conception of what “one-hundred-per-cent” means. He has neither the mental equipment nor the imagination to begin to grasp what perfection really is. He is not the type to analyze his own motives, or build up an artificial conscience to supervise his own actions, or be confronted by a terrifying mental picture of what one-hundred-per-cent perfection literally means in relation to his own life and effort. What he means by “one-hundred-per-cent pure, honest, etc.” is just as pure and honest as he sincerely knows how. And that is a very different matter.

But the conscientious, sensitive, imaginative person who is somewhat lacking in self-confidence and inclined to introspection, will find one-hundred-per-cent perfection truly terrifying. The more he thinks of it as God’s demand the more guilty and miserable he will become, and he cannot see any way out of his impasse. If he reduces the one hundred per cent he is betraying his own spiritual vision, and the very God who might have helped him is the Author (so he imagines) of the terrific demands! No wonder he often “breaks down.” The tragedy is often that the “one-hundred-per-cent god” is introduced into the life of the sensitive by the comparatively insensitive, who literally cannot imagine the harm they are doing.

What is the way out? The words of Christ, “Learn of Me,” provide the best clue. Some of our modern enthusiastic Christians of the hearty type tend to regard Christianity as a performance. But it still is, as it was originally, a way of living, and in no sense a performance acted for the benefit of the surrounding world. To “learn” implies growth; implies the making and correcting of mistakes; implies a steady upward progress toward an ideal. The “perfection” to which Christ commands men to progress is this ideal. The modern high-pressure Christian of certain circles would like to impose perfection of one hundred per cent as a set of rules to be immediately enforced, instead of as a shining ideal to be faithfully pursued. His short cut, in effect, makes the unimaginative satisfied before he out to be, and drives the imaginative to despair. Such a distortion of Christian truth could not possibly originate from the One who said His “yoke was easy’ and His “burden light,” nor by His follower St. Paul, who declared after many years’ experience that he “pressed toward the mark not as though he had already attained or were already perfect.”

Yet even to people who have not been driven to distraction by “one-hundred-per-cent” Christianity, the same fantasy of perfection may be masquerading in their minds as God. Because it is a fantasy it produces paralysis and a sense of frustration. The true ideal, as we shall see later, stimulates, encourages, and produces likeness to itself.

If we believe in God, we must naturally believe that He is Perfection. But we must not think, to speak colloquially, that He cannot therefore be interested in anything less than perfection.

Christians may truthfully say that it is God’s “ambition” to possess the wholehearted love and loyalty of His children, but to imagine that He will have no dealings with them until they are prepared to give Him perfect devotion is just another manifestation of the “god of one hundred per cent.” After all, who, apart from the very smug and complacent, would claim that they were wholly “surrendered” or “converted” to love? And who would deny the father’s interest in the prodigal son when his Spiritual Index was at a very low figure indeed?

God is truly Perfection, but He is no Perfectionist.

1. I am nothing more than a pawn in a supernatural chess game.

2. Nothing I can do will ever change number 1.

3. Love God because of number 2.