January 16

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk before Me and be blameless. — Gen 17:1 BSB

We often say, “Perfection is impossible,” and as a result, we stop trying to achieve it. But it’s better to aim high, even if we know we won’t reach perfection. If we set our goals too low, our achievements will be equally low. Looking to anything less than the perfect beauty of God dims the beauty of our own lives. We should always keep perfection as our aim, fixing our eyes on the perfect model, Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We are called to model our lives after the divine pattern. Though we can’t achieve this in a day, the path to Christlikeness lies in continually striving toward it.

When a child first learns to write, their scrawls are far from the perfect lines of the model at the top of the page. But with practice, each new page shows improvement. In time, their writing may come to rival the original. We learn to live holy lives in the same way. No matter how imperfect or flawed our start may be, we must strive always toward perfection, knowing that one day, we shall be like Christ. That’s the hope set before us—when we see Him as He is, we will be like Him.