It is at first disconcerting to find that the only standard Christ sets before His followers is absolute perfection. “Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.” Lots of us quite understandably would like to tone this down a bit, to make the standard less exacting. But a moment’s reflection will show how impossible any other standard would be. If you do not make moral standards absolute, where will you fix them? The Puritans who founded the Old Meeting sought to live by these standards which is why we strive to follow their spiritual example is our world which seems to have lost its moral compass. As soon as we accept lower standards there arises a medley of conflicting voices. Each of us would fix some particular standard at the point most suitable to our own attainments or convenience. A yard-stick which is sometimes thirty-six inches long and at other times twenty-eight or thirty-nine, is no yard-stick at all! A standard which is not absolute is not a standard. We cannot water down any of the standards of Christ without destroying His authority. Jesus constantly held men to the highest. It is necessary for a man’s spiritual growth that his reach should be beyond his grasp. Only by holding ourselves against the highest do we see wherein our weaknesses lie. If we test ourselves against other people, we can always find someone who by comparison gives us reason for self-satisfaction. It is because Christ stands so supreme above others that He draws all that is best and noblest in us. At peril of our lives we dare not accept anything less.
John.
