Most Christians tend to live their lives with certain ideals in their heads, standards by which they desire to live their lives. When you look up “ideal” in the dictionary this is what you find.
A conception of something in its highest perfection,
an ultimate object or aim of endeavor, one of high or noble character.
Is this tendency for Christians to live for an ideal a good thing? Should Christians have ideals that they aspire to? For example, is it an ideal for the Christian to love God more than anything? Is it a Christian ideal that our love towards our neighbor should be like our love for ourselves? It is true that these things should be true of Christians. But are they ideals? Herein lies the problem. Let me ask you a question. What is the wrong with coming up short of an ideal? Maybe one might feel a disappointment, a sense of weakness or a realization of a lack of discipline. These responses are exactly the problem. These responses come up short of the reaction that God requires because God does not hand down just simply ideals to shoot for, but commandments to obey.
Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Christian love is not an ideal to be lived up to but a commandment to be obeyed. When we come up short it does not call for simply a feeling of disappointment or a commitment to try harder it requires repentance and an asking for forgiveness.
I believe it is this transformation of commandments into ideals that has led to a famine of confession and humility on the part of Christians. Let the Scriptures speak concerning the thing that God looks for in His people.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (If) My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Most of us will continue to live the Christian life as if it consisted merely of ideals to live up to with no real consequences if they fall short instead of commandments to be obeyed needing confession and repentance when disobeyed. Are you one of those or are you ready for God to hear you and forgive you and heal you? The choice is yours.
