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So what does this imply as we follow Jesus? Am I expected to be perfect? Does God expect me to be perfect? Absolutely not!! When we expect this, do you know what happens? It is not holistic at all. If anything it is at best partial because people who live with those expectations hide their imperfections, their character defects, their struggles, and sometimes their shame. They pretend that they don’t exist. At the very least we often hide those skeletons in a deep dark place hoping they never come into light. And this is far from being healthy and certainly not being holistic.

A few years ago a guy in the main leadership of the Boy Scouts of America made the headlines. He was known for his strong stance against pornography and homosexuality. He kind of made it a crusade to protect the Boy Scouts from these influences. Well, he made the headlines because it was discovered that he was heavily into watching Internet pornography and was probably addicted himself. This was happening while he so vehemently opposed pornography.

This is the problem that perfection sometimes brings. We hide our mistakes, our flaws, our character defects, our temptations, and even our sins and then we often in feeling guilty become strongly opposed to the same sins in others in order to keep the light from truly shining on us. This isn’t healthy and it isn’t holistic.

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