Opening – The Dairy Queen Gospel of Perfection
Every now and then, I stop at Dairy Queen for a treat.
I order what they call The Perfect Parfait.
It’s the one with the soft-serve swirl that stands so straight you’d think Gabriel himself calibrated the nozzle.
The young worker rings it up, smiles, and says, “Perfect!”
I laugh every time.
It’s the same word I hear from interviewers, baristas, mechanics, and waiters: Perfect.
We’ve built a whole culture around that word.
It means everything and nothing at once.
You can spill coffee and the cashier still says, “Perfect.”
You can order onion rings and hear, “Absolutely perfect.”
Somewhere along the way, perfect stopped meaning flawless and started meaning fine by me.
It’s a word for convenience, not character.
But then I read Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:48—
> “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
And suddenly that little word doesn’t sound so casual anymore.
What does He mean?
Because I can manage ordering ice cream perfectly, but living perfectly?
That’s another flavor entirely.
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A Scoop Without Sprinkles
It reminds me of a story about a boy in an ice-cream shop.
He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight.
He stepped up to the counter, a handful of coins clutched in his fist.
“Ma’am,” he asked, “how much is a scoop of vanilla?”
“Fifty cents,” the waitress said.
“And with sprinkles?”
“Sixty cents.”
He thought for a moment, then ordered the plain scoop.
When he finished, he left two coins on the table—a nickel and a dime.
She realized he had given up the sprinkles so he could leave her a tip.
That’s love in miniature—quiet, deliberate, sacrificial.
Not flawless. Not loud. Just pure.
He didn’t chase perfect presentation; he practiced perfect kindness.
And that, I think, is closer to what Jesus meant.
When He said “Be perfect,” He wasn’t talking about polish; He was talking about love that gives up the sprinkles so someone else can smile.
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Perfect’s Twin
You ever notice that Perfect has a twin?
Its name is Whatever.
They live on the same shallow street — a smooth little cul-de-sac where nothing runs very deep.
“Perfect” smiles politely; “Whatever” rolls its eyes.
They sound different, but they mean the same thing: “I’m done caring.”
But that shallow street has a speed bump — and it’s made of Scripture.
Right in the middle of our comfort cruise, Jesus drops a line that no one can drive over without feeling it:
> “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
You can almost hear the tires screech and the oil pan scrape as the car runs over His words.
Every false version of perfection — the plastic smile, the polite “whatever,” the self-righteous checklist — grinds against the pavement of His command.
It’s jarring. It’s noisy. It slows us down.
Because Jesus refuses to let love stay shallow.
He wants to rebuild the engine, not just polish the hood.
He’s not calling for cosmetic religion; He’s calling for a transformed heart — one that loves like the Father loves.
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What Jesus Meant by “Perfect”
When Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect,”
He didn’t use the Greek word for “flawless.”
He used teleios — a word that means whole, mature, complete, brought to its intended end.
Teleios isn’t about never making a mistake.
It’s about having a heart that’s growing toward wholeness.
It’s not about polishing your reflection in the mirror — it’s about being reshaped to reflect the Father’s character.
The Sermon on the Mount builds toward that one word like a slow climb up a mountain.
Step by step, Jesus names what love looks like in motion:
blessing those who curse you, forgiving those who wrong you, giving to those who can’t pay you back, praying for those who don’t deserve it.
Then He says, “Be perfect.”
He doesn’t mean be flawless — He means be like that.
Be complete in love the way your Father is complete in love.
Let your heart grow up into the shape of His mercy.
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The Difference Between Perfect Performance and Perfect Love
The trouble is, most of us hear that verse through the wrong filter.
We grew up in a world that prizes performance perfection — where “perfect” means straight A’s, polished smiles, tidy reputations, and Sunday-best religion.
That kind of perfection looks good on paper, but it leaves the soul exhausted.
Performance perfection asks, “Did I do enough?”
Jesus’ kind of perfection asks, “Do I love enough?”
Performance perfection is about control.
Love’s perfection is about surrender.
The first kind wins trophies; the second kind wins people.
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When Wholeness Feels Impossible
That question — “Do I love enough?” — can land heavy, can’t it?
Because if we’re honest, the answer most days is, “No, not yet.”
We lose patience. We carry grudges. We love in fragments.
The truth is, we all fall short of the Father’s kind of perfect.
We mean well, but our love runs out of gas somewhere between good intentions and real compassion.
That’s why Matthew 5:48 isn’t just a command — it’s a compass.
It doesn’t tell us to climb the mountain on our own; it points us toward the One who already stands at the summit.
The perfection Jesus calls us to is not a ladder we climb, but a life we receive.
It’s His love growing inside us, stretching, reshaping, filling in the gaps.
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The Grace That Bridges the Gap
Every time you think, “I can’t love like that,”
the gospel whispers, “No, but Christ in you can.”
He never said, “Be perfect by trying harder.”
He said, “Abide in Me, and you will bear much fruit.”
Perfection, then, isn’t about human effort; it’s about divine indwelling.
It’s about the Spirit producing a love that outlives your limits.
Grace bridges the impossible gap between your best effort and God’s endless mercy.
Grace says, “I’ll grow you until you’re whole.”
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A Whisper From the Workshop
Maybe imagine it like a carpenter’s shop — the scent of sawdust, sunlight slanting through the window.
The Master is shaping a piece of wood.
It’s rough, uneven, full of knots.
But He doesn’t discard it.
He runs His hand along it and says, “This will do.”
Then, with care and patience, He begins to plane, sand, and smooth.
That’s what God does with us.
He works love into the grain of our hearts until we begin to resemble the Carpenter Himself.
And sometimes, when we think we’re splintered beyond repair, He smiles and says, “Absolutely perfect — for what I’m making you into.”
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The Leaky Saint
Ol’ Leon went to every revival in town. Didn’t matter whether it was Holy Ghost Pentecostal, Baptist tent meeting, or Methodist week of prayer—if someone was preaching, Leon was there.
He always started in the back pew near the door, arms folded, hat in his lap.
By the third night, he’d moved to the middle.
By Friday he was on the front row, “Amen!”-ing everything the preacher said.
When the invitation came, Leon was the first one down the aisle.
The preacher thought, Praise God, revival has come to Leon!
But old Agnes, sitting behind him, leaned to her friend and said quietly,
> “Be careful with that one. He leaks.”
The room chuckled—but there’s more truth in that than most theology books.
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Why We Leak
We all leak.
The Spirit fills us, conviction stirs us, the fire burns bright—and then, somewhere between Sunday night and Wednesday morning, it seeps out.
The temper flares, the patience drains, the faith leaks.
That’s why Jesus doesn’t just command perfection once; He invites relationship always.
Perfection isn’t a one-time filling; it’s a continual refilling.
You can’t store up holiness like a spare tire. You’ve got to stay connected to the Source.
Leon’s problem wasn’t that he came forward too often—it’s that he didn’t stay long enough at the altar to let grace seal the cracks.
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Grace That Stays
We leak because we try to live the Christian life on yesterday’s filling.
We need fresh grace for today, new mercies for this morning, a refill of love for this moment.
That’s why Paul wrote, “Be being filled with the Spirit.”
Wholeness isn’t about patching up the bucket; it’s about staying under the fountain.
When we keep stepping into that flow, love keeps overflowing—and that’s the kind of “perfect” Jesus was talking about.
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Love Enough to Stretch
The thing about real love—the kind Jesus meant—is that it won’t stay the size it started.
If it’s alive, it grows.
And growth means stretching.
It’s easy to love people who fit neatly inside our comfort zone.
They talk like us, vote like us, think like us, smell like us.
But the moment God starts refilling your heart, He also starts enlarging it.
He stretches your capacity to care for people you never thought you could care for.
You forgive the one who didn’t apologize.
You listen to the one you used to avoid.
You stop keeping score.
And somehow, the heart that once leaked is now leaking love—in the best possible way.
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The Tug of the Stretch
Stretching doesn’t feel holy at first; it feels like strain.
You’ll know it’s happening when God puts someone on your path that tests every fruit of the Spirit you’ve ever claimed to have.
You’ll want to pray, “Lord, deliver me from this person,”
and He’ll whisper, “No, I sent them to deliver you—from yourself.”
Maturity doesn’t come from avoiding difficult people; it comes from loving them anyway.
That’s the perfection of the Father—sunlight and rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous, mercy poured out on the undeserving.
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Elastic Love
If you’ve ever worked with leather or canvas, you know it stretches best when it’s kept soft and oiled.
A dry hide cracks; a supple one yields.
Our hearts are the same.
The oil of the Spirit keeps them flexible.
The Father’s kind of love is elastic without breaking.
It reaches across offenses, generations, and ideologies, and still holds its shape.
That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Be perfect.”
Be whole.
Be flexible in mercy.
Be love enough to stretch.
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Stop the Leak
By now we’ve learned that being perfect isn’t about spotless polish — it’s about a heart that keeps refilling.
It’s not stainless steel; it’s living skin that stretches, sometimes tears, but keeps healing.
And the only way to keep from leaking out the life of God is to stay connected to the Source.
You don’t stop the leak by tightening your grip on religion; you stop it by opening wider to grace.
You stop it by letting the Spirit patch what pride punctured.
You stop it when you stop pretending you’re full and admit you’re empty.
When Jesus told us to be perfect, He wasn’t setting a trap.
He was giving us a transfusion.
He was saying, “Come closer. I’ve got what you’re missing.”
Perfection doesn’t leak because it’s sealed with love.
The Father’s kind of perfect love never runs dry because it’s not stored in a bucket; it’s flowing in a river.
All you have to do is stay in the current.
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From Leaky to Living
Ol’ Leon taught us something: revival without relationship drains fast.
The shouting fades, the goosebumps dry up, and by Wednesday, the bucket’s empty again.
But there’s another way to live — not chasing the next filling, but walking in a steady flow.
That’s what Jesus offers.
He doesn’t just fill you; He lives in you.
He turns the leaky vessel into a living spring.
> “Whoever believes in Me,” He said, “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
(John 7:38)
You don’t stop leaking by holding tighter — you stop leaking by overflowing.
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A Call to Stay Under the Fountain
So maybe tonight the Spirit is whispering: “Come back under the fountain. Stop patching; start pouring.”
Don’t let guilt or fatigue keep you at the back of the church like Ol’ Leon on night one.
Move closer.
Let grace do its slow, sealing work.
The only perfection that lasts is the one continually filled by love.
Stay where the flow is.
Stay soft, stay stretchable, stay surrendered.
That’s how you stop the leak.
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Prayer
> Lord, You know the leaks we try to hide — the quiet sins, the quick tempers, the love that runs out too soon.
Seal us again with Your grace.
Fill every hollow place with Your Spirit.
Stretch our hearts until they look like Yours.
And keep us, moment by moment, under the flow of Your perfect love.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
