I recently got this comment on TikTok.

“Those who claim they are perfect and sinless… goes against everything the Bible teaches. We are to try our best with God to be more like him.”

Let’s address this because it’s a common thing Christians believe. That even though we can never be like Christ, we must still try our best to be Christ-like.

Did the same guy who said “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” also give us an impossible burden to carry?

“You’ll never be like me, but you need to try as hard as you can to be!”

Did God set us up for failure by giving us a standard to strive for that is impossible for us to reach?

If that scenerio sounds familiar, it’s because that was the entire problem with the old testament law. It’s why it had to be abolished.

It said, “Try really really hard to obey these laws… but you’ll never be able to obey them because the law is weakened by your sinful flesh, and sin gets its power from the law… but try really really hard to obey anyway!”

God didn’t send Jesus to bring us out from underneath one impossible burden, only to put us underneath another.

When scripture says things like “be holy because I am holy,” and “be imitators of God,” it’s because those things are possible. They’re possible because you’ve already become like him through your union with Jesus.

Christians read those verses as, “I’m not this, and I could never be this, but I have to try really really hard to look like it!”

That’s superficial. That’s a white-washed tomb. A clean cup on the outside, but filthy on the inside. But Jesus has cleaned the inside so that outside has also become clean. So I read those verses like this: “This is who I am, so let’s act like it!”

Are you perfect in your understanding of your union with Jesus? Of course not. That’s what sanctification and renewing your mind is about. And the job of a church teacher who’s doing their job correctly is to build you up in that understanding. That you are not becoming, through your own sacrifice and willpower, someone that you currently are not. You are merely learning to walk as the someone you’ve been all along.

It doesn’t go against the Bible to think well of yourself, as long as you are thinking of the you that is in him. Every other self is deception.

See yourself as a dearly loved child learning to imitate your father. Don’t be ashamed to see yourself in his image; He wasn’t ashamed to create you in it.

Holiness is a Fruit of Faith, Not Behavior

Look at the following verses, and pay attention to the common theme:

[Heb 10:10]
And by God’s will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

[2 Cor. 5:21]
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

[Heb. 10:14]
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

[John 15:3]
Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

[Jude 1:24]
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

Do you notice what they all have in common? Everything you become in them you become his will and his actions, both of which are done apart from your will and your actions.

So my goal is not to behave right so I can become more holy over time. My goal is to renew my mind, believing that I’ve already been made holy for all time, so that I can grow up into holy behavior by nature.

Holy and righteous behavior is a fruit of faith in his work, not mine.

No amount of our trying to live up to the standard had any power to fix anything. So he came and changed us so we could become what he is by grace, through faith, apart from our own willpower, so no one can boast.

I’m not trying to be more like God. I’m accepting and believing that I’m already as like him as I’ll ever be because he created me in the image of Jesus.

The struggle is to stand in that belief, even if I stumble into something that doesn’t look like him. It’s why it’s called “the good fight of faith,” and not “the good fight of flesh” or “the good fight of sin.” Flesh and sin have been crucified with him. They’re not my problem anymore. My FIGHT is to believe better, not behave better. If I believe better the behavior will come as a natural and effortless consequence.

I hear it all the time. “I’m trying my best to be like Jesus! I’m trying my best to avoid sin!”

Quit trying your best. Quit trying at all. Your best will never be good enough. But that’s where the good news becomes really good: his best already is good enough. And his best has already made you like he is.

So “deny yourself.” That means stop talking about your sin and what you think you are, and start talking about what you know he is. And when you know what he is and realize that “as he is so are you in this world,” you’ll finally truly begin understanding what you are.