The Perfection Lie: Why Sinlessness Isn’t Strugglelessness

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Hello, ladies and gents! Today my post is in a different style — it’s a letter to my friends, from a girl who has been thinking about “The Perfection Lie” a lot lately.

This letter is on the subject of how we, as Christians, now free from Sin (capitalized) still have to continue learning to deal with sins (lowercase)—both our own and the world’s in general.

You see, though all Christians are Saints in the spiritual sense, completely cleansed of our unrighteousness, that doesn’t make us perfect or without our struggles. Let me write you a letter about it!

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Dear Christian Brother or Sister,

We may be very close or not know each other at all, but regardless, we are siblings in Christ. So we’re related! I feel like writing a letter (or a blog post, as is the case) to a sibling is pretty normal, so here goes.

We have a lot in common, you and I.

We’re both human. We both live in this messed up, sinful, horribly corrupt world. We were both born completely and irreversibly tinged by Sin. We both committed sins throughout our lives.

Somehow, we both learned about Jesus Christ, and that message touched both of us in a profound way. It became personal.

We accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. We believe in Him, have faith is His unending love and grace, and trust that He will keep us until we come to be with Him in Heaven some day.

We’re both Saints (Romans 1:7; Revelation 14:12; 1 Corinthians 1:2), simply. Saints … and that comes with a stigma.

What is a Saint?

The idea of a saint in modern society* is that they’re some perfect, flawless, extraordinary. That’s what people mean when they say someone’s a saint … that they’re better than the rest of us poor blokes. Special.

The truth is none of us are special (Romans 3:9-20; 1 John 1:8; 1 Timothy 2:5).

*As well as many versions of Christianity which I will not refer to in this article as they go contrary to my study of God’s Word. No offense intended, of course; each person is responsible for their own faith!