A sermon-style talk by Holly Furtick arguing that perfectionism is not God’s expectation; instead, relationship with God and faith matter more than a mistake-free life. She uses Abraham (Genesis 12 and later New Testament citation in James) as a case study—highlighting his repeated mistakes (lying about Sarah, sleeping with Hagar) yet his faith being credited as righteousness—and concludes that wisdom flows from closeness to God and that attitude matters more than perfect choices.
Chapters
Show of hands. Do I have any self proclaimed perfectionists? Is anyone sitting next to a perfectionist who's not raising their hand? My hand is not raised. I'm not a perfectionist. Nowhere near it. I am a close enough is good enough kind of girl. I am, however, married to a perfectionist and I know how you all think. Sometimes I feel like my husband's life motto is if you can't do it right on the first try, do. Don't even bother trying at all. This is a terrible way to live and I'm so glad that I can balance my husband out because not even God has the expectation that we will live a mistake free life. He gave up on that way back in Genesis. I don't think we're supposed to ask God for wisdom so that we will not make a mistake. I believe that wisdom flows out of my relationship with God. So in other words, the closer we are to God, the more wisdom we will have. Think about Abraham, for instance. Abraham was the father of the nation of Israel. But he was, first off, just a guy minding his own business, living in the land his father had led their family to. It was called the land of Haran. And God calls him. The Lord says to him, leave your people and your father's household and go to the land of I will show you. And then God makes him a promise. I want to read this promise to you. It's found in Genesis 12, verse 2. God says to Abraham, I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And whoever curses you, I will curse. And all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. So Abram went, and as the Lord had told him, where did he go? God didn't actually tell him. He just said, start moving. He made a promise to Abraham. He's called Abram in the passage because he changes his name later. He says to him, I'm going to make you a great nation. What this means is the lineage of Jesus. It can be traced all the way back to Abraham. All because of his ability to go, his ability to follow God. He went as the Lord told him. God didn't text him the location and send him on his way. He told Abraham to go and then he revealed himself along the way. In fact, as God is guiding him on the journey, Abraham makes some really dumb decisions. Like twice. Not just once. Twice. He lies about Sarah being his wife. And then of course, we all know that Abraham got impatient Waiting on the Lord to fulfill this promise. And he sleeps with Hagar, his wife's servant, to try and begin his lineage through her because his wife was barren. It's really a messy story, but it ends with the promise being fulfilled. Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Isaac is the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Joseph, and so on down the line for 28 generations until the birth of Christ. Two thousand years after Abraham's death, Jacob James writes about him in the New Testament, and he's talking about Abraham's faith. And he says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he was called God's friend. Abraham wasn't remembered for all of the mistakes that he made. He was remembered by his faith. The point of life is not to solve the mystery and make the right decision every time. In fact, one of the main things that I'm learning in my life is that within every decision, there's good and bad. There's a decision within a decision within a decision. And good and bad and right and wrong are all right within it. There will be turbulence, there will be pitfalls and attacks. Some of it you can control, some of it you can't. As a follower of Christ, what sets us apart, what makes us different, is our ability, our privilege to have a relationship, a friendship with God. We're not out there doing this thing on our own. We have a good shepherd, a guide who is with us. And if you make a wrong turn, he's right there to guide you back. So the goal is not perfection. The goal is relationship. The closer we are to God, the more we know his character, the easier it is to decipher what to do. And by the way, God is much more concerned about your attitude at your job than he is about which job you actually have. When you seek the heart of God above all else, you're automatically going to avoid many of the pitfalls and detours of the enemy.
