Perfectionism is expecting God to give me in this life what He has promised to give me only in the next. Perfectionists want to live in a world without sin, sickness, suffering, and Satan. The problem is, except for the first and last two chapters of the Bible, we find at least one of these four Ss on every page. It is not until the next life that those of us who know Christ as our Savior and Lord will be free of them.

The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:20–21 ESV)
Perhaps you’ve heard a perfectionist humorously described as “someone who takes great pains and gives them to others.” Today let’s look at a biblical definition of perfectionism: perfectionism is expecting God to give me in this life what He has promised to give me only in the next. Perfectionists want to live in a world without sin, sickness, suffering, and Satan. The problem is, except for the first and last two chapters of the Bible, we find at least one of these four Ss on every page. It is not until the next life that those of us who know Christ as our Savior and Lord will be free of them.
Have you come to grips with this reality? Or are you frustrated with God for forcing you to live in a corrupted environment? Because of the fall, we live no longer in the garden of Eden but in a world bereaved of its splendor. Perhaps you understand this on an intellectual basis, but do you live your life as though it is true?
Our passage reminds us that, as a part of God’s creation, we have been involuntarily subjected to futility. The world in which we live is broken and full of misery. Apart from Christ, and our belief in the new heavens and new earth, our world is a pretty miserable place to live. But Christians don’t live “under the sun,” as Solomon repeatedly declares in Ecclesiastes—we live “under the Son.” We live not for this life or for this world but for the world and the life that are to come.
The first step in learning to overcome your perfectionistic tendencies may be for you to reevaluate your thinking about the world in which God has placed you. You are living not in paradise but on a battlefield to which He has drafted you to serve as His soldier. To strive for perfection now is an exercise in futility.
Yesterday, we looked at the primary Old Testament word for repent. Today, I would like you to consider the New Testament Greek word for repentance. It is a compound word that combines a word for think with a word for again. In Greek, to repent means to “think again” or to “rethink” something.
To have any hope of losing your perfectionistic tendencies, you must change how you think and how you interpret the world in which you live. You will have to learn to think biblically about all of God’s creation—including yourself. And you will have to reset your affections from this life to the next one.
As you go through your upcoming day, why not meditate on specific ways you can begin to adjust your thoughts, motives, and especially your values in order to gain an eternal perspective on living as a fallen creature in a fallen world? Then give some thought to what it will be like to be free from sin, sickness, suffering, and Satan when the Lord Jesus Christ reveals His glory in you.
Reflect: What exactly do you have to rethink and reinterpret about living in a world that has been cursed by sin?
Act: Spend five or ten minutes today thinking about what it will be like to live in a world without sin, sickness, suffering, and Satan.
An excerpt from Perfectionism: Pursuing Excellence With Wisdom by Lou Priolo. Used with permission.

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Theological systems that reject the eternal security of the believer find motivation for outward deeds in earning or keeping one’s salvation. Lives are spent doing good deeds in hopes that they can merit the favor of God. But for those whose confidence rests in God’s saving power alone, we go forth serving Christ with joy and confidence. If our service goes unnoticed, we don’t care because we know God sees it and we serve to please Him. 

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! – Romans 11:1
The fear of rejection is perhaps one of the more influential considerations in our decision making. The choices we make, the conversations we choose to have or avoid, the way we spend our money; many times, these decisions are guided by our desire to avoid being rejected by others. The desire for a lasting acceptance seems an innate characteristic of humanity. If we are fortunate enough to somehow make it as part of the “in” group, the inner circle, we often take whatever steps we deem necessary to remain as such. To be numbered among the people of God is the best inner circle there could be, the most glorious collection of people there has ever been. To be a sinner saved by the grace of God alone through the atonement set forth in Christ is to be truly blessed, and so it begs the question: can one ever go from being part of the people of God to being separate from the people of God? There have been erroneous systems of Christianity throughout the centuries that have argued it is indeed possible to lose one’s salvation. A sacramental Roman Catholicism argues for the necessity of works to maintain one’s place within the family of God. An Arminian Protestantism denies the Reformed doctrine of eternal security. Both theological systems fly directly in the face of Scripture’s assertion that once numbered among the people of God, there is nothing that could ever remove you. Yet it begs one final question though: could God Himself remove you? Again, the Scriptures are clear: by no means!
Books have been written to prove this point from Scripture, so we’ll forego a lengthy discussion on proving this point. We’ll simply echo what Paul says in Romans 8: those whom God predestines, he also calls, justifies, and glorifies. Salvation is entirely of God from beginning to end. Or perhaps more poignantly, once we have been united to Christ by faith, we cannot be disunited, and our sins, both past and future, are covered by His blood.
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The Nazarenes reject the Levitical texts because, according to them, such texts fail to show the love of God. Instead, they come from “ancient cultural biases.” The authors of “Why the Church” base their subjective argumentation on the power of love. God’s love must be shown to practicing homosexuals; to determine that their sexual practice is against the law of God is to show them hatred rather than love.

We are now obliged to hallow an entire month of Gay Pride celebrations of homosexual practice. Nude men and drag queens parade through our cities, while children look on. Children attending parades used to climb on the fire engines or walk next to a police officer. Now the police are obliged to march in step with the agenda, while military representatives wear a “pride patch” on their uniforms.
How and why has our culture come to accept such perverted sexuality as a ho-hum reality? No doubt the new DEI social justice theory of “oppressed and oppressor” has identified minority sexual identities as one of the oppressed communities. In this “pride” month I discovered a 469-page book with the intriguing title, Why the Church of the Nazarene Should be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming by Thomas Jay Oord and Lexa Oord (SacraSage, 2023). The authors are a pastor and wife couple, members of the Nazarene church. They found some 90 key church members and leaders to write short chapters encouraging the Nazarene church to accept LBGTQ+ practitioners as members and elders of the church, and to adopt the full practice of same-sex marriage.
The Church of the Nazarene: Beginnings and Current Beliefs
The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged in North American Methodism and the 19th century Holiness Movement/Revival. The name was born of a genuine desire to emulate Jesus’ compassion for the poor, as well as to follow the passion for the poor exhibited in the life of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. The “Articles of Faith” in the Manual of Church of the Nazarene, states:
We believe in one God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

That the Old and New Testament scriptures, given by plenary inspiration, contain all truth necessary to faith and Christian living.
That man is born with a fallen nature and is, therefore, inclined to evil, and that continually.
That the finally impenitent are hopelessly and eternally lost.
That the atonement through Christ is for the whole human race; and that whosoever repents and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ is justified and regenerated and saved from the dominion of sin.
That believers are to be sanctified wholly, subsequent to regeneration, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That the Holy Spirit bears witness to the new birth and also the entire sanctification of believers.
That our Lord will return, the dead will be raised, and the final judgment will take place.[1]

It is a major loss for Christian orthodoxy to lose such a powerful denomination. Alas, the mother-church of orthodox Methodism, namely United Methodism, is collapsing. United Methodism’s governing General Conference, from April 23 to May 3, 2024, deleted (!) the “denomination’s specific disapproval of adultery, premarital/extramarital sex, and homosexual behavior from its Book of Discipline.” Nearly two million conservative African Methodists have resolved to exit United Methodism.[2]
How to Read Scripture
Those favoring the normalization of homosexuality have a strange way of interpreting the Scriptures, since they consider them to be divinely inspired. Their reasoning is this: Methodism found a way of interpreting Paul’s teaching on the ordination of women, and there are now women pastors throughout Methodist churches. Methodism must now find a way of interpreting not only Paul’s teaching on sexuality, but explicit texts in Old Testament passages such as Leviticus 18:20–23, which includes homosexuality with incest, child sacrifice, and bestiality as examples of Canaanite (pagan) abominations:
And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor’s wife and so make yourself unclean with her.
You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion. (Lev 18:20–23)
Since this text is concerned with the holiness of God (and thus Israel’s holiness) it also includes reminders to Israel in symbolic practice in everyday things.
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