How could I have missed it?
Jesus did not proclaim the Sermon on the Mount so that we would furrow our brows in despair over our failure to achieve perfection. He gave it to impart to us God’s Ideal toward which we should never stop striving, but also to show that none of us will ever reach that Ideal. The Sermon on the Mount forces us to recognize the great distance between God and us, and any attempt to reduce that distance by somehow moderating its demands misses the point altogether.
–Philip Yancey
Keep striving toward the ideal of Jesus.
Perfectly loving, perfectly compassionate, perfectly humble.
Full of grace, joy, peace, patience.
We will never measure up to his perfect ideal, but we must keep striving to do so, knowing that the great distance that exists between us and God is filled up by Jesus’ action on the cross. He measures up for us. And so, because we are so grateful and loving toward this One who first loved us, we keep striving to be exactly like Him.