Do you struggle with your inperfections?

1 Peter 3:8
Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.

The world responds to this message with an emphatic "are you kidding me?" That's right, the idea behind this message seems too "good" for this world. We live in a world that most times rewards the opposite behavior.

Harmony with one another gives away to bickering with one another. In direct defiance with this idea, shows like Jerry Springer somehow remain in business.

To be sympathetic is an idea that remains a nice idea in theory but succumbs to the wrath we often exhibit when others do not fit the mold we would like them to fit.

To love as brothers is often forgotten as our sense of self preservation kicks in and all the sudden we feel more important than our fellow brothers and sisters.

Being compassionate is easy as long as it is comfortable for us to be compassionate. However, when trouble comes our way, compassion is often a luxury we expense off so we can focus on solving our own problems.

And finally, to be humble in this world is often considered to be weak. Why be humble and humiliated when you can stand tall in your pride?

So why does Peter gives us this seemingly rose colored message? After what I've painted here so far, it seems like a "command" that would doom us for failure right from the start. To add to this challenge, the passages before this are the ones where Peter says "wives, submit to your husbands."

All these passages are often misused and become the anchor to legalistic behavior that is very damaging to the church and Christians.

So what are we to do with this passage? The way I look at it is simple.

When we look at ourselves and others we see all the obvious imperfections. Then we set out on a path of self improvement only to see that no matter how hard we work at it, we still see and feel our imperfections. Frustrated, we begin to compensate in ways that ultimately are destructive.

A simpler way is to realize that God put this whole plan together so that when he sees us, he sees perfection. After all, we are his workmanship and his workmanship is nothing but perfect.

So where we see imperfections he sees perfections in his plan. In other words, somethings we are not happy with might be exactly what he needs to get us to move one way or another.

So now when we look at the verse, we can realize that "in Christ" we can "Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble." Think about it, despite wars, arguments, strife and struggle, things continue to move and you can see God's hands at work every day.

When we shed the guilt and condemnation of not feeling perfect in our own strength, and embrace the perfection of ourselves within God's control, then we can finally feel a freedom to embrace God's acceptance of us and go on to "Live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble."