"Nobody's Perfect" Is No Excuse to Stay the Same
Jackie Hill Perry, author of Blameless, tells RELEVANT Magazine that phrase can cover sin or crush the one who wants to be faithful.
Imagine the small group: someone confesses their anger and another person blurts out "nobody's perfect." In an article in RELEVANT Magazine, Jackie Hill Perry says that phrase can become an excuse not to change.
Two paths for the same phrase
Perry distinguishes two origins. If someone just wants to do their own will, the phrase serves as an escape: after all, nobody reaches perfection. But if it's said by someone trying to be faithful and sees their failures everywhere, the same phrase sinks them into hopelessness. Excusing yourself is not the same as giving up.
There's the detail Perry points out in Romans 7: many quote Paul's lament and stop before the end. "It expresses what Paul said, but it doesn't finish what Paul said," she states (Sígueme translation).
«Said with grace, the phrase comforts; said with laziness, it covers what God wants to heal.»
The chapter doesn't close in defeat: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25, ESV).
What she gets right and what I want to add
I agree with Perry on the center. Sanctification is real, not an adornment of the gospel, and it is also God's work.
Paul wrote it to the Corinthians: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." (1 Corinthians 3:6, ESV). That removes two burdens: you don't produce your own growth, nor can you use the phrase as permission to stay the same.
A doctrinal detail helps here. Justification is an act: God declares righteous the one who believes, and that doesn't change based on your performance that day.
Sanctification, on the other hand, is a process: the Spirit works in you throughout your whole life. Confusing them produces two extremes: the one who thinks they're saved by behaving well, or the one who believes their failure doesn't matter.
I wonder if we young people read this discussion with the wrong question. Some fear becoming legalistic and then stop taking sin seriously. Others demand so much of themselves that they live tired and guilty.
Perry doesn't ask for perfection now. She acknowledges that on this side of heaven it's not possible, and at the same time reminds us that Jesus called us to be perfect: there is a goal we walk toward. Real change, without acting.
Her album is called Blameless, and the word came to her while praying on a plane.
In one of her songs she points to John 15, where God prunes the branches that bear fruit so they bear more. She says she has experienced constant corrections, and clarifies that they don't come from legalism, but from the purpose of the gospel: to be formed into the image of the Son.
A small step for this week
When Perry explains how this looks in daily life, she makes it simple. Every morning there are new mercies. Spiritual disciplines help you live like Jesus: if you have ten minutes, pray for ten minutes. Then, take the two greatest commandments and apply them to whatever the day puts in front of you. Without complicating it.
For a young Christian, the difference is in the direction of the phrase. Said with grace, it comforts the one who hates themselves for failing. Said with laziness, it covers what God wants to heal. Neither is the end: the end is Christ, who delivers from the body of death and keeps giving growth.
I leave you the question: what is God calling you to grow in this week? Not so you punish yourself, but so you walk with him.
