In Christ Alone

I don’t normally tell people this, but I’m a recovering perfectionist.

Back in high school and early college, I loved taking notes. Elegant, aesthetic, perfect pages of biology and chemistry lectures. Fancy flashcards for presentations and literary terminology littered my bedroom floor. I spent hours upon hours making sure I had gotten everything written down from every PowerPoint.

However, over time, my notetaking grew into something that wasn’t completely healthy. Whenever I sat down to hand write my notes for that day, it wasn’t the highlighted vocabulary or the underlined “this will be on the test” parts that stood out to me.

I had accidentally programmed myself to only see the mistakes.

My “e” was too small, or my sentence wasn’t flawlessly straight. Or when I drew out diagrams and images for studying purposes, if the colors weren’t cohesive enough, I fought the urge to scrap the entire page. No matter the existing word count or time investment, I was haunted by the mistakes I made and the future ones I was bound to make. It was agonizing, but I couldn’t help it.

I couldn’t study something I hated, and I didn’t want an “ugly” page taking up space next to my other pages of impeccable notes. So I scraped and started over—a lot.

Now you may be asking– why didn’t I use a pencil? The answer would be that I simply liked my handwriting better with a pen, which was of utmost importance to me back then. Or you may want to ask 17-year-old Madison- why didn’t you use whiteout if you made a mistake? And I would have told you that the whiteout only reminded me of my error. Every time I went through and studied the notes, the whited-out word would be more noticeable than all the rest.

I didn’t realize until years later that this expectation of perfection didn’t just end with my biology notes. That’s where it started. This habit of forcing perfection began to bleed into other aspects of my life. I had unintentionally created a habit that was hurting me more than it was helping me. I had chained myself to outcomes that were merely in the physical realm.

I held myself to unrealistic standards.
I found it hard to forgive myself when I messed up. 

I became predisposed to holding hands with perfection.

Relationships became difficult for me when I denied myself of being real. I felt the need to always be performing in some way. I had equated perfection to being loved, which took years to reprogram.

I sought perfection in my career– I wanted recognition and success. I wanted my team to like me. I wanted my managers to choose me for the promotion. But even the perfection I tried desperately to keep up with in this realm of my life slowly began to fall apart at the seams, too.

And lastly, the perfection I wanted so badly to see when I looked at my reflection in the mirror was a version of perfection I never uncovered. I did everything I could to achieve it, though– I spent the money and the time, but the airbrushed, flawless representations of people I saw on social media weren’t what I found staring back at me.

Perfection pretended to be my companion until one day, the glass walls of my life shattered. I held the pieces of what used to be the perfect student, daughter, friend, and employee in my hands. But when I looked down at the mess that was supposed to make up my identity, I didn’t find myself—just the parts of me I tried to cover up.

I couldn’t sustain it. I couldn’t be perfect 24/7. I tried for so long, and I still failed. But this failure to reach perfection ultimately led to my freedom. It led me to the One who was, is, and will always be perfect.

Jesus is the author of the kind of perfection that covers my imperfections.

Because I am human, I will always make mistakes. I collect “better luck next time’s” and “not enough’s” like keepsakes that prove my shortcomings. My story is written with a chapter or two I once tried to blot out. These pages now act as evidence in my trial against Perfection. My failures deliberate on the grand jury and agree on the verdict that I’m unworthy of being perfect no matter how hard I try to appeal the sentence.

But the shame and guilt I harbor for not being good enough are the same shame and guilt that have been nailed to the cross.

God doesn’t see our lives as layers and layers of white-out, with the mistakes peeking through the places we tried to cover up. We don’t have to live with the constant reminders that we messed up and that it’s only a matter of time before we mess up again. We may be flawed, but we don’t have to stay that way. The faults and blemishes that may feel permanent to us lose their permanence when covered in God’s forgiveness.

Although God’s forgiveness isn’t to be taken advantage of, He understands our fallible nature. He sent his only Son to cover every sin before we ever thought to sin. So when we obey His will, we are no longer tied to our own perfection.

We are beyond blessed to live in a time where we have the freedom that comes with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. At the same time, I can’t help but reflect on how different it was for those who lived during the Old Testament without the same access to that kind of liberation. Daily sacrifice for their sin was mandatory. And forgiveness had to be earned through these offerings. Not only did the sacrifice have to be offered up according to what God had said, but the heart posture of the one presenting the offering had to be in alignment with purity and repentance– or else it wouldn’t be accepted by God.

The old Levitical Law included five types of sacrifices: burnt offering, grain offering, peace offering, sin offering, and trespass offering. The sin and trespass offerings were made to atone for transgressions– intentional or unintentional. The guilty party was required to present their animal sacrifice without defect, giving up a valuable possession.

If you open up Leviticus, it can be quite intimidating at first as the book’s main focus is on the sacrificial processes– from how to slaughter the animal, to where to pour out the blood, to which parts of the sacrifice to burn, as a pleasing aroma to the Lord. These sacrifices are not meticulous, laborious efforts because God is over-demanding and impossible to please. The act of sacrifice is painstaking because of what it’s covering. The reparation for sin is heavy, so it requires careful attention to detail.

When I first started studying these sacrifices mentioned in the text, it felt like I was reading the same verse over and over again. This was partly due to the natural repetition embedded within the sacrificial laws to ensure that they were understood by the children of Israel. But I think the main reason I felt like I was reading the same page twice was the subtle and easily overlooked details (to new readers like me) woven into these instructions from the Lord.

For example, in Leviticus 4, starting in verses 22-23, “‘When a leader sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the commands of the Lord his God, when he realizes his guilt and the sin he has committed becomes known, he must bring as his offering a male goat without defect.”

And again in verses 27-28, “‘If any member of the community sins unintentionally and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, when they realize their guilt and the sin they have committed becomes known, they must bring as their offering for the sin they committed a female goat without defect.”

There’s a slight difference in the sacrificial specifications based on who sinned and whether the animal is to be male or female. So, in this case, if a leader sins without thought, they are to bring a male goat without blemish. But if an individual member of the Israelite community negligently sins, then they are to bring a female goat.

There is specificity within the Old Law. High degrees of precision and exactness were at the forefront of this time. There wasn’t room to be less than perfect when sin was involved. In Leviticus 7:21, “And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the LORD’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.”

As this verse states, coming in contact with an unclean animal was dishonorable to God, and the person who touched or ate from it would be considered impure. Before they could be accepted back into the community, they would have to undergo a purification process involving isolation and separation from the community until they were deemed clean again. 

I bring all this up to point out how damaging sin is—how easily it can taint, infect, and poison our relationship with God and how quickly it can corrupt our closeness to Him. The sheer prevalence of sins in our daily lives is undeniable. The high frequency of everyday sin necessitated an alternative way to come into alignment with the Lord.

Animal sacrifices were never sufficient enough to take on the consequences of sin for all mankind. In Hebrews 10:3-4, “But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins”.

No matter how many sacrifices were made and how clean the animal put on the altar was, the blight of sin would always return. The calloused grip of Satan threatens never to let go. Temptations hide in every corner and crevice of daily life. There was no long-lasting remedy.

Not until Jesus.

The emphasized need for sacrifice in the Old Testament has always pointed to Christ’s perfect and final sacrifice on the cross, negating the requirement to offer animals for redemption. As with the rest of the Law, the sacrifices were “a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:17).

Picking back up in Hebrews 10:11–14, “And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified”.

Jesus’ faultless and sinless life became the one and only, unequivocal, perfect sacrifice that fully covers the sins of every man.

In Christ alone, I am saved and set apart.

In Christ alone, I am made whole and new and free.
In Christ alone, I am unchained from the inevitability of sin’s destruction.

I regret spending so many years of my life striving for perfection, running toward the approval of others so that my performance would be applauded. I wanted so badly to reach this standard I had set for myself and receive the standing ovation. But one day, I woke up and realized how deceived I had let myself become.

I was convinced that I could arrive at a state of perfection as if it were a destination I could pack up and run to. I began to idolize perfection. I believed it was an accomplishment I could achieve and hang up like a plaque on my wall. I had been played for a fool and strung along until it was evident that the trophy of perfection I had set my sights on winning was only ever a counterfeit for the real thing.

What Jesus gives us in the form of His sacrifice on the cross is a gift I will cling tightly to and treasure all of my days. It’s in His perfect ways that I uncover the realization that this earthly perfection isn’t mine to achieve. Perfection has never been something I could earn, somewhere I could run to, or someone I could become. The only perfection I need is the one I didn’t do anything to deserve.

In Christ alone, I am perfect.