“Be ye Therefore Perfect”

While serving as a missionary, as a young man in Brazil, I often quoted this scripture from Matthew 5:48 which states, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” I made the mistake in truly believing we, as individuals, could become perfect. Otherwise, why would Christ ask us to do so.

I thought, we can be perfect in somethings. We can be perfect in paying our tithing. We can be perfect in keeping the Word of Wisdom. But over the years I have realized I cannot even keep those perfectly. In fact, there is nothing I can do perfectly. I am an imperfect being.

I wanted to be a righteous person. I thought that if I kept the commandments, went to church on a regular basis and prayed often, I would be a righteous person. There again, I was mistaken. No matter how hard I tried there was no possibility of becoming righteous on my own. Of all the myriad of commandments, there are always a number of them that I am not fully keeping. So, there has never been a time in my life where I thought I was a righteous person.

I looked around at my friends at church and in the community thinking I saw many righteous people. I was discouraged that I couldn’t be righteous like them. I was trying to do it on my own.

Just a few chapters after the one that caused me so much anguish is the answer in Matthew 11:28-30. It says,

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” 

I realized that scripture applied to me. I was working hard and my load was heavy. I wasn’t even coming close to the righteousness or perfection I sought. Part of the time I put on a righteous or perfect face trying to look the part. That didn’t work. All it did was make me feel hypocritical because I could see all those other righteous and perfect people with whom I did not belong.

The Savior’s promise was, “I will give you rest.” It took me years for that scripture to sink in. I yearned for, but how was I to get that rest? His answer, “Take my yoke upon you.”

I know that when two animals are placed in an yoke together, they must be equally yoked together. They must have approximately the same strength and cooperate to pull the load. They must each pull their share.

How could I be equally yoked with Jesus Christ? He is omnipotent while I am very weak. Yet He said, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I didn’t understand. 

Last April, when Elder David A. Bednar spoke in General Conference, he said, “Making and keeping sacred covenants yokes us to and with the Lord Jesus Christ. In essence, the Savior is beckoning us to rely upon and pull together with Him, even though our best efforts are not equal to and cannot be compared with His. As we trust in and pull our load with Him during the journey of mortality, truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light.”

After all these years, the first Scripture, “Be ye therefore perfect,” made perfect sense. It is Jesus Christ, pulling the main share of my load, Who will make me perfect.  There is no possibility of me becoming perfect in and of myself. It is Jesus Christ Who will make me righteous. There is no possibility of me becoming righteous on my own.

The virtues I wanted for myself, perfection and righteousness, were impossible for me. But here again, I find the answer in the same book of Matthew 19:26 when Jesus said, “with God all things are possible.”

AlI I need to do is have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to be yoked together with Him. Obviously, I need to sincerely do what I can and He will do the rest. 

I hope and pray that someone in my family or among my friends will find this helpful to lighten your load. If not, just going through this process for myself has been helpful to me.