You Don’t Need To Be Perfect To Be A Good Latter-day Saint

We live in an age where everyone’s life is perfect. Or at least it looks that way. From the photos of models to the pictures on social media, everything and everyone life, dog, and family look flawless. Sometimes it even feels like everyone at church is perfect. They have amazing spouses, faithful children, and awesome testimonies. It makes those of us who don’t have a perfect life feel like we don’t belong.

This past month I was visiting a ward in rural Utah and in the testimony meeting a lady stood up and said, “I don’t belong here, my life is not perfect. My children are not returned missionaries married in the temple…” She then started to weep, and continued,  “My children are currently in jail. I don’t belong here.” I’ve thought a lot about this testimony over the past couple weeks. And how the strive for perfection causes many to feel unwelcome, and that they don’t belong.

The problem does not come with people striving to become better. It comes from a cultural belief that if your life is not perfect, then you are a bad Latter-day Saint. Mormon culture says things like: If your kids go less active, you are a bad Latter-day Saint. If your child struggles with same-gender attraction, then you are a bad Latter-day Saint. Or if all of your kids do not serve full-time missions and get married in the temple, you are a bad Latter-day Saint.

Here is a simple truth. Anyone can live up to gospel standards. No one can live up to the cultural standards. Even God the Father would be considered a “bad Latter-day Saint” according to the culture, after all, He did not have one child go less active, but an entire third. There is a big difference between the Gospel as taught by Jesus Christ and His Prophets and Apostles and the culture. Here are just three examples.

Being Perfect Vs. Being Complete.

Whereas the Culture says, “fake it till you make it.” Or, “if you are not perfect, you are not living the Gospel.” Jesus Christ taught, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48. Two things must be noticed about this command. First, the meaning of the word perfect that Jesus Christ used was not “Flawless, without error, and never making a mistake” the footnote clarifies being “perfect” as being “complete, finished, fully developed.” (Footnote 48 b perfect). Second, and far more critical is what happens when we look the same sermon given a few years later to the Nephites, when Jesus Christ says, “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” 3rd Nephi 12:48

After Christ was resurrected, He was complete, finished, and fully developed. Only with an immortal and glorified body did He declare become like Heavenly Father or I. The command to be perfect is misunderstood if we think it means to be perfect now. The command is better understood as an invite and a challenge. Develop faith in Jesus Christ, repent, enter the waters of baptism, receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end. Then your reward will be exaltation and eternal lives, or in other words, being complete, finished, and fully developed.

“Perfection is pending. It can come in full only after the Resurrection and only through the Lord. It awaits all who love him and keep his commandments. It includes thrones, kingdoms, principalities, powers, and dominions. It is the end for which we are to endure.”
President Russell M. Nelson

A Gospel of Repentance Not Perfection.

Within the Church, we often look to our leaders and think they are perfect. The simple truth is they are not. Not only will thinking others are perfect cause us to feel inferior but when they act imperfectly, it will shake our testimonies. The scriptures teach us how powerful priesthood leaders reached their status. In Alma 13:10 we read, “Now, as I said concerning the holy order, or this high priesthood, there were many who were ordained and became high priests of God; and it was on account of their exceeding faith and repentance, and their righteousness before God, they choosing to repent and work righteousness rather than to perish;”

The gospel is a gospel of repentance. Our leaders are not perfect; they are sinners just like us. Jesus Christ, the only perfect person to walk the earth. Whereas our leaders are not perfect, often they are extremely good at repentance. The difference between a saint and a sinner is repentance.

“If we don’t try, we’re just latter-day sinners; if we don’t persevere, we’re latter-day quitters; and if we don’t allow others to try, we’re just latter-day hypocrites”
Dale G. Renlund

Saints Are Sinners Who Keep Trying.

Life is not perfect; some days you will cry, some days it will be hard to keep going. And it is ok, just keep going! Even Jesus wept. It is ok if you are still single, it is OK if you don’t know what you want your major to be. Instead of stressing over the aspects of your life that are still in development,  focus on living the gospel and being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

We do not need to feel inadequate for not being as far along the road as someone else. Elder Neal A. Maxwell explained that everyone has good days and bad days and that it is not where we are, but where we are going that matters, He said: “It is direction first, then velocity!” Honestly, he gives one of the most essential and powerful talks about feelings of inadequacy within the church, click here to read it or watch it below.

Conclusion.

Comparison is the devil’s key tool of discouragement. The race is not against our brothers and sister but Satan. Realize that you don’t need to be perfect now, you just need to be trying. Have faith, repent, make and keep and when necessary repair and renew covenants.  That is all God requires of us. If we but honestly try we will be rewarded with eternal life.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie was quoted by Elder L. Tom Perry in Oct 2006 general conference when he said “Everyone in the Church who is on the straight and narrow path, who is striving and struggling and desiring to do what is right, though [he] is far from perfect in this life; if he passes out of this life while he’s on the straight and narrow, he’s going to go on to eternal reward in his Father’s kingdom”