What Matthew 5:48 taught me about friendship, self-centeredness, and the grace of God.

Welp, It Happened Again…

My husband called me out for my poor attitude, and the Holy Spirit used it to convict me deeply about my self-centeredness. I was grumbling and complaining about people again. Standards and expectations I had for others to meet that were completely unjustified and anti-Christian. My husband was right to call it out in me, and I’m glad he did, because it led me down a rabbit hole, where I was totally in awe of who God is and His merciful, loving kindness toward us. 

I should pause here and give you a little backstory. I am an extremely outgoing person. In theory, I love people, but recently, that has not been my practice. After becoming a Christian, God drove us to the North East, where I would be pretty isolated with just my growing family for five years. I didn’t really have anyone to grow spiritually with or to do life with. I learned to talk to myself, argue with myself, and be against going anywhere or doing anything with others. I had allowed my circumstances to change my personality and alter my thoughts for a while. 

How Hurt Changed My Heart

After leaving the North East, we would move a dozen more times, and I just couldn’t build roots anywhere, nor develop relationships beyond a superficial stage, until I met Stephanie. She helped me grow so much in rediscovering my love for people. She is the opposite of me and also taught me to care more deeply about people, to express empathy, and to show me that people do FEEL things, and it’s okay! But after four years of being together, God would call us to separate, and I found myself struggling again to make deep connections. 

I have had a lot of hurt and loss in relationships over the years, and I have built walls, erected idols of expectations, and totally calloused my heart to protect myself from any future grief I could possibly experience. To the point where my husband had to call me out! 

The Expectations I Never Questioned

All I have ever wanted is to be a good friend. I read books, listened to podcasts, and have prayed so hard that I would have someone to be a good friend to. But somewhere along the way, I shifted from an outward longing to an inward self-centeredness. Somehow, I stopped thinking about who I wanted to be for others and started thinking about what I wanted people to be for me. 

The Verse I Couldn’t Ignore

I would go to events and think that if no one talked to me, then I guess it wasn’t meant to be. If someone looked at me wrong, I thought immediately, “Oh, they don’t like me, so stay clear.” The way I had allowed the enemy to swoop in and plant thorns all over the good soil was all becoming so clear. Especially, as I read the verse from Matthew 5:48,

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

Woah. Okay. That seems a little ridiculous, Jesus. Like, how are we supposed to be “perfect” when none of us can reach perfection here on earth? I thought to myself. And, if you look a little closer, the verses above are talking about loving your enemies, and it says, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” 

Ehhhh. I sank into my chair. So, not only do we have this high calling of perfection, but also the calling to love people who hate us? Great! All of this really stung because, in being consistent with my thoughts, I had come to think everyone hated me. In reality, I don’t actually believe anyone hated me, but I certainly was hating them. 

Why God Commands the Impossible

This is exactly why the gospel is counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, and defies human logic. We naturally want to pay back the wrongs done to us, sit in our pity parties, and ruminate on how we think we are justified in behaving in certain ways. But Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

So there I was, sitting with my husband, allowing every word to penetrate, and I was met with the grace of God, who convicts us of sin. We are called to impossible standards, apart from Christ. And I believe that is the point Jesus is trying to make! Depend on your heavenly Father for help. Look to Him as the standard and follow after Him in the example of Christ. 

And boy, do I need God’s help in every area of my life. But right then, I realized I needed His help to break the patterns and habits I had allowed in my thoughts and behaviors toward others, and I needed to love even my supposed enemies. 

The goal is not independence from Him, but dependency upon Him.

The more honestly we look at God’s holiness, the more we recognize our need for grace. God’s standards are not an excuse to sin, nor are they a reason to despair. But praise be to God that in Christ Jesus, we can accomplish all things. The goal is not self-sufficiency, but communion with God. The goal is not independence from Him, but dependency upon Him. If we were able to become perfect on our own, we would have reason to boast and no need for Christ, which is anti-Christian. 

There is a great comfort in realizing that the Father is not surprised by our weaknesses. He knows exactly who we are. He knows our pride, selfishness, envy, rage, and every other flaw that remains. Yet He keeps calling us back to Him, He keeps calling us to repentance, and to keep walking in the Spirit.

As God is working in me a new heart and a new mind for loving others again, I am reminded that my desire for friendship and community is not sinful; my ideals and demands of others are. Maybe the friendships I desire won’t come in the way I imagined. Maybe people will continue to disappoint me. But God is teaching me that my calling is not to control how others love me. My calling is to learn how to love others as Christ has loved me. 

What Conviction Was Revealed

Looking back, I can see that my greatest obstacle wasn’t other people. It wasn’t the lack of community. It wasn’t the many moves, the goodbyes, or the disappointments. My greatest obstacle was the condition of my own heart. 

Life does wound us, I’m not denying that. We all experience hurt, loss, and disappointment to some degree. Those things may explain some of my struggles, but they do not excuse my sin. Hurt may be part of my story, but I was allowing it to become a part of my identity. Christ calls me to be transformed, not trapped by what happened to me. 

Learning to Love Again

God, in His kindness, used a simple conversation with my husband to expose something ugly that had quietly taken root. Yet conviction is one of the sweetest gifts God gives His children because He corrects what He intends to heal.

With Jesus as my example of a perfect friend, I don’t have to dread God’s command to be perfect. Instead, I can look to the One who is perfect and trust Him to continue His work in me. Day by day, He is teaching me how to love others as He has loved me.

The same God who showed me my self-centeredness is also teaching me how to love again.