We live in a world that prizes achievement and polish. Because of this, many Christians quietly and sometimes loudly wrestle with the heavy burden of perfectionism. We come to believe that our faith, our churches, or our leaders must have flawless holiness. Yet in Jeremiah 31:31–34, God promised something far greater than human perfection. He promised a New Covenant grounded not in our ability to perform, but in His grace to redeem.
When the prophet Jeremiah first announced that God would make a “new covenant,” Judah was crumbling under Babylon’s judgment. Their old covenant obedience had failed, their nation was falling apart, and hope seemed lost. Yet right there, in the full view of sin and punishment, God spoke words those words of hope that have echoed down through time. He said, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Nearly two thousand years ago, Christ fulfilled that promise through His death and resurrection. The New Covenant, then, is not about flawless people, but a faithful, perfect Savior. It’s a covenant that replaces the external demands of the law with the internal work of the Spirit. After all, God promised to write His law on the hearts of believers.
But even as redeemed people, we still live in what theologians call the “already but not yet” tension of faith. We already belong to Christ, yet we are not yet perfect. We still stumble, still grow, still need grace daily. And when we forget that, two dangerous distortions emerge in the church: perfectionism and pessimism.
Perfectionism expects the church and its people to get everything right. Pastors struggle with this thinking that every sermon has to be flawless. Church members often project this perfectionism believing and even acting like every leader has to be without fault. Some even become stuck because they are so afraid of failure. When everyone and everything has to be perfect, the result for us is simply bondage. But that false expectation crushes joy and stifles mission. It turns the Christian life into a competition rather than a calling. As one of my seminary professors would remind us of quite often, “God strikes straight with a crooked stick because that’s all He has to work with.”
On the other hand, pessimism swings the pendulum too far the other way. It whispers, “Nothing will ever change.” It fixates on what is wrong with the church, the culture, or the world and slowly smothers faith under discouragement. The pessimist stops praying, stops serving, and stops believing that God is still at work.
The antidote to both errors is what we might call biblical realism. We need to see the church through the lens of the New Covenant. The church is a divine creation. It was purchased by Christ’s blood and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Yet it is also full of broken people learning grace one day at a time. God’s plan for His church is not to make it a museum of perfect saints, but a workshop of redeemed sinners being remade in Christ’s image.
The New Covenant offers us hope in this messy process. It reminds us that sanctification takes time, that grace is greater than failure, and that the church’s strength lies not in its perfection but in its perseverance. Our calling, then, is to rejoice in what God is doing, trust His promises, and keep pressing forward not as flawless people, but as forgiven ones. So when we look at our lives and our churches and see the cracks, let’s remember that God does His best work through imperfect people. He always has. And He always will. Let’s show some grace to ourselves today and to others as well.
Pastor Joe Tolin
Kingman Presbyterian ChurchTags
Religion, Kingman Presbyterian Church, Pastor Joe Tolin
Avoiding Perfectionism
We live in a world that prizes achievement and polish. Because of this, many Christians quietly and sometimes loudly wrestle with the heavy burden of perfectionism. We come to believe that our faith, our churches, or our leaders must have flawless holiness. Yet in Jeremiah 31:31–34, God promised something far greater than human perfection. He promised a New Covenant grounded not in our ability to perform, but in His grace to redeem.
When the prophet Jeremiah first announced that God would make a “new covenant,” Judah was crumbling under Babylon’s judgment. Their old covenant obedience had failed, their nation was falling apart, and hope seemed lost. Yet right there, in the full view of sin and punishment, God spoke words those words of hope that have echoed down through time. He said, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Nearly two thousand years ago, Christ fulfilled that promise through His death and resurrection. The New Covenant, then, is not about flawless people, but a faithful, perfect Savior. It’s a covenant that replaces the external demands of the law with the internal work of the Spirit. After all, God promised to write His law on the hearts of believers.
But even as redeemed people, we still live in what theologians call the “already but not yet” tension of faith. We already belong to Christ, yet we are not yet perfect. We still stumble, still grow, still need grace daily. And when we forget that, two dangerous distortions emerge in the church: perfectionism and pessimism.
Perfectionism expects the church and its people to get everything right. Pastors struggle with this thinking that every sermon has to be flawless. Church members often project this perfectionism believing and even acting like every leader has to be without fault. Some even become stuck because they are so afraid of failure. When everyone and everything has to be perfect, the result for us is simply bondage. But that false expectation crushes joy and stifles mission. It turns the Christian life into a competition rather than a calling. As one of my seminary professors would remind us of quite often, “God strikes straight with a crooked stick because that’s all He has to work with.”
On the other hand, pessimism swings the pendulum too far the other way. It whispers, “Nothing will ever change.” It fixates on what is wrong with the church, the culture, or the world and slowly smothers faith under discouragement. The pessimist stops praying, stops serving, and stops believing that God is still at work.
The antidote to both errors is what we might call biblical realism. We need to see the church through the lens of the New Covenant. The church is a divine creation. It was purchased by Christ’s blood and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Yet it is also full of broken people learning grace one day at a time. God’s plan for His church is not to make it a museum of perfect saints, but a workshop of redeemed sinners being remade in Christ’s image.
The New Covenant offers us hope in this messy process. It reminds us that sanctification takes time, that grace is greater than failure, and that the church’s strength lies not in its perfection but in its perseverance. Our calling, then, is to rejoice in what God is doing, trust His promises, and keep pressing forward not as flawless people, but as forgiven ones. So when we look at our lives and our churches and see the cracks, let’s remember that God does His best work through imperfect people. He always has. And He always will. Let’s show some grace to ourselves today and to others as well.
Pastor Joe Tolin
Kingman Presbyterian Church
