Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," Matt. 5:48. said Jesus. Building upon and illuming the Master's teaching, Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea,— perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration." Science and Health, p. 259.
If we're honest, we may admit to being initially put off by the requirement to be perfect and to think and act from the standpoint of perfection. We might regard fulfilling it as unattainable or possible only for a few especially saintly people.
We might also have to reckon with our half-conscious feeling that perfection is so remote and unworldly that we wouldn't want to attain it even if we could. Something in us may respond to the old story about a man who awakes in the afterlife in incredibly luxurious surroundings, attended by servants who gratify his every wish. Within a few weeks he becomes so bored and restless that he exclaims: "Life has no purpose anymore. Everything I want I instantly have. You call this heaven?"—whereupon one of his servants says, "What made you think this was supposed to be heaven, fella? You're in the other place."
