God also told Abraham to be perfect. What does it mean to be perfect? For Abraham to be imperfect did not mean that he was not good; it meant that he was short of God. None of us can be perfected without God. Without God, there is no perfection. Without Him we are always lacking something. Regardless of how perfect we may be in ourselves, we are still short of God and need to be perfected by and with God. If your home life is without God, your home life is not perfect. If God is not in your married life, your married life is imperfect. There is no perfection without God. Suppose your hand had only four fingers. Although it might be a good hand, since it did not have the thumb, it would not be perfect. Your hand would need to be perfected by the addition of the thumb. If one day the thumb would come to be added to your hand, your hand would be perfect. Hence, to be perfect means that we need God to be added to us. To walk before God means to enjoy Him, and to be perfected means to have God added to us. Have you ever realized that your perfection is God Himself? Have you ever realized that regardless of how good you are or how perfect you are in human eyes, without God you are short of something? We do not have the perfecting factor in ourselves, for the perfecting factor is God Himself. God must be added into our lives. If He is not added into our lives, our lives will remain imperfect.

Why did God require Abraham to be perfect? Because God was and still is the all-sufficient Mighty One. Since He is the all-sufficient Mighty One, there is no reason or excuse for us to be imperfect. Whatever we lack, God is. Do you lack strength? God is strength. Do you need energy? God is energy. God is whatever we need. Thus, God's all-sufficiency requires us to be perfect. There is no reason for us to be poor; we have a large deposit in the heavenly bank.

Practically speaking, to be perfect means that we do not rely upon the strength of the flesh but trust in the all-sufficient Mighty One for our life and work. We should not rely upon the exercise of our natural self or upon the energy of our flesh. We must always trust in God's all-sufficiency for everything. Many of us, for example, are troubled by our temper. Why do we lose our temper at certain times? Because at those times we do not trust in God. The losing of our temper should force us to learn one lesson—never to stay away from God but to trust in Him every moment. Do not try to overcome your temper. If you forget your temper and trust in God every moment, your temper will be overcome. Every imperfection is due to one thing: that we keep ourselves away from the all-sufficient Mighty One. When we keep ourselves away from Him, we are like an electrical appliance that will not work because it is cut off from the supply of electricity. We all must learn to keep ourselves constantly in God. This is the way to be perfect.

When as a young Christian I read 17:1, I realized that I was not perfect. I lacked kindness, humility, patience, love, and many other virtues and attributes. Therefore, in my prayer I made the decision that with the help of the Lord I would have love, patience, humility, kindness, and the other virtues that I lacked. But I must tell you that I never succeeded. Whenever I read 17:1 I could not understand what it meant to be perfect. Eventually I saw that the perfecting factor in our life is God Himself and that I needed to have God added into me. The most that we have is four fingers; we do not have the thumb. Regardless of how much we might train our four fingers to do things, they will still be imperfect because they are without the thumb. We need the thumb to be added to our hand to make it perfect.