Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:48
I believe that when it comes to the gospel, by far and away, the toughest pill to swallow is that everyone desperately needs a Savior. Without knowing and being jarred by the reality that without Christ, every human being is born spiritually dead and is headed for certain eternal condemnation—why should anyone give Jesus Christ a second thought?
A crucial component of being dead in sin is the delusion of our own basic goodness. All but those who are insane realize that they are not perfect. The problem lies with the fatal error that our less-than-perfectness doesn’t matter! Well-meaning Christians, in an attempt to get people to “accept the Lord,” present the Savior as the remedy for any one of a number of lesser problems from which we suffer. Jesus will give your life purpose. Jesus will help you overcome additions. Jesus will be your friend. Jesus will fix your relational, social, and/or financial problems. Etc., etc., etc.
While becoming a Christian will impact all of those things, Jesus came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21)! He is the one and only remedy for the horrifying fact that no one is perfect, and the end result of being less than perfect—as God in Heaven is perfect—is eternal condemnation.
That said, I sincerely fear for those who have “accepted” the Band-Aid Jesus to heals their boo-boos, without any concern regarding sin, death, and Hell!
I am also convinced that the key to understanding our own sinfulness lies solely in understanding God’s holiness—and that final judgment is based on how we stack up against the perfections of God Almighty.
Interestingly, no one can convince others either of God’s holiness or of their sin as the reason to surrender their lives to Jesus for forgiveness. We must try, being as loving, persuasive, and passionate as we can be, but only the Holy Spirit can raise the spiritually dead to life. That is why we must also pray—that the Holy Spirit will do what only He can do to swallow this most difficult gospel pill.
The good news of the Gospel is that once a person is born again by the Spirit of God, and forgiven of his or her sins, God graciously declares His people holy and righteous as Christ is holy and righteous—or perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect.