What is the last thing you did out of desperation? Get to the doctor because you were desperate to get better? Go on a date because you were desperate to get away from your kids? Study because you were desperate to pass a test? Most of our desperation comes in moments because most of the time we are doing okay, but Scripture teaches us that all of humanity is desperate for God.

Here is why:

Our desperation for Scripture is because our perfection is in Christ alone. It isn’t so we can become good Christians, become good people, or use it as a tool to raise our kids to be good kids. It is to run to scripture to see that our perfection is in Christ alone.

Scripture teaches us God requires perfection from for us to dwell in His presence and when sin entered the equation our hearts become wicked and rebellious toward God. We became completely imperfect. This isn’t a popular message today because we think we are basically good people who do good things and every once in awhile bad things slip through the cracks.

However, the Scriptures teach us for humanity to dwell in the presence of God He doesn’t require basically good people, but instead perfect people. All we have to do is weigh our life against something as simple as not lying to see that we aren’t perfect people and we hate God for this.

We hate that He demands perfection. Deep down in our hearts we find it offensive and we ultimately decide to pursue perfection on our own and the only way that is possible is to have a low view of God or a high view of ourselves and we create our own standard of perfection that we think is good enough, but it isn’t.

That is why God came to us, that is why Jesus walked among us, that is why when He died it was for our sin and our imperfection and a Christian is one who trusts that when Jesus died it was for their imperfection and through faith we become perfected in Christ. We receive the righteousness of Christ.

Our desperation for Scripture is because our perfection only comes through faith in the perfect work of Christ on the cross. When we go to Scripture it is to learn more and grow more in our understanding of Christ, fall more in love with Him, see a bigger picture of the gospel, because it is huge, and as a result it will lead to change behavior. Jesus will bring His perfection to the surface, but it is only through Jesus.