Perfection Equals Rejection

Question…

- Do you find yourself correcting people more than championing their good?

- Do you first look for the flaws in yourself and others?

- Does God’s voice sound critical and disappointed in you? Furthermore, do you feel you need to earn His approval by your good works?

- Is it difficult to work with others because no one ever measures up to your standards? Maybe you believe that people just don’t care as much as you do.

- Do you believe you’re consistently falling short of where you think you should be?

- Do you thrive on compliments of your work, appearance, and accomplishments?

If any of this sounds familiar to you, you may be dealing with a spirit of perfectionism and more deeply rooted—a spirit of rejection.

When a person is wounded and oppressed by a spirit of rejection, to avoid future pain, they begin operating in perfectionism believing that if they do everything right they can spare themselves the sting of rejection in the future. It’s a false sense of protection and control concealing a deeper wound. By controlling themselves, others, and the outcome of situations they believe they can avoid future pain. They begin to equate acceptance and love with their performance. Believing if they do everything right they will be worthy of love.

This spirit will also cause them to see everyone else through a lens of criticism, falling short of an impossible and invisible standard they have set. If others are not operating to achieve they must not be worthy of love either. Love and acceptance becomes a game of weighing and measuring themselves and others.

What’s the remedy? This is not just a demonization issue, for most, there is a stronghold of the mind that needs to be broken and a soul wound that needs healing. Those afflicted need to have a revelation of God’s complete acceptance of them untied to their own righteousness and works. Ecclesiastes 7:20 says there is no righteous man on the earth that does not sin. Perfectionism is deceptive because it begins to conflate righteousness with works. We can never earn true righteousness. It is only a gift given through salvation in Christ. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for excellence, but if excellence determines your value and God’s love for you it has been misappropriated.

Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins. Ecclesiastes 7:20

Furthermore, the world today celebrates perfectionism and employers often look for candidates that exhibit this quality because of the length and effort they will go to to produce results. Where this becomes unhealthy is when a perfectionist is met with inevitable failure and if they feel they haven’t measured up they believe they are a disappointment to God, themselves, and others. Furthermore, a perfectionist leader may become critical and condemning of their team if they don’t measure up to their standards.

Understand, we can operate in excellence and produce wonderful results without it becoming part of our identity. In fact, a healthy believer will do this by the Spirit of God and His grace. The Word promises that God is faithful to continue His work in us until it is complete, but this is a work done through the Spirit of God (ref. Galatians 3:3, Phil. 1:6). They understand the work of the Spirit cannot be perfected in the flesh and it’s God’s job to perfect us, not ours.

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Galatians 3:3

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

True freedom also is realized when a believer understands that God’s love is not measured by our ability to produce for Him. Just as a parent loves his or her child simply because they are theirs—God loves us, unconditionally, because we belong to Him (ref. Galatians 4:4-7). This revelation cannot just be head knowledge, it must seep into the heart of the believer bringing healing to wounds of earthly rejection.

But when the fullness of the time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons and daughters. Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God. Galatians 4:4-7

I recall the time the Lord showed me His love for me in a vision. He gave me a picture of myself as a little baby wrapped in a pink blanket. He was holding me tenderly in His arms and told me He could never love me more than as I was right then. I understood what He was showing me. As a baby, I could not produce fruit for His kingdom; I could not preach; I could not pray and help deliver people; I could not work a job; I could not even feed myself. I was completely reliant on Him for everything, yet, He still loved me. When the Lord showed me this, I understood His love for me was not contingent on what I could do for Him but solely on His choice to love me.

Rejection is the root for many broken people operating in spirits of not only perfectionism, but also fear, unworthiness, anger, pride, bitterness, jezebel, perversion, and so on. It’s necessary that the true root of these spirits be uprooted at the source (rejection) otherwise we are only addressing issues at the surface and not the deeper wound to the soul. If you cut off the leaves and stem of a weed and do not take it up at the roots, it will grow back. The axe must be laid at the root (ref. Matthew 3:10).

And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is being cut down and thrown into the fire. Matthew 3:10

If after reading this, you realize you would like freedom from a spirit of rejection and perfectionism begin with this prayer:

“Lord Jesus,

I renounce all spirits of rejection and perfectionism and the act of earning my worth through my works. I renounce the lie that I am only worth loving if I am perfect. I freely receive the gift of your love and choose to believe I am worth loving simply because I am your son or daughter. I renounce all pride and self-righteousness I’ve wrongly believed I’ve gained through my own good works. I humble myself before you and receive the free gift of your righteousness through your death on the cross and the remittance of my sins. Show me where I have tried to earn your love, Lord, and where I need to receive your grace. In the name of Jesus, I command every spirit of rejection and perfection to leave me now!

Thank you, Lord, for setting me free. Amen.”