We are commanded to be perfect, but God never expected perfection. He told His people to keep His commandments. Some of those commandments were about daily sacrifices to cover all their unintentional sins, because He knew there would be sin.

There is never supposed to be intentional sin among God’s people. That’s a special category dealt with differently. There can be forgiveness and redemption, but it requires more than the ordinary sacrifice. There were special sacrifices and payback to make restitution and such. It also required a returning to even get to that point.

When Christians talk about sinning and needing forgiveness and God’s mercy new each day, it’s for those unintentional sins. We miss the mark. We slip up. We weren’t stopping and choosing evil. We just weren’t thinking or thinking straight. Our hearts were to honor the Lord, but we missed it.

They aren’t talking about choosing the ways of the flesh over the ways of God.

In 2 Chronicles 30, the Israelites hold a Passover feast to the Lord. They do it the best they can.

God accepts that. He doesn’t strike them all dead for not following all the rules perfectly. Why?

Because they were godly. We’re told that the Lord pardoned everyone who had set their hearts to seek God, the Lord.

That’s not a license to sin. That would be seeking after the flesh. That’s death. Your actions would show your heart, that you were after the things of this world, not after the things of God. No matter what you claimed your heart believed and desired.

They wanted to honor the Lord and keep His feast that they had neglected for generations. God honored their hearts that wanted to honor Him.

We read that God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away His face from the one who returns to Him.

The people are commanded to yield themselves to the Lord and serve the Lord.

That sounds like a perfect idea.