We are called to be 100% perfect, just like God is, but we can’t try to become perfect in our own strength. We must receive our holiness from the God who is holy, basing the ways in which we are like him on our communion with him. When we try to shape our own holiness, rather receiving God’s holiness by being with him, we can fall away from God, just like Adam, Eve, and the Pharisees did.
Eve Tempted by the Serpent, William Blake. Public domain.