When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.
Genesis 17:1 (NIV)
The phrase “and be blameless” fails to capture the weight of this phrase in Hebrew. Some render it “and be perfect,” which is closer, but it can drift towards an incorrect meaning of “without sin.”
That is not the meaning at all. It means “be whole-hearted.”
It is connected to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart.
The rabbis point out that it’s even more than that. It’s tied to living out being the image-bearers of God, not as a passive state of existance, but as an intentional act of divine movement into the world.
Being an image-bearer doesn’t merely mean looking like God in appearance, but in action. God is Light, and we are the little lights. We’re told to shine in this dark world.
But this can only be done with our whole hearts devoted to God, cut separately for His purpose.