Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. — Matthew 5:48

This is not a command to try harder—it is a revelation that God's standard is absolute and we cannot reach it. That is exactly the point: we are driven to Christ who is our perfection, and in Him we are presented faultless before the throne. The Gospel does not lower the bar; it lifts us to meet it through the perfect righteousness of Jesus. So we press on, not to earn acceptance, but because we are already accepted in the Beloved.