Perfection

I read a devotional this morning that described hell as a place of our own making. The author said that hell is composed of our, and I'm paraphrasing, inability to accept the forgiveness of God. As I understood his theory, we would be in hell, not because of a punitive God, but because of our own actions. God doesn't "send" us there; we send ourselves there.

The first four questions of the ordination vows for the United Methodist church are:

"Have you faith in Christ? Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after it?"

Why are we afraid to say "yes" to a question like that? Do we have a wrong idea of Christian perfection? Do we really think that God is going to make us mistake-free? Do we think anyone would believe us if we said we are moving on to a mistake-free life?

What about thinking of it a whole? Made whole and healed in love certainly is more believable. To be made Holy -- sanctified. Don't we believe in that?

And could that be the opposite of what the devotional writer was talking about?

And is that not a resurrection faith?