Perfect in Him

Living as we do in a product-oriented culture, we like to package our faith, too.  We prefer to sell a slick, shrink-wrapped version of salvation that includes happiness and peace, and happiness here and now, and heaven by and by.  What I'd like to know is who erected such a happily-ever-after standard of perfection in the first place?  God knows very well we aren't able to produce perfection; that's why Jesus, the perfect Son of God, placed us in His family.  That's why He gave us a position of perfect righteousness in Him, reminding us by contrast that our own daily experience will constantly fall short.  "He has now reconciled you...in order to present you before God holy and blameless and beyond reproach." (Colossians 1:22)