All tagged perfect
This morning we continue to contemplate God's desire for us to commit our love, and lives, to Him. We revisit His desire for us to live and worship Him with zeal. Pastor E.M. Bounds describes the way we should pray in this way: "True prayer must be aflame." And he writes that "The Christian life and character need to be on fire." Today we return once again to Revelation 3 as being the principal scripture that describes God’s expectation of our devotion to Him.
Do we feel particularly unworthy this morning? When we rose from bed did we feel dulled by the world as if we had lost our spiritual sheen? Well, cast that feeling off because we are living stones... pieces of heaven. When we look into the mirror we should rejoice, and see ourselves as a reflection of Christ’s perfection; we should see ourselves as a reflection of the Kingdom which is to come.
Have you set yourself apart for the use of God? In other words, are you holy? If you think you are then let's go a step further and ask ourselves another question: "am I perfect!" These are hard questions and we often deflect them by saying that only Jesus is perfect, so how could I possibly be holy.
The strongest people I know are those who are “poor in spirit”. This is a life that was not chosen for them, but one which they chose for themselves. Do you know such people? Are you one of them? Perhaps you are wondering what I mean by being poor in spirit. Well, the very first blessing that Jesus teaches us in the Beatitudes is that of being "poor in spirit" and He does this for a reason. These are the people that yield their individual spirits to the Spirit of God. They have laid down their own personal strength for the strength of God Himself.
I am lost in thought this morning regarding the gift that was given us from the cross. As believers we all know that Jesus suffered, died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven, to release us from sin and death, but there is more. Through our faith and relationship with Him we will be resurrected and receive a glorified body just as He did. Are you ready to glow, just as the scripture we discussed yesterday revealed that Jesus did while talking with Elijah and Moses?
This morning I am contemplating the things of faith to which we are tempted to become blinded. I recall the words of Jesus regarding Jerusalem and ask myself if this could happen to the Church, and to me specifically. Could my religion become my hindrance and remove God’s pleasure from my life?
As Christians we realize that we are being refined each and every day by trials and tribulations. This is our furnace, fired so that once purified we will shine like the sun, and just as pure gold we will become soft and malleable in the hand of our Heavenly Father. 100% pure gold is easily cast or molded into shape, but even though it can easily be made into intricate shapes, it is prone to damage, and can be bent out of shape. Once refined by God we too are precious, beautiful, and highly sought after, but we must also be guarded, protected, and treated with great care lest we be crushed, or bent. The more pure our faith, the more susceptible we are to being damaged by the slightest hint of sin, and the more attentive our Father must be to us. We are susceptible to damage, innocent, and childlike… we are His prized possession.
We praise, and worship the Lord in church, and pray in our secret places, but what do we do with the remainder of our lives? Do we lead two separate existences? Do we have a spiritual life on the one hand, and a carnal one on the other? Do we walk out of the sanctuary, close the door, and then without another thought, begin to live like citizens of the world? In the life of the apostle Paul we are given a glimpse of how we should live one spiritual life at all times. He offers his life as an example for us. It was a life modeled after Jesus… holy, righteous, and blameless for all to see.
Scripture teaches us over and over again that we are to be like Jesus, and our Heavenly Father. We were created in the image of God, and then we are instructed to love as God loves, pray as Jesus prays, and among many other examples, we are instructed to forgive as they forgive. These things lead us towards becoming perfect as God is perfect… which is what we have been instructed to be. Yet, given our damaged human nature doesn’t the thought of failing to be perfect frighten us?
As we hear the greatest commandment which is to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strengths, do we get so absorbed in doing this that we forget the second great commandment, or fail to give it the attention we should? Do we not love our neighbor, and one another, as we should, with the love that God has instilled in us for them? In this bitter world where people distrust one another, hate with reckless abandon, and place themselves above all others, it is easy to see how even a Christian might be tempted to find loving others in this manner to be impossible, and retreat back into the first great commandment where they can love God who loves them so perfectly. Yet we do not love as we are personally able, but with the love that God has given us… the ability that Jesus speaks of allows us to love one another without fail.
It is our great desire to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, but to what end are we following Him? Should our goal be to reach Heaven, to obtain eternal life, or to be taught how to live a better life? No, although these are all excellent and expected goals, and we are meant to reach them, the answer is no, our ultimate aspiration should be to become Christ, to join with all the other parts that are His body, His being, and to become who He is. Do we feel like we are advancing towards that ultimate moment when we will see our reflection, and it will be indistinguishable from our Lord Jesus Christ? Will we have been made perfect… perfect in love, perfect in obedience, and perfect in every way as He is?
Have you ever not liked someone from the very moment you met them? Did you somehow sense that they were bad, did you think that you were incompatible, or maybe that there was something about them which was too much like yourself… some part of you that you didn’t like too much? Well God could have disliked us for all of these same reasons, and yet He loved us instead, and we should love others just as He first loved us… just because.
We are tempted to believe that what we have in the world is good, and that it is all we need, but that is simply not true. The earth and everything in it is fleeting, and is never truly ours. So why is it that we value it so much? Why do we surround ourselves with what the world offers us, and treat it as if it were perfect, or even good, when in fact we will die, and all we have accumulated will be lost? In this life the things we have will disappoint us. God’s gifts are always good, and perfect; they never lose their value, and are always glorifying Him as we use them. They are unchanging, and eternal in every way.
When God says something is good it is good, and when He says it is perfect that is true too. So it is that we strive to do good things because we seek to imitate the goodness of God, and we are confidant we can be good, but why is it that when we are told to be perfect we quake with fear, feeling that perfection is beyond our ability? We fear perfection even though scripture tells us there are others who have been perfect. So, if only God is good, but others have been perfect, then why do we feel that we can actually be called good, but never perfect?
God is love and he loves us perfectly. When we accept this fact then we can understand our true relationship with Him, and He will reside in the deepest recesses of our heart and soul. How can we say we know God if we don’t know His love, and how can we say that we are created in His image, and not have His love within us? To believe in God is to believe in love... who is it that abides in us today?