Perfect

Ever have a conversation with someone and you can immediately see that it’s really not a conversation: It's two different people trying to make TWO very different points? Happens all the time right? Contending with your child claiming they’re “too sick/tired to go to school”. Negotiating with a traffic officer, trying to get out of a ticket. All the way down to something as seemingly insignificant as to why a particular movie was good or not.

I’m not saying that either party isn’t listening, not at all. It’s just that they’ve become more vested in their side of the conversation…it’s natural.

But what about spiritual things? We need to be cognizant and careful about this tendency when it comes to God and His word. A random missed day of school, the fleeting heartache of a traffic ticket or something as menial as a movie - these things pale in comparison to the eternal realm of The Holy.
Yet our world is immersed in these exact kinds of conversations today with topics that have far more 'lasting' consequences.
A more extreme case is the conversation about homosexuality. This has produced more hard line stances than say, a conversation about women pastors. Still further down the scale, yet of truly significant importance, is the conversation about personal holiness. I think that the most common context that most people are willing to agree on in this area relates to sex and marriage. This is where we’ve decided to agree that God is right. Therefore, having sex with someone you’re not married to is against His word - However, we’re more likely to show “grace” if you’re already having sex with that ONE special someone you plan to marry. We believe that in this case, God understands.

I don’t think we realize how dangerous this is. Yet I’m sure that this kind of worldly infested thinking can never work the righteousness of God.

Here’s The Word;

Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

2 Corinthians 13:11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

Philippians 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

2 Timothy 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Hebrews 13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

James 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

I don’t think I’ve ever taken part in a conversation about personal holiness that didn’t include the phrase “Nobody’s perfect.” And “We all sin”. Familiar? Yes, and understandable to some degree, but if it’s this thinking that allows us to stay in sin and throttle back a desire for righteousness, I’m not sure that God and us are having the same conversation. God knows our every sin and imperfection. This is exactly where the message of the Gospel starts. But the message of the Gospel sees God meeting our needs. His work eradicates the penalty AND the power of sin. And as a lasting help for us who believe, He gives us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power to progressively produce this perfection He’s urging us toward.

Nothing natural in us could do it. In all actuality, in our sinful state, nothing in us would even WANT to do it.

So now the question is this: What do you want? Are you still inclined to have your life on your terms and continue to communicate to God about your imperfections? Or do you want life on His terms, in His Spirit? That’s the conversation He’s having. That’s the point He’s making. We can keep having these “sided” conversations with God, but in the end, with all that He’s done to secure, redeem and empower us for an eternity of Holiness, I don’t think that He’s going to be as compromising as we’d like. Are we sure that us and God are having the same conversation?

Here’s The Word:

James 1: 19 - 22 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

2 Peter 1: 3 – 8 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Him,
Cros