The enemy who would be our friend.
Matt. 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We are most certainly bound in our human nature and we cannot become divine anymore than we can transform ourselves into an elephant. But, Christ would not have admonished us toward perfection if we were encapable of achieving it. Defining the term is most important. Perfection here means to be as complete as God intended us to be. He has a set and reasonable standard for us to reach. That standard includes being filled with all the fullness of God. We are to experience Christ living in us, the Holy Spirit filling us and enabling us to live clean and pure lives. We are to be empowered to do the will of God. We are to be rooted and grounded in love for God and for others. God is powerful enough to help us attain this. The sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit enables us to attain this standard God has set for us.
Matt. 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We are most certainly bound in our human nature and we cannot become divine anymore than we can transform ourselves into an elephant. But, Christ would not have admonished us toward perfection if we were encapable of achieving it. Defining the term is most important. Perfection here means to be as complete as God intended us to be. He has a set and reasonable standard for us to reach. That standard includes being filled with all the fullness of God. We are to experience Christ living in us, the Holy Spirit filling us and enabling us to live clean and pure lives. We are to be empowered to do the will of God. We are to be rooted and grounded in love for God and for others. God is powerful enough to help us attain this. The sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit enables us to attain this standard God has set for us.
Yet, there seems to be so little light, so little heat in the church today. The fresh bread has grown stale, even moldy. We aren’t striving for righteousness and purity, we are attempting to see how to get to heaven having accessed as little grace as possible. We trumpet as loudly as we can that ‘salvation is not by works’ and then feel comfortable producing no good works at all. Christians have become soft and undisciplined like a spoiled child in a privileged family. Disobedience is tolerated. Self-sacrifice and suffering are foreign to us. Instead of seeking for cleansing from all sin through the blood of Christ we rationalize and make excuses for sin. How the heart of God must surely be grieved by our manipulations! We comfort ourselves by declaring we have been saved from some of our sins, or at least saved from our worst sins while clinging fervently to our favorite sins.
Notes such as this are offensive to many but let me in boldness ask: Would not the grace and power of God be less remarkable if it is only able to bind the lion but not able to kill it? Why do we limit God’s grace by praying prayers like, “help me to control the sin in my life” rather than praying, “Christ Jesus, complete the work you’ve come to do and destroy the sin in my life.” If we cut down the tree, sprigs will soon appear and the tree will grow back. Is it not better to cut down the tree and rip out its system of roots?
Matthew 18:11 “For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.” Christ stated the obvious purpose of his coming which was to destroy sin and to save souls. Yet, a multitude of Christians have dedicated their lives to defending their ‘right’ to sin granted them by their ‘human nature’. I must ask, whose side are they on? Christ never defended anyone’s 'right to sin' and he expects all of his followers to be warriors against sin, not champions of sin!
Christ said, “Be ye holy even as I also am holy.” He didn’t say, “Be as holy as you possibly can.” Nor did he say, “Be ye holy even though I know that is impossible for you.” He set the standard very high. He expects us not only to reach for it but to actually attain it through the grace he provides and the power found in his indwelling Spirit.
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