God of all Grace

 1 Peter 5:10
But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

It is God, and God alone, by His grace, that we are made children of God. In our humanity we are weak and incapable of living a life that is perfect, a life that is able to overcome the attacks of Satan as he seeks to destroy our faith and standing with God. Suffering comes with the territory of trying to live a godly life. But, through it, we are made stronger and become rooted and grounded in Christ. Peter says that the God of all grace is able to make us perfect. The word "perfect" is translated from Greek to mean “equip or adjust us.” In our humanity we are not equipped to handle the trails that we must face. God is refining our faith as we go through suffering and hard times. His purpose is to make us strong in the face of adversity. His desire is that we become established in Christ at a place where we don’t have to fear Satan and his attacks. We can trust and have faith in Christ to resist the temptations that we face in our lives each day. Temptation to put our trust in the flesh, temptation to cast our faith away, and think that God does not care about our situation, our suffering. He is the God of all grace, and we can believe He is able to do all that He has promised to do for His glory and our good.

To Be Perfect

 Matt. 5:48
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Is this even possible? 

The words of Jesus to be perfect must be a mistake. A misinterpretation of translation of the manuscript. How can man with all of his imperfection be told to be perfect? What message was Jesus trying to convey to His followers? I don’t believe that Jesus was speaking of doing everything perfect and without error. Man is not all knowing as God is, he only sees things from one perspective, God sees and knows the hearts of men. So, the command to be perfect must have some other meaning. The messages given on this mount by Jesus were matters of the heart. The essences of man’s soul, the motives of man’s heart. A follower of Christ will seek to love not only His friends, but also his enemies. To be perfect like the Father is to have a heart that loves all people regardless of their actions. A heart that harbors hate is imperfect and does not reflect the image of Christ. The scripture can be read in this way, “Be ye therefore a lover of people, even as your Father which is in heaven loves people.” This is only made possible if one is in Christ and the Holy Spirit empowers the believer to love without reservations.

Complete in Christ

 Matt 19:21

Jesus said to him, “If you want to be complete (perfect), go and sell…

What do you possess that you are not willing to let go in order to be complete and whole in Christ? The call to follow Christ requires that we take up our cross and let go of those things that hold us back from fully serving Him. The scripture has many examples of those who held back, and did not gain entrance to eternal life. The love of money has kept many people from having eternal life, but money is not the only thing that keeps people from having eternal life. Eternal life is given to us only through Christ, and knowing Him is to follow Him in complete obedience to His word. We cannot be perfect or complete in Christ if we don’t have a heart single toward Him and Trust Him with our whole heart.

Being Perfect

Matt 19:21  Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

Perfection doe not mean living life without making mistakes, or misjudging. Being perfect is a matter of yielding your life over to Christ. Keeping the commandment by abstaining from sin is good, but it is not the criteria to living a perfect life. Confession and repentance by accepting Christ into our hearts is the key to entering the Kingdom of God. God calls us to a life of holiness, a life whose eye is single toward God. The world says no one can be perfect. Christ says, if you will be perfect, give all that is important in your life over to me, and follow my footstep in obedience to the will of God. The Holy Spirit was sent to those that believed in Christ to guide them into all truth, and to live a life perfect before God.

Trails and Afflictions

1 Peter 5:10 The God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.

Becoming a saint or a godly Christian come only through trails and afflictions. It is God’s desire that all that serve Him be made perfect in the image of His Son. Not perfect in our humanity, but made perfect in our love to Him and others. His goal is to establish us to a place that we know where we stand and our faith is   able to detect deception from Satan. We are made strong to withstand the fiery darts of the enemy. When all hell breaks loose in our lives, we settled the question long ago. No matter what happens, I believe in a God who cares and is able to take us through.

Perfect Fatih

1 Thess 3:10 Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?

Perfection of heart is what the Holy Spirit does when He comes into the heart to abide. It is the teaching found in God’s word that gives us light into the possibility of being perfect in love. Being perfect in heart does not mean we have perfect vessels. We live in earthen vessels made of clay and are subject to marring. But God wants to fill the vessel with His pure love. It is possible to have pure motives with intent to always please our creator, but  total perfection of human error or even of faith is a matter of growing and learning toward perfection. There are times that our faith is weak and we lack the faith to see God move in our lives and in the lives of others. In times like these, we go to prayer asking God to increase our faith. We have not arrived yet, we have not finished our journey. Our faith continues to build, and we stand fast trusting God to help us have greater faith. 

Go, and Sin No More

John 8:11  She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Christ came to fulfill the law to perfection that through His life and death, He enables us by His grace to sin no more. The concept of living a life without sinning is foreign to many who see themselves struggling with life’s temptations and fleshly desires to please self. The carnal nature of man is enmity against God and is not subject to His holiness. Without grace, man is helpless to live a life that is sinless. The heart of man is desperately wicked, even a person trained to be good will stand before God naked and see the uncleanness of his heart. What is man to do? All have sinned and come short of pleasing God, we have only one remedy, flee to the cross, confess our sins, ask Him to forgive us of our transgression, and to clean our hearts of all that is unlike Him. His love and grace without fail will speak,”Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin more” He promise to them that would believe in Him that He would send a Comforter, the Holy Spirit will come as we seek more of Him. The Holy Spirit, as in the day of Pentecost will come to them that seek Him and He will give us power to live a life that can love God with all our hearts, mind, body and soul. Without Him, it is impossible to fulfill this commandment. But with God, all things are possible.

Christian Perfection

Matthew 5:48 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect.”

What does it mean to “Be perfect” I read in a devotional this morning:

“it’s not possible to have perfect motives. We love the Lord and others, but our motives for how we live the Christian life are sometimes mixed with our desire to be valued or praised.”

This author’s opinion is that being perfect does not mean that we can always do things with a perfect motive. Jesus, the God-Man who walked this earth tells us that it is possible to be perfect. Is it possible to always make choices with the motive to please God? Can a Christian not always seek the Kingdom of God first in the way they behave, act, or react? As human beings, we live in a broken down human body that  are subject to the elements of this world. We make mistakes, our bodies grow weary and often our judgment in the choices we make our influences by the state of our mind when it reaches it’s limitation of handling stress. But is it not possible, when we have full control of our faculties to make choices with the intentions of always pleasing God? I believe that Christian perfection, the work of sanctification can give a person a heart that is always perfect toward God. Paul writes in the book of Romans to give yourself as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our service to God. It is this consecration to God and the infilling of the Holy Spirit that allows a person to always make choices that are perfect in the sight of God. Let us asked ourselves, Why do I do the things I do? Let God examine our heart and determine weather they are perfect before Him.