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How to be Perfect

I'm currently sitting in a book store because we are once again without power. St. Louis seems to be a magnet for weird storms right now. Its beautiful outside, but dangerous too. I have a fairly large limb on my roof right now – the very one that I just contracted a tree service to cut off. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to get to it yet. So, after taking a 45 minute walk with my wife, and while she continues to walk, I decided to stop and create a blog entry that I hope to be able to post in the next couple of days – just depends on when and where I can find an Internet connection.

The next topic on my quest to discuss the nature and attributes of God is God's perfect nature. So let's borrow some information from my Online Bible program (which just might be the very best low cost Bible program available. Esword is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to OLB – especially when you add Gary Gallant's DVD of add-ons). This definition of God's perfection is from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary:

Without flaw or error; a state of completion or fulfillment. God’s perfection means that He is complete in Himself. He lacks nothing; He has no flaws. He is perfect in all the characteristics of His nature. He is the basis for and standard by which all other perfection is to be measured.

So let's see what the Bible has to say:

His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He. (Deut 32:4)

As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him. (2 Sam 22:31)

As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. (Ps 19:7)

As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him. (Ps 18:30)

I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. (Eccl 3:14)

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt 5:48)

As you can see from the above verses, the Bible does not seek to prove itself to be true, it simply assumes it is. And in these verses we have that very example. So, concerning God's perfection, everything that God sets His hands to do is perfect. Now, you do realize that I'm referring to God hands in an analogous way, as does Scripture, right? I'm not talking about God's hands as the Copeland's and the Hagen's of the world do. God is spirit, He doesn't have a 9” hand span as Hagen has taught, OK? I simply mean that everything He sets His mind to do is done perfectly and completely. And in the same vain, God is truthful in all that He does. God does not lie; as a matter of fact, He cannot lie. It goes against His very nature. You can't be perfect and lie at the same time. You cannot be perfect and do things wrong – they are mutually exclusive. God doesn't make mistakes. The sin that has corrupted the world is responsible for what's wrong in the world, including us.

If we want to contrast God to ourselves in terms of being perfect, well, there's just no comparison to be made, is there. We cannot seem to do anything correctly for very long. We can't think properly for a single day, let alone a week or a lifetime. Anything we do right is either by accident or the remnant of God's law and grace that still exists in this world. Most of us were taught by our parents that lying is wrong – well, some of us were – so when we grow up and feel guilty about lying to some one, its that remnant of God's law and grace that helps us hold onto some of His moral law. We, in ourselves, are just too selfish to do it on our own. Left to our own devices we will almost always think of our selves first, even if that means hurting others around us that we say we love. Some people don't feel the slightest bit of guilt, others do. It just depends on how much your conscious has been seared.

Another one of these consequences is that God's law is also perfect. As Christians we sometimes mistakenly think that “law” equals “bad” because we've been delivered from the penalty of breaking God's perfect law. But the truth is that the law is still there, its just supposed to be written on our hearts now. Jesus fulfilled God's perfect law, but the law is still there, and is still required to be followed. The Christian is “enabled” by the Holy Spirit that resides in us to keep God's law, and God's grace and mercy are there when we break it. And the world? That's why they are still under God's judgment, because they are still law breakers without the grace and mercy which Christ brings to all believers, and God's perfect law is still perfect and holy. How many of you have thought about the law like that?

This leads us to the next consequence, which I've just basically stated above but different words. Because God is perfect, nothing can be added to, or taken away from His word. Not one jot, not one tittle of God's law, or anything in His word can be taken away. Without Christ, mankind is still required to “fulfill it”, which obviously they cannot. With Christ, we are being transformed day by day, minute by minute, so that His ways become our ways, His thoughts become our thoughts. We don't have to “try” to keep God's law, because it becomes part of who we are. We end up following it without even trying because we are becoming like Him. That doesn't mean that we will ever achieve perfection; we can never do that. But our daily progression of being transformed to be like Him enables us to choose to stop sinning because the Holy Spirit resides in us, enabling us to choose to do right, giving us a desire to do right, and the ability to choose it.

And lastly, He wants us to be perfect, since we are called to be “like Him.” This is a tall order, or should I say an impossible mission to accomplish, without Christ. Hey, its not very easy to accomplish when we have Him living in us! That “old man” keeps creeping back into our thoughts, and we revert to our old ways of living. None of us have the power to live correctly, yet we are still told in the His Word to be holy, because God is holy:

For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. (Lev 11:44)

Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. (Lev 19:2)

Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine. (Lev 20:26)

You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. (Deut 18:13)

So, that's what it means when some one says that God is perfect. God has set a standard of righteousness by being perfect. Jesus came to earth and lived the perfect life, and we are being called to be perfect too. It is a standard that we cannot hope to follow on our own. It is something that we can only hope to do by being followers, disciples of Christ. We must allowing the Holy Spirit – God in us – to reside in us, to teach us, to transform us.

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