Christian ‘perfection’ scares people. I can understand why. Nobody wants to have demands on their life that they think are impossible to fulfill. That is the ultimate frustration.
That frustration is wiped out when we understand the two kinds of perfection. There’s the one that God just GIVES you, when you come to Him as a sinner, you give your life to Him, He washes all your sins away, and He gives you HIS righteousness. You become a brand new creation… born again. God becomes your father, so you have God’s DNA in your spirit. You have a new clean pure ‘perfect’ nature. You are no longer a sinner! There is nothing frustrating about THAT, if you know who and what you ARE!
The other kind of perfection is maturity… GROWING UP into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (See Ephesians 4:13-15) When we understand that this kind of ‘perfection’ is simply being like Jesus, and that God is not expecting us to become like Jesus overnight, the frustration is gone in that case, too.
That leaves us with just needing to know HOW to do it, and how fast God expects us to do it. I will say, personally, that I don’t believe it should take 40 years. (That’s how long I’ve been working on it, and I’m not there yet.) As a word of encouragement, I will also say, that I have come farther in the last couple years, than in all of the previous 38 combined. That’s when I started getting a clear understanding of what I’m sharing right here.
God DOES have an expectation of how mature (perfect) each of us should be at this point in our Christian life, taking into account everything that He knows we have been given. Much given… much expected. He is NOT OK with a 40 year old acting like a 4 year old.
Somehow, “growing up to be like Jesus”, sounds easier, and more acceptable, than “coming into perfection”, but it’s really the same thing. We just need to keep our eyes on Jesus, and do what we see Him do, one step at a time.
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