Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam
This is from pages 14 and 15 of The Way of Victory, A Booklet For New Converts by David F. Gray, printed by Revival Tabernacle Press. no copyright date
Aim At Perfection
Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matt. 5:48. Perfection, therefore, ought to be the goal to which all Christians seek to come. Be not discouraged if you do not arrive at perfection all at once. To be come perfect in the sense of coming “into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” ( Eph. 4:13) requires time, testing, temptation and trust. your heart may be perfect from the moment you are saved in that you love God supremely and wish to live only for Him. It is development in perfection that requires years and years of yielding and learning from the Lord. This includes many lessons, trials and experiences, during which you must learn always to say “not my will but thine be done.” When you are first filled with the Spirit you are but an infant in the family of God. 1 Peter 2:2. From this, you grow into childhood, then youth, and finally into ripened experience. 1 John 2:12-14
Paul sought perfection
Phil 3:12
Perfection of heart is perfection of love
Col 3:14
Perfect Christlikeness is perfection of development
Eph 4:12, 13
Patience leads to perfection
James 1:4 |
Yes this is good. It brings us to more understanding. To come to the fullness of Christ is far more than just to cease from sin.
This explains where Paul said he was not perfect in Phil 3:12.
There was still MORE of Gods power. There was still MORE of the fellowship of his sufferings. There was a resurrection still waiting.
In that Paul was not perfect in the sense of complete. He could as anyone could still be growing into the fullness of Christ. Where we do the works he did. Where whatever we ask we receive. Where the works of God flow through us. When we are full of his compassion.
However this by no means is to say Paul was not overcoming sin. There are two levels of perfection.
The easiest:
1. To be walking free from sin. To be blameless and faultless.
The one we pursue after we cease from sin.
2. To be
COMPLETE in the various aspects of Jesus Christ.
There are probably many walking in holiness and purity of heart that can grow in their faith. That could perhaps be more bold of a witness. That could do more outreach.
All of the growth we have toward full stature only begins to happen
AFTER we get sin out of our life. Until then we are still considered
BABES.
2:1 Putting away therefore
all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking, 2:2
as newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby, 2:3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious:
1 Peter 2:1-3
So both levels of perfection are Biblical.
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