“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” – Matthew 5:48
Question: Does God expect perfection?
Short Answer: Yes.
Long Answer: Perfection is a widely misunderstood and misrepresenting point of doctrine. The charge to perfection was made very plain by our Savior, therefore the means of attaining it must be equally as plain; and it is. Jesus himself proclaimed it, taught it, bought it, and gifted the means to bring it unto us.
God wants your heart. If you read the Sermon on the Mount carefully (Matthew 5-8) you will find that Jesus speaks to issues deeper than the physical. He calls for righteousness, righteousness that goes deeper than just what you do. He wants to cleanse all the way to what your heart intends. I find it no coincidence that he starts his ministry with a sermon about the heart and ends his ministry with a sermon about the heart (John 14-17). The perfection is found in your heart; a perfect heart is a holy heart. What God wants to perfect is within. If I break my finger, my body is now less than perfect; am I now condemned to hell because I am no longer perfect? No. There is no disobedience found in a broken finger. Imperfection in God’s eyes is rooted in disobedience to God, direct disobedience to God is sin, and sin is rooted in carnality (the desire to sin against God). Carnality (the innate desire to sin) is found in the heart of man, and it is that which needs to be sanctified by the Holy Ghost. When the Holy Ghost comes in it will purge out that want to sin and sanctify your heart to the service of God, manifesting in your life a perfect love for God, and a perfect love for man. It is this love that brings peace, joy, contentment, obedience, wisdom, and all the fullness and goodness of God. God expects you to have a perfect heart, and you get there by repenting of your sins. God will forgive you as he has promised in His Word. After this work of grace one must invite Jesus, in the person of the Holy Ghost, to come in and “take up his abode with you.” The second work of grace. By this very action God gives you a new heart that is conformed to the image of himself: holy, pure, clean, and perfect; and when he has your heart, he has you.
To deny perfection is to deny sanctification, and to deny sanctification is to deny the will of God, and the power of God. The power that can save to the uttermost all that come unto Him (Heb 7:25). The power that can keep that which is committed unto Him against that day (2 Tim 1:12). What sin is too great for God? Why must we wait until we are in heaven to live holy? Why can He not deliver you now, from all sin? Do not abuse the grace of God or deny the power of God a moment longer. Fully embrace the cross and surrender your all to Christ. Open the door of your heart and let Jesus come in and sanctify you wholly.
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