Question: God expects us to be perfect before Him. However, is His expectation impossible for us to fulfill. Is it just a theoretical command without any practical relevance? How can a man be perfect before God? According to the Bible, it is possible. Do we have to become perfect or do we be perfect? By the grace of God, we can be perfect by faith in Christ Jesus.
Let me know your thoughts.
I am praying for you. Please pray for us.
Answer: Greetings to you in Jesus wonderful name!
The Biblical perfection you have shared is very much inline to the clear doctrine of the Bible. If there is no way to be perfect, then God demanding perfection from us makes him become a hard man, reaping where He did not sow, and gathering where He did not scatter (Matt 25:24). But the Scripture assures us that God is just and impartial (Acts 10:34; Col 3:25; Psa 145:17). The way I try to grasp this is, God has given us a perfect spirit when we were born again (Phil 1:6; Eph 4:24; Rom 6:4; 7:6; 12:2). But our soul which is directed by the fallen sin nature of our forefather Adam from the day of our birth, which promotes self more and more, have walked in its own whims and fancies without the direction of the Spirit of God and obedience to His commands until we were born again, once we become saved we need to focus our soul and retrain it to the guidance of our spirit within to be directed by the Holy Spirit who gives us practical perfection in our lives (Eph 4:23; 2 Cor 7:1). Those who are guided by the Holy Spirit are called the sons of God because flesh will have no power over their soul, instead their spirit will rule over it for the Glory of God (Rom 8:14; Gal 5:16).
Positionally in their spirit, the believer has been perfected through their lives in Christ Jesus (Rom 7:19, 22). But practically the soul of ours, needs to be transformed by the Word of God and not be conformed to the world from the day we become born-again to retain the perfection that makes us walk blamelessly before God and our fellow humans (Rom 12:2; Gen 17:1-2).
The positional perfection given to us is God's desire for our practical perfection. Once we obey God's voice from our spirit, our soul gets trained to please God through faith which brings practical perfection through His grace (Eph 2:8-10). A soul trained by the Word of God brings great honor to the one who holds it (Heb 4:12), and above all it will bring great glory to God because the soul which rules over the body and not vice-versa gives us great practical perfection before humans who will praise God for it when we who are His children lift His name high through our praises and thankful attitude before them (Jam 3:2-13; Prov 25:28).
Positional perfection needs to be used in order to walk in the practical perfection that brings glory to God who has given positional perfection freely for us to be blessed with it and through it (Rom 6:17-19). Positional perfection only when used can be useful for us both temporally and eternally (Rom 6:15; 1 Cor 15:10; 2 Cor 6:1; 2 Tim 4:22). Temporally we live a life of freedom in Christ and His liberty which He has given us already which is the perfection of abundant life of rest when we walk in practical perfection (John 10:10; Heb 4:9-10, 11), eternally we inherit the spiritual riches of God's glory and treasures forevermore when we walk in practical perfection (Col 3:23-25; Heb 6:10; Eph 6:7-8).
Positional perfection unused can be of no use to ourself practically and also eternally (Matt 5:29-30, 48; Rev 3:11). So for a believer, we have become perfect in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 1:30), at the same time we are being perfected by the Holy Spirit through our failures of sin and worries and moral failures due to overconfidence and confirming wrongly to the world instead of being transformed by the renewal of our mind by our obedience to the voice of God and word of God (Phil 1:6; Heb 10:14). Above all, as long as we live in the flesh we will need to become perfected in our soul practically, once we die physically, our sin nature will leave us then and there (Rom 6:7), after that we shall be made perfect in our spirit, soul and body through the resurrection of our body in the rapture, in which we will be resurrected in a eternal glorious body through Jesus Christ just like his own body after His resurrection (1 Thess 5:23, 24; 1 John 3:2-3; Rom 8:28).
So in the life of a Christian, this past positional perfection must be used to accumulate present practical perfection of a walk with God, this practical perfection must be continued till we live on earth, to end up in the glorious eternal perfection that we will inherit through rapture in the days to come. All these three perfection makes and keeps a believer in the perfection that God desires every believer to have, so that all our treasures through faith might be great in the Kingdom of God which we will inherit as a gift from God for our practical perfection with which we have walked on earth (Matt 6:19-21; Acts 20:32; Eph 2:10; 1:11), so that our eternity will be filled with honor, authority, rulership and indestructible great riches that will remain with us eternally which is the inheritance of the Lord (Rev 2:5, 10, 17, 25-26; 3:5, 12, 21). Glory to God!
Much Love and Blessings...
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