View Single Post
  #5  
Old 09-24-2008, 11:06 AM
Forrest's Avatar
Forrest Forrest is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Texas, USA
Posts: 597
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by wwjd.usa View Post
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

I think that this verse implies that it is possible to be as perfect as God. If it would not be possible to be perfect, then Jesus would say verse 48.
That's the point. Jesus was speaking to the self-righteous and said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

How is that even possible? Perfect! Only by receiving Jesus Christ.

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). You are as righteous as you'll ever be when Christ is in you. This a "positional" reality. Jesus Christ is in you, the hope of glory.

Success in the daily Christian life does not occur by trying in the strength of the flesh or by appropriating certain disciplines of the mind, but by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our trust is in Christ, not in the weak and beggarly aspects of sinful flesh or human intellect. Practical or experiential victory [putting off the former conversation] occurs when we apply the revealed doctrine of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection by faith. It occurs by truly knowing what and who we are in Christ.

Knowing comes from divine truth which is revealed to us through the Word of God by the Holy Spirit and then received by faith. I am not speaking of intellectually knowing the facts; rather, I am referring to our inner spiritual perception, discernment, and understanding. In other words, faith is not based on our intellectual understanding. Faith is a confident leap into the light of God’s unwavering truth—even when you may not completely understand it.

By faith we can accept the fact that in Christ we are dead indeed unto sin (Romans 6), but what happens if we sin? We can believe with our whole heart that we are crucified with Christ. We can reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ, but what happens if we say, do, or think something sinful? Does this mean we are not really saved after all? I repeat a verse already shared. “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

We can do our very best, but our very best is never righteous. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6). Thankfully, our righteousness is not conditional to our good or sinless behavior; it is conditional to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

May we each cease from the fruitless effort of striving and laboring to live the genuine Christian life. Instead, let us rest in the complete and absolute sufficiency of Christ by faith. Let us each commit to abiding in Christ and yielding the fruit He desires to produce in our lives.