The Divine Standard: Holy and Blameless

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You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 ESV

 

The disciples must have been surprised by these words of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the standard He sets before them is God Himself. Jesus doesn’t say tryto be perfect: He says be ye perfectas your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Jesus enjoins them and thus, all believers, to imitate God’s perfect kindness, mercy, and holiness.

Impossible indeed, but with God all things are possible (See Matthew 19:26). Besides, Jesus wouldn’t tell his disciples to be perfect if it were not possible. Through one man, Adam, the curse of sin entered the world. Through Jesus’s life and sacrificial death on the Cross, He took away the sins of the world.

 

Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:29 ISV

 

Through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, forgiveness of sins, redemption, right standing with God is available to all those who believe in Him. By His grace, we can grow in unity with Him when we endeavor to keep his commandments and honor Him as the Lord of our lives. 

When asked which is the greatest commandment, Jesus speaks right to the heart of the matter.

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22: 37-40. ESV

Does it seem the whole of God’s moral law is comprised in these commandments? Although this seems like an unreachable ideal, it stands nevertheless as the ideal to which we must aspire. Our relationship with God is a process which works itself out in the details of our lives. Endless opportunities avail themselves for us to conform to the image of Christ in our thoughts, words, and deeds. A believer’s heart transformed into a heart of love, seeks God’s will, identifies with His interest in others, and extends His love and mercy to the world around him.

I encourage you to have confidence in God. The Apostle Paul said, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.(See Ephesians 1:4) 

Can we presume to seek perfection? How can we not when Christ gave so much?

 

My granddaughter Evie, November 2020.

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The Evidence of Things

As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. James 2:26 KJV 

 Faith drops the letter into the mailbox and relies on its reaching its destination. Faith sits in the dentist’s chair and trusts it is for his good. Faith plants the bulbs and waits for blooms in due season. In each case, the outcome is out of our hands, but we’ve taken the first step. We’re put our trust in some unseen operation to accomplish something that we cannot accomplish for ourselves. Faith is the action that sets it all into motion. 

 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 KJV 

 Faith is irrelevant to feelings or impressions, or even improbabilities. Faith takes God at His word and believes Him to be true and unchanging. God can work in my life when I commit myself to Him. When I hand my petitions over to Him, confident in His infinite wisdom and power, He brings about whatever is good in His sight. If you are a Christian, you already have faith. Pray with the faith you have. Ask God to increase your faith. 

 Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! (See Mark 9:24) 

 Abide in Him, trust Him, and you’ll see the evidence of things hoped for. 

 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13a ERV

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