Perfection

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

PERFECTION

Matt 5:43-48

43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

NIV

How is this even possible being a human being? Although we have been created by the most perfect and holy God, we are inherently imperfect because of the fall of Adam. This is what Christianity calls original sin, although some denominations differentiate this with what they call personal sin. This simply means we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God due to being children or heirs of Adam. But at the same time each of us has that same heart that is bent toward that which is doing wrong instead of right, or in the case here, evil or wickedness. The point Jesus is making here is that God causes the same conditions of life to happen to the believer as he does the non-believer. He includes the sun and the rain to make that point. All of mankind, no matter whether they believe in God or not have the same earth to live on. God so love the world, all mankind, that he gave his one and only son, whom he loves, to be that sacrifice, so that whosoever believes will not perish but have everlasting life. If he loves everyone, including the worst of the worst sinners, then should we not do the same? If we are supposed to have the mind of Christ, then we should love everyone. There should not be any hatred in our heart toward any other person. Sure, that sounds good, but how can we actually do it? There are just some people that rub us the wrong way. There are some people who would make our lives miserable. The fact is some people even hate us. But with all the other teachings of Jesus, not repaying evil with evil and then we come to this one about not just this repaying thing, but we should actually love them. Sometimes it seems we Christians would rather just stick together with each other, the, us four and no more philosophy. We get caught up in the thinking that it is us and them. We are the saved, they are the unsaved, we are the believers, they are the non-believers, we are the righteous and they are the unrighteous. We have built a wall between us and them and surely we should not associate with the likes of them, they are awful sinners who do not think or believe the way we do. Some would say that is why God gave us the armor, to fight against the evil world, but it is to fight against Satan, not the non-believer. We do not see them as the same of we are, but God does. All of us are his creation. Are we the only ones he has knit together in their mother’s womb? No, absolutely no! He knows the number of hairs on each person’s head, He loves them all. This is the view we must take in order to be the perfect as God is perfect. It is interesting what this word perfect means. The Greek word implies complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.) completeness. This would carry the meaning of lacking nothing in those areas. How is that even possible? Yet we have Christ. We are to have the mind of Christ.

1 Cor 2:10-16

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.   14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

NIV

We really need to read the whole of this passage to garner all the truth of it, but the main point is in the conclusion. We have the mind of Christ and therefore we should and we can show love toward all people. We see them as Jesus sees them, in need of the truth of the gospel, in need of his salvation, in need of healing, in need of outstretched arms, compassion, mercy, forgiveness. They are no different than us other then they have not yet believed. True the scripture tells us we have nothing in common with them. What does righteousness have in common with unrighteousness? We are not to be unequally yoked with them, that is to enter into a contract with them, be partners in their endeavors, but that does not preclude us from loving them. When we consider being perfect, being complete, that seems almost unattainable and we even say we are a work in progress, that is we have not yet reached that perfect state and we will most likely never as long as we are in this corruptible flesh. Yet that is our goal, that is the standard, that is the desired end result and thus we are to endeavor to work on continually having the mind of Christ, seeing those in need and doing all we can to fill that need, bringing them to Jesus. He is all we all will ever need.  He is perfection.