From Sea to Shining Sea

[HKHaugan]

Those are the words from a familiar song. But when I was thinking about transformation those words reminded me we are in a sea, this world, but we are being transformed in order to go into a shining sea, the Kingdom of God. It’s a perfect Kingdom wherein we are in the process of being perfected starting right here on earth. It’s the bonding process, being bonded by faith in Jesus to our Heavenly Father and His Kingdom. How do imperfect people like me find perfection? Let’s take a look at that.

Perfection the Lord commands happens only when we obey Him and let Him be perfect through us. When we obey Him He is perfecting us. His work in us is the work He completed on the Cross when He said “It is finished.” His work was to take every situation, every challenge, every temptation and react to it as only God would, could and should. This is the radical difference between all the world’s attempts at defining perfection and the perfection we have in the Lord. Secular society has no example, no personal or objective standard, by which perfection can be measured. We do. We have Jesus as the perfect God becoming a perfect human being for our sake to show us what it means to be human the way He intended.

Secular society, aka ‘the world’, is always looking for perfection but never finding it. Secular society will never attain perfection since it is made up of imperfect people who view perfection as something to strive for but have no clue as to what it really is. There is no perfect social, political, economic, educational, or relational system and the reason is simple---it takes a perfect human being to define, create and build one. Paul was right on when he quoted the Old Testament in his letter to Roman believers in Romans 3:10-18, human beings are fallen and imperfect.

When you use the words ‘good, better and best’, they are only descriptive terms for comparison. Someone does a good job or a better job or the best job. But no one does a perfect job because there’s no way to define a perfect job in any area. If someone does ‘the best’ it is only better than someone else's. In reality there is no ‘best.’ It would have to be perfect to be best.

Now let’s take what some view as the best or perfect approach to anything---science. There may be observable ways to measure our physical surroundings but ultimately universal laws don’t explain it all. Just what is magnetism, gravity, the extent of the universe, the nature of the cell and whatever is smallest and largest? The very limitation of discernment is itself a picture of imperfection. Even the scientist himself is limited by his own imperfection as a person. The fact that we have to search at all tells us we’re nowhere near perfect.

Enter the Lord Jesus Christ.

What was once a primitive self-destructive world was challenged by His presence and continues as an ever-present challenge. Because of Him it was the hearts of people He transformed that caused a complete change in what became Western civilization. The growth and development of the fields of medicine, psychiatry, free market economy, education and political systems to name a few. And note---all of them have to do with the recognition and concern for the individual human being. Yet secular society still tries to erase His name from the record books.

What all this is saying is that the real challenge is still what it always was, personal, individual and spiritual. The challenge is for the heart of the individual to see himself as a person made in the image of the Perfect One from whom comes true perfection. Every movement in history started because a person’s heart was changed either for the good or the bad. When it was for the good we had massive movements benefiting all people. When it was for the bad it resulted in mass murder, disease and collapse. What this says is that ultimately the search for perfection is found only in a perfect person with a perfect mind, heart and spirit.

The great block to personal human progress is sin, the disrupter and destroyer of the heart. The only answer is the crucified and risen Jesus whose perfection is the guarantee that perfection of our humanity is possible when we are willing to entrust Him with our mind, heart and spirit. When anyone faces their real nature, inside they know that there is a mixture of goals, the personal ‘wishing well’, having to deal with others, personal limitations and the whole confusing moral climate both within and without. Sin is the infection that keeps us sitting on the edge, the precipice over the valley of choice and decision. Should I or shouldn’t I? What happens if I…? What’s the best thing to do now? It’s these day-to-day moments that are the loneliest because it seems everything depends on me.

There was one point in history when everything DID depend on one person and the choices and decisions He faced. That was the moment Jesus realized the Cross was His destiny and the choice He made was universal involving the future of every person who ever lived and who would ever live. Each and every person needs to be rescued from themselves since their every moment is going to be concluded by lonely fear driven imperfect decisions, decisions made in sin.

For Jesus every moment of His life on earth was a Cross moment, a faith moment of choice and the faith moment of decision. Every moment of Jesus’ earthly life was a faith moment. That precipice over the valley He faced every day was the choice to obey or not obey His Father’s will. His conscious choice was to trust His Father in every earthly moment even if it meant taking the brunt of the sin of everyone with whom He came in contact and relating to them in the Spirit regardless of their reaction. That included the sins of His family, His friends as well as His tormentors.

What we see in Jesus is the perfection of God flowing from Him as He met the woman at the well, healed the lepers, faced the hostile Pharisees, cleansed the Temple, challenged the impetuous Peter, bared His emotions when told of Lazarus’ death and, while hanging on the Cross, forgave the conspirators who had put Him there. In all these the visible Cross summed up how He lived every moment since every moment was a Cross moment and the Cross for Jesus was His perfect faith in His Father.

The visible Cross revealed the invisible reality He died to share with us, faith, faith in Him, faith that takes Jesus into our heart. Faith in Jesus is the transforming method by which we are rescued from sin, the devil, evil and an eternity without God. Faith in Jesus is the cross He calls us to take each and every moment because that’s His life in us that brings the world we live in to Him. Faith in Jesus brings us the full spiritual life right now not only for ourselves but for everyone with whom we come in contact. This is what Paul meant when He said that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself and we are His agents being transformed as we go. What an exciting thing it is.