Getting Our Act Together

[HKHaugan]

‘Ain’t nobody perfect,’ ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ ‘We’re only human.’ Heard those before? I know I’ve said them or thought the same from time to time. They can be used as an excuse for self-pity or if you are really facing the truth about self or with a tone of forgiveness if a friend needs support. But disciples of Jesus are on the road of transformation. Transformation then means moving from sin to faith, from trying to be in control to letting the Spirit control us, from excuse to taking responsibility, from escape to confession, from worldly conditioning to Spirit-leading. Bottom line? From self to Jesus.

Transformation takes us on a path toward a word, the goal of which seems to constantly elude us, perfection. It really takes a bite out of us, our pride and self-awareness, when Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect (Mt.5:48).” --- Talk about being taken down a notch--- But if I am being real I need the ‘I’ in me to be taken down. That word ‘perfection’ belongs to God alone just like ‘Holy’ and ‘Righteous’ do. So just how do I become perfect when it seems so impossible? Follow the scriptural reasoning as we go.

So before we see ourselves groveling before an invisible judgmental God, which is bad news, there is the ‘good news’ principle we need to keep in mind. When I am being taken down, that is humbled by God, it is at the very same moment I am being lifted up by Him because He has something better for me. He loves me.

When the world around us ‘takes us down’ it is usually by people who need to show their superiority by putting us down. The goal of most self-centered enthusiasts is to be ‘one-up’ on everyone else. With God I am being humbled in order to be built up in Him and of use in His plan to lift up someone else. That’s why this directive is not only a calling it is a demand and rightly so because it builds us up and upward.

So again, how do we get there?

Let’s really look at ‘perfection’ and what it means for us especially if the Lord is saying that’s what we must be. But the Lord is not alone in that call. Paul is very clear that the Father chose us in Christ before Creation “to be holy and blameless in His sight (Eph.1:4 ).” He knew the Lord had called him in the same way and he carried on that call when he told the Corinthian believers to follow his example as he followed the example of Christ (1Cor.11:1).

The way to see perfection is through the work of Jesus. The Greek word for perfection, being perfect and perfecting is from the root word ‘teleios’ which means to fulfill, to complete, to finish. Tetelesthai- ‘it is finished’- is the word Jesus uttered on the Cross when He gave up the Spirit and died. What Jesus did on the Cross was the completion, the fulfillment, the finishing of the work of obedience to His Father. That was to define what it means to be a person, an image of God, in the world, to die to every world standard and principle that people devised to meet their self-centered perceived needs and let the will of God replace them.

This is why the Cross becomes the central standard by which we put to death the world’s principles that we had before we accepted His love and forgiveness. Every time we put to death a world principle in mind, heart and spirit we rise with Him as we witness to His resurrected presence. That is how the Father has planned for us to bring perfection to a head. As we crucify the desires for self above everything else His life is demonstrated in that behavior. As we quoted before, that’s what He chose us for. That’s how we become perfect as He is perfect. Every time Jesus is seen that is perfection extraordinaire.

You see perfection is not something we work at and accomplish one day. NO, perfection is the work of being a perfect human being which Jesus finished once and for all time on the Cross. Everything in His life that He lived on earth was perfection in the raw, pure perfection, pure spiritual cane sugar. All His teachings, promises, prophecies, miracles, confrontations of the devil, sin, hypocrisy, his birth, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension, were the work He completed to fulfill what it means to be human, an exact replica, a perfect image of God.

When we are faithful to Him and because of Him we are being perfect because He is being perfect through us at those points of witness. His perfection happens through our conscious obedience to His presence. We know then that we are being transformed when we are hungering and thirsting to be like Him (Mt.5:6). Transformation is our goal, our chosen way and our destiny.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Col.3:1-4).