Invited to be Perfect

07.14.12

Hebrews 11.39-40 39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. NASB

The perfect man (human) is the faithful man (gender doesn’t matter, faith does). Man was created to believe in God. Man’s quest for knowledge and to see the uttermost parts of the Universe and beyond is met in the unfathomable depths of the knowledge and wisdom of God. God made man with a potential and a purpose that staggers the imagination. The gift is there all man has to do is believe. The perfection is ours; all we have to do is believe.

In my life, like you in yours, I struggle with various things from time to time. Most of my life’s struggles are based on whether or not I believe God. And the outcome of my struggles usually results in the building up of my faith: Can I trust God in these circumstances and give glory to Him by being faithful? Struggles are divinely designed to see what comes out of me when I’m outside my comfort zone. The potential is perfection.

The struggles and difficulties described in Hebrews 11 are things which resulted in the building up of the faith in the people who experienced them. Starting with Abel (Genesis chapter 4) and covering all of human history are these words: And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. God’s plan is that all of us become perfect and experience perfection by trusting in Him and the future that is ours in Him.

The invitation of God is simply this: Come be with Me. You will be My people and I will be your God. In that invitation is the perfection that every human heart has longed for since Adam and Eve walked upon the earth. And that perfection is only found in God through Jesus Christ and faith in Him. And the Gift of perfection is only held by faith. We have to trust God for it. We have to trust God in our struggles because within them and by faith in Him we receive a perfection that is only given to those who do.

I am currently watching (through news, blogs, and personal testimony) two families who struggle with devastating health issues. One family is living with ALS. The others are in the midst of what we might say is a real-life episode of House: three of their five children are afflicted with heart disease, and the disease is so ferocious that one child has already had a heart transplant, and another is awaiting one; and the youngest’s heart is failing on a daily basis. The doctors don’t know why and all sorts of tests are being run to find answers as to why the oldest, the middle, and the youngest child are afflicted and the other two seem fine.

The outcome of these struggles is to be faith in God – that is the invitation put before every human being on the planet: past, present, and future: it’s the way of those who live on the earth. Every person ever is, in some manner, to trust God and to trust in God. But in the midst of our struggles we are to trust that God has dealt with our sin through the Person who makes all things perfect: Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Through Jesus Christ, all of us have the potential for perfection – right now on earth, and in our future in Heaven.

The last thing we want to accuse God of, is manipulating our lives with dreadful discomforts to affect from us some sort of forced response. But when faced with things that are way beyond our control He is pleased when we cry out to Him in faith for deliverance. The sickness of all mankind is faithlessness – the cure for that is faithfulness, that despite whatever is going on around us – we trust God for the outcome. From that, perfection is born.