Perfection

Romans 8:11 (New International Version)

"11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."


To paraphrase Ravi Zacharias, "...God is perfect because He is the only being whose purpose for being is within His being, where as man's purpose for being is found outside of his being...." It's not exact, but I'm sure you get the point.

God exists outside of time and space, apart from everything. He has been, was, and always will be. His purpose for existence is within Himself! We, on the other hand, are creations of God. We were made in His image for a purpose, not to be a purpose. We were created to have perfect fellowship with God. To walk and talk with Him in peace and love forever. We were created to worship and adore the King. Something went wrong, though, and we fell from that state. We became full of ourselves and instead of being the creations that the Creator wanted us to be; we became whatever we wanted to be. In the process we sinned against God and separated ourselves from His glory.

In order to redeem our relationship, God had to have a perfect solution to a perfect problem; namely, Jesus Christ. There was absolutely no other way to redeem man back to a state of perfect union with God. Annual sacrifices and sin offerings as part of the Law were only good for a short time. The blood of the lambs could only cover our sins for a time; it would eventually wear off. God had to become the Lamb and offer His own blood as the sacrifice for our sins because He is the only perfect solution!

When Jesus stretched out His arms on the cross He became sin for the good of mankind. He took on the burdens and troubles of our lives at the cross and said "It is finished!" Jesus died, was placed in the grave, and on the third day He rose. Jesus ascended to the Father and sits now, PERFECT, at His right hand. Before He left, however, He gave us this promise, "16And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you." John 14:16-17

So what of this all? If God is perfect because He is, and we are not perfect because we aren't; how can we have perfect fellowship with Him? Through the death of Jesus our sins were blotted out. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit (who lives IN us) we are given perfection. As God is perfect because all that is-is within Him, then we are made perfect because all that He is-is within us. When the Spirit of God lives within you, God looks at you and sees His own reflection!

I used to not like what I saw in the mirror, what a change this has been.