Be Perfect
August 7, 2015
Be Perfect
Matthew 5:43-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that 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. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
When we read the passage in verse 48 where Jesus tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” what does that mean to you? Are you thinking that is impossible or yeah, maybe when I get to heaven? Why would he tell us this now when we perceive ourselves in such an imperfect state? How could we ever aspire to be perfect, as he is perfect? We are not only to aspire to it, it is our calling. Why would Jesus call us to do what was impossible to do?
Jesus throughout Matthew 5 is calling His disciples and following to a higher order of love than that of the world. He is calling us out of natural reasoning and fairness. He is calling us to a level of love that we have come to know as Agape’ love. It is a love that is not governed by what others do to me, it doesn’t respond to circumstances. It is an action and not a reaction.
The word “perfect” used in verse 48 is the Greek word “telios”. It means brought to its end, consummate human integrity and virtue, full grown, adult, of full age, mature. The purpose of God is to bring us unto perfection, to bring us into His unconditional love and divine nature. This is the reason He gives the five fold ministry in Ephesians 4:11-13, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” The word mature here is that same word for perfect. It is going to take our faith to grasp this concept, because all that we see in us and in the body of Christ around us pretty much testifies against this. What we have to see here is that there is a standard that has been set before us, but what is impossible with men, is not impossible with God. God is the one that has called us to this standard and He alone can be the ability to attain it. It is obvious to us that it is not in our natural ability, so that is our first clue that we need to be walking and living in something that is beyond the natural. We are called up to walk in the supernatural. We are called to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh. It is only in the realm of the Spirit that we can even comprehend the perfection that Christ has called us too.
Listen as 2 Peter 2:2-4 reiterates our calling and where the power comes from, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” We see here that perfection and maturity in Christ is a calling of faith, because it is in laying hold of the promises of God’s Word that we move into this realm. There is no perfection without His power and life working in us, changing us and transforming us. The ability is not in us to change ourselves to perfection, but to position ourselves in Him, by faith and through a broken and contrite heart to yield to the working and moving He is doing in us. What we perceive as trials, hardships and adversities may truly be opportunities to exercise and mature in His divine nature.
Abraham became the friend of God because he had enough faith and vision to move out of the realm of the seen into the realm of the unseen. He counted God faithful to do that which He had promised. Are we counting Him faithful to perfect our lives in love and in all that pertains to godliness? Are we willing to quit looking at our circumstances and our inability’s long enough to see His ability and His promises to us? Are we like-minded with the apostle Paul to press into the high calling we have in Christ Jesus? “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you (Philippians 3:12 –15).”
Blessings,
#kent
The Love
March 6, 2014
1 John 4:7-12
7Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
The Love
This scripture in 1John is so simple and yet so profound because it sums up who we are to be in Christ. We are love, because He is love. Here, we are not talking about a superficial love or even a friendship kind of love. John is talking about an “Agape” kind of love, God’s love. His love is not selfish, but is ever giving to the point of laying down its life for another.
If most of us think about how easily we are offended by others we are going to catch a glimpse at how shallow the waters of our love are. In order to love like Christ, we have to move into Christ and it has to be His Spirit and life abiding in us that enables us to love with this level of love. We are called unto a high calling of Love. The reality of that love abiding and operating through us will speak more to the glory and reality of God than a thousand sermons. People in the world so rarely see the operation of that level of love and yet it should be commonplace within the body of Christ. God’s love is a gift that is worth living for and it is worth dying for.
God’s love is much like an expression of freedom. It is freedom from the tyranny of sin, oppression and selfishness. While men may come against you with all manner of hate and violence, your choice to love in Christ is something no man or spirit can take from you unless you allow them too. God’s love doesn’t operate out of feelings; that is how our love normally operates. Our feelings come and go, they change, but God doesn’t change. He has continued to love us even when we least deserved it and when we were His enemies. Can we love with that kind of love? Only in Christ can we love with that manner of love. It is not a love that is earned, but a love that is given. It is not a love that seeks only one’s own good, but works to the good of those it comes into contact with. It is not a love that is to be manipulated or used, but stands firm in integrity and righteousness. It works to the higher good in others even when they don’t recognize and understand the means to an end. It operates out of the wisdom of the Spirit and in harmony with the nature of Christ, for it is one and the same.
The reason this love is a testimony, to who we are in God, is because it is a love that can not be counterfeited or self produced. It is only found and obtained as we release who we have been and are becoming what He is through a life yielded completely to Him. The love of God in us is released in proportion to the level we are allowing the Sprit of Christ to operate in and through us. Even as your body houses your spirit, your spirit houses His Love and presence. That, in turn, should be expressed back through our body, as we are the servants and instruments of righteousness in God’s love.
We may see ourselves as a long way from this level of love in us, but it is much closer than you think. The only thing that stands between God and His love expressed through us is ourselves. That is why we must be willing to pick up our cross daily and follow Him. As we are crucified, His love is released.
Blessings,
kent
Higher Level Living
March 5, 2014
Matthew 5:11-12
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Higher Level Living
What is our natural response to insults, verbal and physical attacks, slander, gossip and false accusations? Isn’t it to fight back, justify, retaliate and begin attacking our attackers. Suddenly we find ourselves drawn in and participating in the same fleshly ugliness of those who attacked us. We have come down to their level and are fighting with the same carnal weapons they are. We are opening our hearts to be influenced by the same spirits that are influencing them.
“An eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth,” some will say. Funny you should say that because a little further down in Matthew 5:32-42 Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
Wow, that is pretty unconventional wisdom by this world’s standards and wisdom only a few are willing to walk in.
Why?
Because it denies all of “my” rights. It is asking me to give up and renounce what is “mine”. It is asking me to return good for evil and it imposes seemingly unfair demands upon “me” as a person. It seems to be letting injustice prevail and our rights to be taken unfair advantage of.
When we can all walk in the principles that Jesus gives us in Matthew 5-7 it is probably a pretty good indicator that we are getting very close to being dead unto self and alive only unto Christ. For us to willingly walk in the principles that Jesus is describing means it can no longer be about me, but only about exemplifying and living out of Christ. These are the principles that He walked and lived by. The reason He could is because His heart and affection weren’t upon His natural man or the things of this world.
We all have our possessions and things we have worked hard for. We all have our reputation and our dignity to uphold. It so goes against our grain to be taken advantage of or exploited or to be spoken falsely about.
What Jesus is telling us is, there is a higher level of kingdom living that most of us never touch or really know because we are still so connected and attached to this earthly kingdom and realm. Many of us still think that the political candidate or president is going to determine the fate of the world, the nation and my well being. We may believe if others aren’t of our particular denomination or persuasion of belief they are going to hell or will miss it and yet how many of us are really living these principles of Jesus?
What we all need as believers, who say we love Christ, is a deliverance from a lot of our materialistic and capitalist ways. They are not His ways, but what the world has taught us is true and valuable. If we are not of this world then why are these things still so important to us? The truth is most of us are really living out of a lower level of life and values than what Christ has called us too.
Sometimes we don’t think much about it until we are put in those positions where we must choose between the conventional wisdom of this world and the wisdom that is from above. If you want to really stand out as odd, even among most of the Christian community, try truly walking in the principles that Christ lays out here.
Finally Jesus really stretches us even more in verses 38-43 by saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that 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. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Jesus is calling us to a higher place. It is not a realm where we can operate in conventional wisdom or even love with conventional love. It is place that we can only operate out of, by His Spirit and His Agape’ love. It is a place where our self identity can not live; only our identity in Christ. It is a place where we need to thank God for our enemies, because they are the only ones who can help elevate us to this realm of living and being. Are we ready for a higher level of living?
Blessings,
kent
Irregular Relationships
May 14, 2013
Irregular Relationships
Romans 12:10, 16-21
[Be] kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
[Be] of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but [rather] give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance [is] mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Relationships with people can be one of the greatest trials we endure on earth. Some people we can get along great with, but then there are always those “other people.” The irregular people in our life, that are like burrs under our saddle, always pushing our buttons and causing us to feel the way we shouldn’t ought to feel. If it wasn’t for those certain people life would be so much easier and we would certainly be better Christians in our attitudes and behavior. Have you ever felt like that?
People can hurt us deeply. They can disappoint, betray, slander, ignore, lie, cheat us, steal, criticize, despise us, defraud, or just be someone we don’t want to be around for whatever reason. I think much of the time if I could just exist in my own little world and have brief surface relationships with people; I would probably do okay. I can endure. After all, wasn’t it relationships with certain people that put Jesus on a cross? And to be sure, there will be certain people in our lives that will be our cross to bear.
Why does God have people like that in our lives? Because no one can put their finger on the issues in your life that God wants to deal with like an enemy or irregular person. They can bring out in you thoughts and feelings you never thought you could have. Why is that good if they just serve to cause me to sin? They aren’t really causing you to sin, they simply are exposing attitudes of sin, selfishness, hate, unforgiveness, and a lack of God’s love in you. We are often not a very pretty sight when we really see how shallow we really are and how much we lack in the area of unselfish, agape’ type love. For you to really love your enemy doesn’t come naturally to you. There has to be a greater principle of love at work in you to do that.
I am reminded of a passage I read out of the book, “The Light and the Glory” which addresses the hand of God in bringing about the formation of our country. This particular passage was concerning the faith of George Washington. “A turncoat collaborator named Michael Wittman was captured, and at his trial, it was proven that he had given the British invaluable assistance on numerous occasions. He was found guilty and of spying and sentenced to death by hanging. On the evening before the execution, an old man with white hair asked to see Washington, giving his name as Peter Miller. He was ushered in without delay, for Miller had done a great many favors for the army. Now he had a favor to ask of Washington, who nodded agreeably. “I’ve come to ask you to pardon Michael Wittman.” Washington was taken aback. “Impossible! Whittman has done all in his power to betray us, even offering to join the British and help destroy us.” He shook his head. “In these times we cannot be lenient with traitors; and for that reason I cannot pardon your friend.”
“Friend! He’s no friend of mine. He is my bitterest enemy. He has persecuted me for years. He has beaten me and spit in my face, knowing full well that I would not strike back. Michael Wittman is no friend of mine!”
Washington was puzzled. “And you still wish me to pardon him?”
“I do. I ask it of you as a great personal favor.”
“Why?”
“I ask it because Jesus did as much for me.”
Washington turned away and walked into the next room. Soon he returned with a paper on which was written the pardon of Michael Wittman. “My dear friend,” he said, placing the paper in the old man’s hand, “I thank you for this.””
What story, but the story of Calvary could better illustrate the principle in action of loving your enemy? It is the principle of His love and life within us that causes us to endure with patience and forgiveness the offences of others in our lives. God wants to love even the irregular people through us. After all you might be the irregular person in someone else’s life.
Blessings,
kent
The Old has Gone, the New has Come
February 20, 2013
2 Corinthians 5:16-17
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
The Old has Gone, the New has Come
Have you ever known somebody from a distance and based on your outward observation you formed opinions of who he or she was and what he or she was like? Later, you came to know this person on a much more personal basis and as you gained access to really know their heart, your opinions and judgements of them changed. You came into a fresh and deeper revelation of who they were as a person. Many people know Jesus from a worldly point of view. They may know Him as a prophet, as a healer, as a teacher and even as the Son of God, but do they still only know Christ only from a worldly viewpoint? Many of us have experienced a deeper revelation and more intimate relationship with Christ. He has become so much more than a great and good person who walked upon the earth and impacted the history of mankind. As we have come to know Him intimately we no longer see Him from that worldly viewpoint. We have come to know Him after the Spirit. We have come into an intimacy and knowing of the most personal kind. We are coming to know Him not as just a Savior who awaits us in heaven, but as the person we walk with and fellowship with daily. He knows our heart and daily He brings us more into the knowledge of His heart as we walk and share life with Him in that most intimate place. There isn’t anything that we can’t share with Him and nothing that He doesn’t know. The richest security and safety that we feel in Him is that even though He knows all of our weaknesses, our faults and our failures, He still loves us unconditionally. In our marriages we come to know each other’s weakness, frailties and faults quite well. True agape, unconditional love is when, in spite of all those shortcomings we can love them just as much anyway. It doesn’t mean we love the faults or we don’t want to see change, but personal dislikes or desires for their change doesn’t change the fact that we love them anyway and hopefully they love us the same way in return.
When we come into Christ our viewpoint and paradigm has to be changed. We are no longer that worldly person that we once were. It doesn’t mean that those old ways suddenly all fall off, but in our inward man, our spirit, a transformation has taken place. Old things have passed away and the new has come. If we are intent upon knowing Christ now in this more intimate way then what began in our spirit will begin to permeate very part of our being, spirit, soul and body. It will become our new paradigm and mindset that we now will operate out of. While the transformation and habitation of our spirit changes immediately, the transformation of our soul and body is a work of salvation in progress. Our salvation isn’t over and done with when we walk the aisle or give our heart to Christ. It is just the “I do” that begins this marriage in His Spirit and life. In 2 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul prays, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” There is a progression of salvation from the inward to the outward. This is completely the opposite of how the flesh approaches it. We often think the better we are outwardly the more acceptable we are inwardly. The Lord teaches us that if we learn to live out of the inward or spirit man, the outward will line up with our spirit. His will, becomes our will, His thoughts become our thoughts and His desires become our desires. In that intimate place we start living no longer after the man of the world, but after the man of the spirit. The intimacy and relationship brings the transformation. Little by little He deals with the different areas of our life and because we love Him we yield them obediently to Him, because we know that He has first loved us and gave Himself for us.
Indeed, may old things pass away and all things become new in the light and glory of all that He is in us.
Blessings,
kent
Enveloped in His Nature
October 1, 2012
1 John 4:7-12
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice forc our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Enveloped in His Nature
One of the things that we know about God is that His nature is Love. He may have many attributes, but all that God is, all that he does is birthed out of His nature of Love. All true and pure love comes from God, because God is a giver and He proved how large and wonderful a giver He is when Jesus, His only begotten Son, came down from the place of rulership and dominion to suffer and die a sinner’s death for us, that He might redeem us back to the Father. Never has there been a greater expression and example of love than that.
When we received Christ into our hearts and spirits we became identified with Him in every way; in His cross, in His death, in His burial, resurrection, in His life and ascension and now we have the revelation by His Spirit that indwells us and the Word of God that bears witness that we are “in” Christ. Because we are “in Him” we are to no longer live our lives through our souls (mind, will and emotion), but “through” Christ. Now Christ is in God and Has expression out of and through the Father and 1 John 4:9 says God sent His Son that we might live through Him. We have the privilege, but we also make the choice. We live “in Christ”, “out of Him” and “through Him” we are one with Him. His name and His nature become ours, because we are His. When we live out of Christ, who is God manifest, then we, in like manner possess and live out of His nature of love.
How do we recognize that love?
By the way we honor and treat one another.
1 John 4:12 says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” The way we walk in love toward one another exemplifies and testifies or bears witness that God is in us, because His love is manifesting through our actions and our life. It doesn’t say that it is because we tell each other that we love them. That’s good, but the proof of our love is in our actions and life with one another. Do we earnestly care for one another as expressed through our actions and honor we bestow upon one another?
John tells us here something that should convict each of us that are not truly walking in the love of God. 1 John 4:19-21 tells us, “We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” If we truly know God and God is in us through Christ and His Spirit then how can we still be living in offense and rejection of our brothers or sisters. It is not God’s nature to harbor these things in our hearts. That is an anti-Christ spirit and if we carry this spirit how can we say that we are His? The two natures don’t line up.
If we are going to truly call ourselves believers and disciples of Jesus then His nature had better be showing up in and through our lives. That nature of love.
A quick reminder of what God’s love is from 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.”
If love never fails then how can we, as His expression of love in the earth, fail to love and forgive one another?
I see so much of this throughout families and the body of Christ where people have taken up offense, feuds and walk in rejection and unforgiveness of one another. What scripture did we get that out of and how can we justify, by the Word of God, that manner of behavior? Where is the love of God in that? We can justify to ourselves if we want, but according to God’s Word that we just shared I would say that we are deceived, because Christ died for that brother or sister you rejected, just like He died for you and He loves them, just like He loves you. It doesn’t meant they may have done everything right or they may not have acted out of love, but what does that have to do with you and me, if we say that we are “in love”?
God is telling us to get over our pettiness. You and I lost our rights at the cross and the only right we have is to be who He wants to be in us, “love”. Maybe it is time for a lot of us to either step up into who we are called to be or step off, because the love of God is not in you if you continue to walk in rejection, hate and unforgiveness. Sorry, that’s not God and those walking and living there are not of God, not because I said it, but because His Word says it.
What is our nature? Are we enveloped in His love?
Blessings,
kent
tricklesoftruth 