Christian Perfection

Click on Title for Actual Devotional Reading before reading my thoughts
December 2nd
My Utmost For His Highest
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

My Thoughts
I will start with a quote: “The regenerate man often has a more difficult time of it than the unregenerate, for he is not one man but two. He feels within him a power that tends toward holiness and God, while at the same time he is still a child of Adam's flesh and a son of the red clay.” A.W. Tozer

Any unnecessary works of faith can destroy the purposes and usefulness of a ministry. Pride is a constant temptation, especially where God has graciously blessed a Christian's ministry. Pride can lead a Christian to think, “Look what I've accomplished.” That attitude is sinful self-gratification. Life is filled with pain and sorrow and suffering. Bad things happen to everybody because we are living in a sinful world. The sources of "thorns" can be weaknesses, insults, distresses, persecutions and difficulties. God uses suffering to perfect His "Power is perfected in weakness". God is saying "You should not have self-confidence and trust in yourself in the sense you believe you're capable of anything eternal that only I can provide grace and power." Only God can overcome situation as long as you trust in His GRACE. The question here is, when God given you the grace to handle the sufferings of life, did you allowed Him? That's the issue. Thorns are not necessarily evil, but rather the works of self-righteousness. Grace of heart is a gift from God and this has nothing to do with the thorns because God change our circumstances by changing us internally, by allowing Him to lift us above our present thorn and He will lead us into His will. It is a choice God gives us within the parameters of His omnipotence. Grace is having all sufficiency in everything we may have an abundance for every good deed. The right perspective is to understand that in the trouble of life this is part of it trying to discern what God is doing in the trouble of it. James says count it all joy when you fall into various trials caused trials have a perfecting work. Peter says after you've suffered a while the Lord will make you perfect. God uses suffering to reveal our spiritual condition. In the midst of the sufferings, what kind of Christian do you see yourself? God answers not by removing the pain, because the pain was productive, rather God gave Grace to endure. In this life it is inevitable and it is useful because it produces the evidence of your true spiritual condition, humility and intimacy with God and allows God to put Himself on display in His grace. "Therefore as, we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of believers" (Galatians 6:10). The needs of the people, not our own convenience, decide how far we shall go and how much we shall do. Had there been no Fall there would have been no thorns and no cross. Christ was the perfect example of the healthy normal man, He did not live a normal life. By His grace God can make us what He wants us to be. Our task is to faithfully pursue His standards. The potter (God) is working with this soft, yielding clay (us). If this clay does not submit, the potter may not be able to do what I should do according to His will. The potter still could make anything except for useful and beautiful (spiritual fruitful) out of an unyielding blob of clay. If God is going to make those kinds of vessels out of clay (us), however, we are going to have to yield to the spiritual law of surrender. Give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice and let Him have us--all of us. Often I noticed that the providential of God leads me to what I call "coincidences" in my life which perhaps God will make sure that His wills will be done at His right time and place. There are two worlds, set over against each other, dominated by two wills, the will of man (me) and the will of God, respectively. Trials (of all kinds) are often a two-sided coin. One side trials may be viewed as coming from God to bring out the BEST in us (See: Gen. 22:1-2, 15-18; Hebrews 11:17). On the other side of the coin, Satan attempts to tempt us and trials to bring out the WORST in us (see: James 1:13-14).

In his Philippian epistle Paul declares his own determination to advance against all obstacles. He says in effect that while he is not yet perfect and has not yet attained unto the goal set before him, he is putting the past behind him psychologically as well as chronologically that he may go on to find in Christ his all in all. "I press on toward the goal," he says, "to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). Then with a fine disregard for apparent self-contradictions he urges, "All of us who are mature should take such a view of things" (3:15). A.W. Tozer

I am not yet perfect, but I thank God and my Lord Jesus Christ that I am done with the past and I do now trust in my Savior for full deliverance from all my sins. I cannot pray like Daniel, but I shall never cease to praise God that He inclines His ear to me. I am not as wise as Solomon, but I glory in this, that "I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day" (2 Timothy 1:12). I have not the gifts of Moses or Isaiah or John, but I'll be everlastingly grateful that I have been given the moral perception to understand and appreciate such men as these. I am not what I want to be, but thanks be to God that I do want to be better than I am; and I am sure that "He who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). A.W. Tozer

God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves. For those out of Christ, time is a devouring beast; before the sons of the new creation time crouches and purrs and licks their hands. The foe of the old human race becomes the friend of the new, and the stars in their courses fight for the man God delights to honor. This we may learn from the divine infinitude. A.W. Tozer

Brethren, happiness is not our being's end and aim. the Christian's aim is perfection, not happiness; and everyone of the sons of God must have something of that spirit which marked his Master. Frederick W. Robertson

The impulse to create the world was not from weakness, as though God were lacking in some perfection which creation could supply. John Piper

I find that doing the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about his plans. George MacDonald

God makes not only the wrath of man to turn to His praise but the misadventures of Christians too. J.I. Packer

In his will is our peace. Dante

My dear brother, let God make of you what He will, He will end all with consolation, and shall make glory out of your suffering. Samuel Rutherford

When I say "hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come," I should be adding in my mind the words "in and through me," and so giving myself to God afresh to be, so far as I can be, the means of answering my own prayer. And when I say "thy will be done," I should mean this as a prayer that I, along with the rest of God's people, may learn to be obedient. J.I. Packer

A man's heart is right when he wills what God wills. Thomas Aquinas

There are no "if's" in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - O Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it! Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place (Betsie quoted on page 67)

Everybody thinks of changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing himself. Leo Tolstoy