Christian Perfection

[tryme]

Another great devotional from My Utmost for His Highest (highlights mine)



"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect. . . ." Philippians 3:12

It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do; God's purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements is apt to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you go off on this idea of personal holiness, the dead-set of your life will not be for God, but for what you call the manifestation of God in your life. "It can never be God's will that I should be sick." If it was God's will to bruise His own Son, why should He not bruise you? The thing that tells for God is not your relevant consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your real vital relation to Jesus Christ, and your abandonment to Him whether you are well or ill.

Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that strikes you is the irrelevancy of the things you have to do, and the next thing that strikes you is the fact that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives are apt to leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary, by human effort and devotion we can reach the standard God wants. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces a longing after God in other lives, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God is not after perfecting me to be a specimen in His show-room; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He likes.




Interesting take on the Holiness Movement and human perfection.
In them people are trying to be the best Christian they can be.
Very dangerous. It should not be about how we are perceived to others.
Instead we should be working individually on a perfect relationship with God.

 

[ClementofRome]

Thank you very much for that.

 

[Paleoconservatarian]

It is very easy to fall into the sort of thinking that we can reach God's standard by human effort. Something I've struggled with a lot throughout my life. Thanks, that is a good piece.

 

[Terri]

Thanks Magnify.

I still remember how shocked I was when God first made it clear to me how irrelevant what I felt was.

I now take great joy in how irrelevant I am. It helps me keep my focus off of myself and on God where it belongs. And, I must admit lately that it has been very difficult to do while trying to survive the death of my dear husband.

But, I can feel myself getting more irrelevant everyday--and I rejoice!

 

[edie19]

Magnify,

These have been wonderful - thanks so much for sharing.

I donated my copy of "My Utmost for His Highest" to our church library. I'm thinking I need to get myself a new copy. I'd forgotten how inspiring Oswald Chambers is.

edie

 

[tryme]

Magnify,

These have been wonderful - thanks so much for sharing.

I donated my copy of "My Utmost for His Highest" to our church library. I'm thinking I need to get myself a new copy. I'd forgotten how inspiring Oswald Chambers is.

edie

I post them and the link daily in my blog and usually in the Fab 40 devotional sticky thread.
Here is the online link to the devotional: My Utmost for His Highest

 

[ClementofRome]

Thanks for the link. I used to use Chambers years ago and you have reminded me how much I enjoyed it. I now have this link posted on my toolbar.
Blessings to you.
Clem

 

[edie19]

I post them and the link daily in my blog and usually in the Fab 40 devotional sticky thread.
Here is the online link to the devotional: My Utmost for His Highest

added to my online "favorites"

Thanks so much.

edie

 

[ContraMundum]

Funny how his critique of the holiness movement is not too bad but then he goes on to describe holiness almost exactly as they do (on relationship).

Sounds like he's adressing the excesses, and not the thrust of the movement.

 

[hlaltimus]

This devotional excerpt had a lot of good thoughts in it! But just for the record, It wouldn't have been part of a sermon that you would have heard from either Wesley or a Puritan! If you had said that God does not expect one of His creatures to be perfectly holy as He is holy, a Puritan would have given you a look that would turn you into stone. Objective and accomplishment are two things altogether. God most definitely expects us to be holy, (finitely,) and has established a method of Mediatorial righteousness in order to that requisite as far as legal reckoning is concerned, but it cannot be denied that we all fall far short of this expectation in accomplishment. Here is the concept of the Puritan teaching on progressive holiness: It is both required, attainable relative to our peers and unattainable relative to our God. It is something which one can marr unless all three of those considerations are taken into account.

 

[lmnop9876]

we will all be perfectly holy one day... when we die, or when Christ returns.
"The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness..."