20) Strength in Suffering Series
“I’m not trying to be perfect. I know that’s impossible…” my Christian sister began, “but I don’t always feel like I’m getting anywhere. I keep making the same mistakes!”
I think we all get discouraged with this same cycle of trying and failing. Part of suffering is hitting those obstacles and knowing we don’t have what it takes to overcome them. The apostle Paul didn’t have what it took to overcome everything he faced in his life, either.
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12
Paul was still working on being made perfect, and that word “perfect” isn’t being used the way we use it today. It means to be completed. It’s the arrival at a goal. Paul is stating that he hasn’t arrived yet. He hasn’t made it to where God wants him to be, so he keeps going. He keeps trying. He presses on, pushing himself against the barriers that are trying to hold him back. He doesn’t let the cycle of trying and failing cause him to give up. Instead, he keeps his focus on his goal. Paul compares Jesus’ desire and effort of laying hold of us with his desire and effort to lay hold on the prize of being with God in Heaven. We are worth focusing on, reaching out to, and holding onto by the Son of God. That’s the impetus for pressing on.
Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
The word “perfect” is used today to mean there are no mistakes, no flaws, no holes. It isn’t a coincidence that today’s definition of perfect sends one’s mind back to the past and all the mistakes and shortcomings. This is a constant fiery dart that the devil keeps using to gouge the tender-hearted saint. It keeps one from focusing on God’s definition of perfection. Paul reveals that the only way to keep focused on eternity is to stop thinking about the past and see that eternal completeness is assuredly ahead when you keep pressing toward Heaven.
God has already perfected you, my faithful sister. You are His because He made you His. He made you worthy through His Son, and that is perfection. This doesn’t mean that we don’t feel lacking. God’s gift causes us to reach out to Him to grow closer to Him. His loving gift changes hearts and minds. His love doesn’t just change a Christian once. His love changes us over and over, bringing us into closer relationship with our Creator. These situations you go through that cause you to press forward are there to grow your heart and mind toward the goal of eternal life in His presence.
In John 15, Jesus gave His disciples some promises about pressing on and growing in Him. Please read the chapter and note how He promised they would bring forth fruit, meaning they would grow and reproduce. But they could only do this by abiding in Him. Jesus gave the visual of a stem or vine with branches growing out of it. He told them He was that stem from which they would grow. He told them to abide in Him by following His commandments, and that God would love them and prune, or purge, them that they would reproduce more and more. It isn’t easy to be cut back, but it’s the pruning that causes the greater growth.
When Jesus reached out His arms through His death on the cross and offered eternal life to you, He set his focus on you. He didn’t look back at your past; He gave you a new and everlasting future. No, you are not perfect of yourself. You can’t overcome this world by yourself. There is only one perfect Being, and He is God. He is the One who chooses to grow and perfect you, my Christian sister. He will help you overcome.
Continue to Wholly Holy.
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