Many of these thoughts have not originated
from my understanding, although they now resonate with me, without the help of
A.W.Tozer I would not understand perfection to the extent I now understand it.
Anyone who has gone on in life, those
who have aged to a level of understanding all know what it means to suffer. The
longer we live the more prone we are to experience different levels of
suffering. What causes us to suffer? There must be a disorder in our reasoning.
So long as we have psychological, mental and physical order our understanding
remains in harmony and we will not suffer, break any of those orders and we will
then suffer, there is a dysfunction in our reasoning, hence we then experience
different forms of suffering.
The Apostle Paul is quick to remind us
that we need to be brought lower than we imagine our intellects to apprehend,
as if we truly do understand the way we should. Here then is the great equalizer
and it would be good for all men to take note; “If anyone
imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But
if anyone loves God, he is known by God.” (1Corinthians 8:2-3) –
God is perfect in love; love is one of His perfect attributes and because it is
perfect, it never had a beginning nor will it ever end, neither can anything be
added or taken from God’s love as it is an infinite love. How then do we get
our minds around something so perfect when we in fact are imperfect? I am
reminded about Job’s suffering and all the counsel of his supposedly wise
friends. A lot of hot air with no real relief
from the comforters, but when God comforts us it is with a perfect comfort; He
is perfect in everything He does not because He has learnt to be perfect, but
because He is perfect in character. It is who He is!
“God said to Moses,
"I AM WHO I AM."” (Exodus 3:14)
I
suppose if we begin to see God for who He actually is, within the constraints
He would reveal Himself, I believe it would be accompanied with great acts of
faith. Not that God can change, how can anything that is perfect change? But we
would change! How I long to be more like my great Saviour, is that not the call
for all who confess Him as Lord? “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect” (Matthew 5:48)
Our commitment in worshiping him eases with our view
of God because our imaginations have been so flawed because of our own weakness and we cannot find the
means to reason correctly. God help us put on the mind of Christ!
The
grace of God is perfect, therefore to say that God became more gracious after
Christ died would be incorrect, and how can something that is perfect evolve,
it can’t! God’s grace has never changed;
His perfect unchanging grace applied both to the saints of old (prior to Christ
crucifixion) as well as those after His resurrection. To even suggest that God
has become more gracious would mean that He has changed; how can anything that
is perfect ever improve? If it did it was never perfect to begin with. But all
of God’s attributes are perfect, He is perfect!
Mercy
and judgement meet somewhere in the middle, how can I understand that as I
should and I will not profess to apprehend. But what I can conclude is that
both His mercy and His judgements are perfect. So somewhere in the middle God
sent his Son, the second person of the Trinity, to die in the place of sinners.
A just man dying for the unjust and yet perfect in God’s justice. How brilliant
is our God? It blows my mind and yet I know it to be true. Jesus Christ dying for
sinners is perfectly worked out in God’s justice.
I
am starting to hate the injustice in my life; this flesh is so rebellious to
the perfect righteousness of God. Thanks to God for His mercy in and through
Jesus Christ, nothing else will get us to heaven. Singing hymns, or praying as
we ought to pray and doing what we think will justify us before a perfect God
will by no means qualify us for heaven, it is only God’s infinity goodness that
will get us there; Christ died for the sins of man, God the Father turned His
back on his Son to register atonement for all mankind. It was God’s perfect
love that compelled Him to be merciful, it is who He is. God wrought out a plan
where the second person in the trinity incarnated as a man could die while God’s
justice would be satisfied and at the same time God’s mercy would rescue the
sinner. Nothing else will get us to heaven, so forget trying to earn your
salvation, and just be thankful for God’s perfect plan. Grace and mercy
perfected in and through the finished work of Calvary. Wow!
I
came to saving faith in 1987 or so I understand it, but God worked this all out
before the foundation of the world; “Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love” (Ephesians 1:3-4)
Signing off
Tyrone
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