We Can Be
Perfect and
Complete
in Christ
by T Myers Smith
In the final chapter of Colossians the apostle Paul eludes to a man named Epaphras who had a zealous desire that the believers within his locality would be ''perfect and complete in all the will of God". It says that this Epaphras labored fervently in prayer hoping that full maturity would become a reality in the lives of those beloved brethren of Colosse, Laodicea and surrounding cities and towns.
We have this same “hope of Epaphras" for our readers. To grow into a ''perfect'' and "complete" person in Christ is a wonderful ambition for any believer and its understanding, in purely spiritual terms, is not as difficult as people usually make it out to be. Epaphras worked in behalf of the believers who lived in Colosse, a fellowship of dedicated, earnest Christians, and for those who lived in Laodicea, a gathering which Christ scolded in Revelation for being "lukewarm” to the Truth, indifferent to spiritual perfection, happy with thinking they knew everything and were in need of nothing. They were over-confident, arrogant and prideful in their spiritual condition. It is no coincidence that this Epaphras had hope for a wide range of believers because that is the way of the Holy Ghost in the Church. Epaphras and the Spirit issue the invitation to be ''perfect'' and ''complete'' to any and all, in any part or church of the greater Church; to any who can hear the call.
As Epaphras was led of the Spirit to issue the call, so we also are led to issue the same challenge. The following section in the journey to Brideship states the case for the necessity of perfection in Christ if a saint is to be reckoned as the espoused bride of Christ and positioned to be accounted worthy to escape all those things that will befall the earth and be raptured into the waiting arms of Jesus. The sum of this section amounts to an exhortation to believe in the possibility of spiritual perfection and a fervent invitation to strive for it in one’s personal walk with the Lord.
Why is it so hard for the faithful to believe that the power of Jesus Christ can transform them into perfect and complete Christians? Most Christians remain snagged in erroneous worldly notions of perfection and conclude, almost by default, that the one and only thing which is impossible for God is the perfecting and completion of his disciples.
Certainly poor teaching is a major reason for the brethren's shallow, limited idea about God's means of perfecting and completing the saints, but in the end each person will shoulder the responsibility for their own walk of faith, and everything hinges around a personal relationship with the Lord and how carefully it has been nurtured and preserved. As we shall see completion is a matter of yielding to the Trinity and abiding in God's love and perfection is a matter of our close and communicative personal relationship with him. True, God is perfect and Man is very, very far from it - But... when man becomes born-again he gets a new nature, the old heart of stone, deaf to God's voice, is replaced by a heart of flesh. No longer is he a mere mortal, but God, and eternal life, is now dwelling in him and he has entered a brilliant new realm brimming with the promise of living a life that can be pleasing to God.
Hear God's Word And Do It
Since God dwells in the born-again heart, that heart has something perfect in it - which is "Christ in us". And that, brothers and sisters, is the key to the mystery of being perfect before God. To want this indwelling of God to OVERTAKE US AND GROW TO PERFECTION is to desire to be perfect as a Christian. We find it by dying to ourselves and letting the Holy Ghost form Christ in us. Perfection in Christ is really just that simple. We must shed our preoccupation with natural notions of perfection; they mean nothing in the spiritual realm. Perfect before God has nothing to do with our limitations, poor judgement, assessments, or decisions. Perfection before God has to do with our willingness to hear God's word and do it.
The Christian who would be perfect must learn to recede in ego and will, and let the influence of God's Spirit increase and swell. He must learn the sound of God's voice in his heart and seek to be obedient to that voice. Remember when Jesus was informed that his mother and brethren waited outside to see him he turned to his disciples and said, "My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God and do it."Jesus repeatedly testified that he came not to do his own will, but the will of his Father in heaven which sent him. That testimony is Christ's perfection, and is his disciples’ perfection - we hear God and obey.
Let's not make it more complicated than it is. Seek to hear his voice. Be obedient.
How Do I Know God's Will?
So then the inevitable questions rise to the surface. How can I hear God's voice? How can I know his will? Where do I get the power to resist temptation, be freed of myself and become obedient to God's desires? I know my flesh is weak.
That is where being complete comes in
We must be willing to throw off the presumptions of our family traditions and religious stereotyping and get fully equipped for the work of "perfection". Our completion in Christ has three major facets, just as God is three persons.
1.) We must be born-again: that means we must repent, accept Christ as Lord and Savior, and be fitted with a new heart, one with spiritual eyes and ears so we can see and hear Christ.
2.) We must be baptized in the Holy Ghost: like a new born babe we can see and hear, but we can not comprehend the meaning of anything. Just as maturity and experience is needed until a baby can understand the will of those who communicate with it, so the new babe in Christ must be equipped with the means and power to communicate and comprehend what God is saying to him or her. To help us in our new world, God has sent the Holy Spirit to minister all sorts of power and gifts. We need to be empowered, showered and baptized with the Holy Ghost by Jesus.
3.) Water baptized: We have to get ourselves out of the way. For that God has provided the spectacle of water baptism which is a symbolic action of dying to ourselves so that Christ may be raised up in us. This is a public profession of our desire to have God's desires and hopes rule our lives as if we were "dead".
These three acts: 1) accepting Christ, which is being made a new creature; 2) being imbued with the power of the Holy Ghost; and 3) water baptism, which is the acting out of desire to die to self so Christ may fully live in us; gives us a kind of completion that will enable us to go on to the sort of perfection that is not of the flesh, but is of the spirit. Ultimately, we grow into a faithful servant of God "complete" and "perfect". We are able to put on the full armor of God wherewith the complete Christian, as a spiritual soldier in Christ, fights the battles of faith. Three baptisms
"Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God ... having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit..."
Ephesians 6:13-18
Unfortunately, most Christians never tap into the blessings of living "perfect" and "complete" before God and never become righteous soldiers in the Lord. For a variety of reasons; lack of faith, personal fears, resistance to the Holy Ghost, to name a few, the Christian remains imperfect and incomplete in his faith. Many, if not most, believers let themselves believe their imperfect walk with the Lord is the best that can be had. On the threshold of freedom and holiness, they stop, see that the price they must pay is yielding and dying to self, and never enter into that close relationship which leads to discipleship. Call me cynical but the prevailing resistance to the notion of a perfect and complete Christian is not from Scriptural influences, to the contrary, Scripture exhorts us to be perfect, full, victorious and complete, no, the prevailing attitude is because the Church desires to excuse its imperfections, tries to cover its blemishes, tries to rationalize its marriage with the world, tries to conceal its weakness to temptation by doing penance. The Church is too quick to excuse its selfish will with a shrug, and a quizzical "after all we're only human."
It has to be either one of two things: 1.) To accept an imperfect life in Christ is to ignore Christ's call to spiritual fitness and perfection or, 2.) Christ, and the Scriptures, are laying an unbelievable guilt trip on his friends and believers. Which is it? We the Church can not have it both ways.
The Bible says, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."(Matt. 5:48) “Be Holy as your father in Heaven is Holy.”And, “Follow peace with all men, and HOLINESS, without which no man shall see the Lord.”
(Heb. 12:14)
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