I recently read a Facebook post where the user posted, “I don’t care what others do or say about me. I try to live for the Lord, but I’m not perfect. He understands and loves me just like I am, whether I’m good or not”. I also was told once by a local pastor that, “we cannot be perfect in our lives. Living like Jesus says is not attainable. He understands that and loves us anyway”. I thought on these statements for quite some time and came up with several questions:
• Can we turn our lives over to God and then continue to live how we want and treat Him and His word like dirt?
• Are we supposed to live like we want because His standards are too high?
• Does God expect us to live as a Christian all the time or only when we feel like it?
• Are we so shallow and self absorbed with our own wants and desires that we put God on the shelf until we need Him?
• Does God really love us if we continually sin against Him or ignore His rules/teachings?
• If we live life doing what we want, when we want, are we really Christians at all?
God loves everyone. He sent His Son, Jesus, to repair the gap created between God and Man when Adam sinned. Since there is no doubt that God loves us, I did some research on it and found the following:
What God wants is this: He wants you to be completely good, and separate from everything that is bad.
In I Thessalonians 4, Paul tells us that we should live a life that pleases God. We do this by separating ourselves from the things that draw us away from Him. Some of these are sexual immorality, lying, cheating, stealing, coveting others possessions, cursing, etc. Anything that God frowns upon, makes Him sad when we do them. How do you find out what God frowns upon? Read His word.
In I John 3, the writer tells us that we cannot act like the devil and still be a disciple of Christ. We cannot serve the one that Jesus came to destroy and Him also. If we still are trapped by and desire the things we profess to turn from, we may need to re-check our “decision” to follow Christ and make sure of its validity.
Matthew Henry said of this, “Religion is not an art, a matter of dexterity and skill, but a new nature. And the regenerate person cannot sin as he did before he was born of God, and as others do who are not born again. There is that light in his mind, which shows him the evil and malignity of sin. There is that bias upon his heart, which disposes him to loathe and hate sin. There is the spiritual principle that opposes sinful acts. And there is repentance for sin, if committed. It goes against him to sin with forethought. The children of God and the children of the devil have their distinct characters. The seed of the serpent are known by neglect of religion, and by their hating real Christians. He only is righteous before God, as a justified believer, who is taught and disposed to righteousness by the Holy Spirit. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. May all professors of the gospel lay these truths to heart, and try themselves by them”.
In Romans 6, we see that we are not to sin more to make acquire more grace. The apostle is very full in pressing the necessity of holiness. He does not explain away the free grace of the gospel, but he shows that connection between justification and holiness are inseparable. True believers are dead to sin, therefore they ought not to follow it. No man can at the same time be both dead and alive. He is a fool who, desiring to be dead unto sin, thinks he may live in it.
Years ago, we were “sighting in” the scope on a rifle I was using. I went to a friends firing range to shoot and took aim at the target. While shooting, I discovered that the sight was set too low. I aimed using that sight, but I hit the bottom of the target. I had to aim high in order to hit anywhere near the bull’s-eye. I adjusted the scope several times and finally got it lined up to where I was aiming.
Aren’t our lives a lot like that? If we set our sights too low, we really don’t accomplish all that we can. Sometimes we have to aim high in order to reach a desired goal.
What should be our aim in life? How high should we point our ambitions? Well, since Scripture is our true guide, we will shoot for nothing but spiritual maturity. In fact, in Paul’s farewell to the people of Corinth, he said, “Aim for perfection” (2 Cor. 13:11 NIV). And we also have the high aim of these words from the lips of Jesus, “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).
Perfection is a lofty target, and we won’t attain it in this life. But if we want to honor God and get close to that high goal, we need to aim high. That means turning from our sinful and failed ways of the past and turning to the honorable things of God. It takes a change in heart and mind to follow God. If we are to follow Him, we have to get off of the paths we have walked all our lives and walk in a way that will bring honor to Him.
Yes, God will still love us if we are imperfect. However, if we call ourselves followers of Him we should do all within our power to follow His teachings and bring joy to Him in our lives.
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1 Thessalonians 4 (English Standard Version)
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
1 John 3:9 (ESV)
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.
Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
2 Corinthians 13:11 (ESV)
Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
Matthew 5:48 (ESV)
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
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