Daily Bread - DEC/04/07

Genesis 17:1 - And Abram was ninety-nine years old and Yahweh appeared unto Abram and He said, I am God Almighty walk before me and be perfect.

Most people are intimidated by the very idea that God would expect anyone to be perfect. However, if we look at this as an invitation from God to walk into a realm that His strength will supply then, in fact, God is honoring us with an invitation to receive from Him glory and honor. David said, "God girds me with strength and makes my way perfect" (Psalms 18:32). He recognized that it was God who would do the perfecting through the strength that He would supply. The perfection that God desires is a perfection that He provides (Philippians 2:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:11; Titus 2:12; Ephesians 3:16). If we were to look to ourselves then certainly we would throw our hands up in the air and say "impossible!" Yet when we trust in the Lord for the divine ability then we may say, "I will behave myself in a perfect way. O when will you come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart - 'betom levavie" (Psalms 101:2).

To understand the perfection that God desires is to recognize that it is in the walk or the relationship that He wants us to have with Him. Later God would judge the Kings of Israel based upon whether or not their hearts were perfect toward Him. God began with David whom He described as the one whose heart was even as His (1 Samuel 13:14). Even with David's failures his heart remained true to God and God described him as one whose heart was perfect toward Him (1 Kings 15:3). God commanded Solomon to have a perfect heart to walk in the statutes and to keep the commandments of God (1 Kings 8:61; 1 Chronicles 28:9). When Solomon turned to other gods then his heart was no more perfect toward the Lord; it had become divided with other devotions (1 Kings 11:4). King Asa remained devoted to Yahweh and, therefore, received the report that His "heart was perfect with Yahweh all his days" (1 Kings 15:14). Hezekiah's plea before the Lord was bolstered by the fact that he had walked with a perfect heart and had done that which was good in the sight of the Lord (2 Kings 20:3; Isaiah 38:3). In this context, a perfect heart described one who was serving God with all of his heart (levavechem shalem). In this respect, it was God's request of the whole nation of Israel (Deuteronomy 6:5). The prophet Hanani revealed that Yahweh searches throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him (2 Chronicles 16:9).

God makes the same request of us today as Jesus commands everyone of us to, "Be therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). Paul says in His final address to the Corinthians, "Be perfect" (2 Corinthians 13:11). He reveals to the Ephesians that the ministry is there to make them perfect so that they may all grow into a perfect man (Ephesians 4:12-13). He testified to the church at Colossae that their ministry was to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus (Colossians 1:28; 4:12). Both Paul and John reveal that love is the means and the realm of this perfection (Colossians 3:14; 1 John 2:5; 3:12,17-18). Love fulfills all that God has ever desired and requires. It is through divine love that we discover the means to a perfect relationship.

Be blessed,

Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
abidingplace.org