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PerfectionBy
Wayne Dailey, | |
Mortify therefore
your members which are upon the earth; fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence,
and covetousness, which is idolatry . . . also put off
all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication
out of your mouth. see
Colossians 3:5–8 |
| Paul is speaking to the believers, those whom God has saved. First, he lists some major things that need to
be put down, put out of one’s life, mortified.
And then there is the next round: also . .
. put
off these other things. When we came that day to the Lord and opened our hearts to Him we
were yet carnal and sinful. We weren’t
any different than they are right here. We didn’t become spiritual the day we got saved. No, we were far from being spiritual: we were
yet carnal. We hadn’t done anything about
putting these types of things away. God didn’t tell us if we would put away all these things then He
would save us. No, God would first
save us; and then help us to put all of these things away, to mortify them.
Remember the struggles you had getting some of those things put away?
You struggled, and struggled – until you
got serious with God. You found that when you purposed in your heart to separate yourself
and followed Him it was so much easier – because you found grace and help from
God to be delivered from the bondages of your flesh and your carnality. THE NEED FOR VICTORY Getting those things out of one’s life isn’t always an easy matter.
There are a lot of struggling Christians
who find it hard to gain victory in their lives. And then there are a lot of struggling Christians who aren’t even
minded to change. They have been duped
and brainwashed that we don’t need to change – that we’re all right just like
we are! God doesn’t mind you being that
way! He knows you’re only human! Listen, God taught us in His Word to put those carnal, sinful things
away! He has always shown Himself willing
to help us in conquering and putting away those things. He has never left it all to us to try to somehow
deal with it. The more we become spiritual, the more we shed away all of that old
life. Perhaps that constant change is still going on in your life today.
What is happening? God is perfecting your life. First, He deals with the big things – such as fornication, adultery,
uncleanness. Those were the “big–ticket items” in our lives. Think now of the smaller items: God continues to sanctify us; continues
to take us out of that carnal, fleshy way, and perfect even the little things
in our hearts. He gets down to some of the bad manners, doesn’t He? He gets down to some of the every day things
we just so commonly do but that we shouldn’t do. In this kind of perfection, wherein He takes these things out of
us, we find ourselves changing from one opposite to the other. We come from that carnal place, that fleshy place, unto a spiritual
place in our lives. A LOVING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS A KEY Our experience with the Lord is a spiritual relationship. Let’s not forget that. It’s a relationship of loving and serving God
Almighty, of obedience to God, of following the Word of God. The whole idea of change is to become spiritual: and to become spiritual
we have to draw away from the flesh, away from the carnal things. The more we’re willing to draw apart from those carnal things, the
more we’ll find this will happen: we’ll find more spirituality, find ourselves
more earnest in our walk with God, find ourselves more serious, find that our
desire for God will get greater. We should all think of it in that light. We don’t want to stop growing. We don’t want to stop the process of perfection
in our hearts, do we? Whatever it takes that we go on and go deeper,
isn’t that what we want to do? Drawing closer will always enhance our experience with God. It will always cause us to want to go into the
realm of more of a total obedience to God. John 14:15 If ye love me, keep My commandments. In our relationship, one of the great things is obedience to the
teachings of Christ, keeping His Word. As we walk with Him, it should get easier and easier to do this.
And when we do, the reflection back to Him is
that we love Him. We find ourselves being filled with love for God. The more we find this having a place in our lives,
the more we find in our hearts and our conversation and in our minds that God
becomes all in all to us. So in finding this deep, rich, spiritual relationship, it brings
us into the place where our lives are really blessed. Hasn’t your life increased with spiritual things as you walk in obedience
to the Word? But, realize that there are
many spiritual things which you haven’t considered or gone after, or even realized
that you could have in your life. I think that our hearts ought to always seek God, always look to
God because we want to be spiritual. After all, being spiritual is being like Jesus.
I want to be spiritual. I
don’t see any place where I would be advantaged by being carnal. But I can see in every way the advantage of being
spiritual. PERFECTION So we come up, and we come up, and we come up some more. God ever work in perfecting our lives and making
us to abound yet more and more! Hebrews 12:23 To the general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect This speaks of men who have since gone on with the Lord, and how
their lives added up to perfection. Many of God’s people don’t want to hear about perfection. The critics would think that even Jesus wasn’t
perfect: but I find no fault in Him. I always think of perfection not just to say I’ve made it – but to
say I am perfected up to this point in my life, and I’m yet changing day by day.
It’s not boasting, I am perfect! But to look at my life and say, I am being
perfected. My life is changing. My life now is different. My life is going on with Him. Perfection is having its course. You could take the word perfection and apply it any time throughout
the years of your experience. You’re perfected at each point of obedience.
But then you look at what perfect really means: being like God, being
like Christ. One day we will be with Him,
and . . . I John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and
it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear,
we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him He is. We’re on our course, but we can’t say that we’ve already arrived.
We can see perfection as a fruit in our lives:
but we can also see that there are still some shortcomings, still some areas in
which we have not perfected our hearts. And there are some areas in which God would work, giving us what
it takes. It may take some good, strong meat to take us on to perfection. Are we willing to take on more? Are we willing to go as far as we have to go?
John 14:30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you:
for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me. There was Jesus standing that day like we should want to be – with
no flaws. The devil had no hold at all
in His life – nothing in His heart, nothing in His mind, nor in His flesh. The devil had nothing in Him. ELIMINATE THE
ROOTS OF SIN Sometimes it would be good to look to see if maybe there’s an area
in your life where the devil is always working on you. If so, then he’s got some means to get in there to work against you,
because he’s working on something that has a root in your life. You must get rid of those roots to where he has
nothing in you. BITTERNESS Bitterness can get so strong in one’s life that it defiles them.
It can defile just as much as adultery defiles.
ANGER, HAVING A TEMPER This is something that’s made such a part of many. It is to be put away. That’s God’s way of having us deal with it:
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us Those things which beset you hold you back, keeping you from victories,
keeping you from being all that you can be. They keep you from your full potential as a Christian
because you don’t fully deal with them. When you lay them aside, the devil won’t have them to fight against
you with. Neither will he be able to try
to work to make it that you can’t quit doing those things, that you can’t lay
them aside. He ever tries to make it worse, tries to keep that little hole wherein
he would beset you time after time. ARE YOU ON A
ROLLER COASTER? You work so hard to get to the top of that thing. You’re determined. You’re going to make it. You’re going to be what God wants you to be.
You’re going to be that spiritual person. You climb up, and it seems like you can get right on the very top
of that thing: but, just like the roller coaster, it falls right down the other
side. Think about that kind of relationship. You fight hard to climb up and become spiritual:
but you only get up there so far and it seems like you run out of gas. You
just kind of slack off or let down. When you stop doing the thing you were doing that brought victory,
the next thing you know, you’ve dropped down again. Then it’s that same long distance to try to get
yourself up there again. Wouldn’t it be best to just get up there, and stay there? Just be in that place where the devil doesn’t
have these things in you anymore, where he doesn’t have that control over you
anymore, and where you are in the realm of having victory? THE MIND: THE BATTLEFIELD So many times it’s the mind that gets pounded and pounded and pounded
with things. The devil would like to always
tell you what to think about. He wants to have control of your thoughts. I don’t know how he does it, but it seems that many times thoughts
are just injected into the mind. Where
did that thought come from? You hadn’t
been thinking about it, and suddenly it’s there. Where do any thoughts come from? We don’t really know where thoughts come from,
how they came, what makes them. We do know, though, that we have the ability to think and that we
do have thoughts. How the devil likes to plague us by putting things in our minds,
controlling those thoughts. You get it on your mind and you think about it, and think about it,
and think about it. And if it’s a lustful
thing you’ll think about it until it sets you on fire. You’ll think about it until it does you in. That’s one of those things that has got to go. There’s got to be a victory over it, that you’re
going to get more control. RENEWING OF THE MIND: THE
VICTORY Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. When you renew your mind, you’re not going to think down that route
any more, because your mind has been transformed. The Word of God renews your mind. It is like water to wash your mind with and make
it clean: but it takes a conscious effort on your part. One of the things you may not have the power to do is to stop a thought
from coming into your mind – but you do have some control over it after it enters.
You have a choice: either you want to just sit there and think about
it, letting it just ramble in your mind until it stirs you all up – or you can
say no to it and reject it. It’s all up to you whether you say, No. That’s what you’ve got to learn to do: just say,
No. If you want to get the victory
and keep your mind renewed, take control of your thoughts. Now, the knowledge of the Lord is the great means of renewing your
mind, because what you learn out of the Bible is so different from what you learn
out of the world. The world is a source of knowledge for every one of us. But by the knowledge of God’s Word our minds
are renewed and transformed. There were all of those things that you were so taken up with, some
of the dirty things that were in your mind – so much that you thought about that
was sinful and wrong. Now that you’re regenerated, you’re different. You don’t even think those thoughts anymore.
Those thoughts are vanished from you. They’ve been pushed right out. Where they used to dominate your thought life,
they no longer have a place in your mind. You should be glad that your heart and your mind has been changed.
But then, maybe sometimes you still need to stop and kick something
out, something that shouldn’t be there. We live in a world where everything is geared to try and make us
think evil thoughts. So many of the advertisements today are filthy, geared to give you
evil thoughts. You walk inside a store
to buy a tool and the first thing to confront you is some calendar, some thing
hanging up there to try and get you to think about a naked woman. You see these things everywhere, all over. It’s just a common thing. You can see it no matter where you go. And then, if you don’t see it there, you’ll see
people right on the street dressed that way. They run around so scantily dressed. It’s ever there. If you want to get your mind on it, it’s there.
But you’ve got to get past that. And you certainly can be past that, where you’re
not going to let those things control you. You have ability to be in control, if you want
to be. Joseph had the ability to just pull his arm out of his coat and run.
He got out of the mess. Someone was trying to do him in, but he knew
what to do. Hey, he got in trouble for it, but he didn’t get in trouble for giving
in to it. He got in trouble for her lying
that he gave in to it. Right? He had victory. It just wasn’t
in him to give in. He thought in his mind,
How could I do this evil thing? How could I do this, and sin against God? You see, his mind was absolutely against
that thing. I thank God for what we have accomplished in the area of having our
minds renewed. But let’s not get discouraged
if we haven’t conquered some things. Let’s just continue to fight and work on it.
FIGHT UNTIL YOU WIN Yes, let’s continue until we get the victory. Let’s go to God who can give us the victories that we need. When God tells us to mortify our members, He will bless those who
act on that scripture. He will take those
things away. He will deliver. He will help. Why? Because
we’re obeying what He said. God taught us how we should do that. If we take it up and say in our own hearts,
I’m going to mortify this, and we make the effort, we can expect the help
of God. After all, that’s His desire for
us. Let’s let God have His perfect way in our lives. Let’s think in our hearts about being as spiritual
as we know how to be. Just purpose deep in your heart: you want to be that spiritual man,
that spiritual woman. You’re setting your
heart that you’re going to deal with anything that hinders you. I like to use that word deal a lot. There’s the realm where you say, God’s
dealing with you, He’s dealing with them. Then we use that word when we’re confronted by the Scriptures to
say, I should deal with that problem. So the problem is in you. The problem is something that pertains to you.
But who’s to deal with it? No one else can really deal with that problem
but you. Yes, you have to personally deal
with it. To deal with it is to get serious about it, to weigh it out and to
see what you should do. Your dealing with it should get you to want to pray about it, even
to fast if necessary – to do whatever it takes to get the victory. As you deal with it, you’re doing something that’s going to help
you get the victory. What change comes if you don’t deal with it? If you say, I’m married to this problem – I’ll always have it,
that’s not dealing with it. That’s conceding. That’s saying, Well, I might just as well
give up and say I’ll never be any better than I am. Never say things like that! THE ROAD OF FAITH Surely you can go down the same road of faith that everyone else
goes down. Everybody has to go down this
road of purposing in their heart to deal with the problems that come along. And there are a lot of problems! Some are problems that you personally have to
deal with. Some are problems to deal because
of your circumstances. One of the great places of dealing is when we confront ourselves
with the Word and see what God’s attitude is about it. What is God’s thought about it? Then we can look at the comparison of what we’ve been thinking about
it and our attitudes towards it – and what God has to say: and see where often they’re not the same. Suddenly we see that God’s position on this very thing is so different
from ours, that we’d better just change and adopt His way. James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to
you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and
purify your hearts, ye double minded. |