Devotion 7 – Growing unto Perfection

Phil.3:12 – “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”

There will always be a tension between what we already are through our identity in Christ and how we see ourselves in our daily lives. Like Paul, we are not yet perfect!

In Christ, we are sanctified and justified, as we are crucified with Him - but in reality, we still see much remaining sin in us. In Christ, we are adopted sons of God, but in experience we often feel and act as orphans. In Christ, we are new creations, yet many of us live daily as if we are still ‘in Adam’. If we are going to grow in our realization of who we are in Christ, we must learn to live and deal with this tension.

We are performance-oriented by nature and thus, tend to draw our identity from our ‘good works’ or ‘good behaviour’, even in the area of spiritual growth. However, we cannot look to Christ for our identity if we are still trying to find something ‘good’ in ourselves to prop up our self-esteem. We must totally and completely abandon our identity “in Adam”.

Eph.4:22-24 – “You put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,  and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

We must learn to put off the old self and put on the new self, daily. Hence, we must be diligent to keep the Truth continually before us.

Preaching to our own Souls

Ps.42:5 – “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.”

Vs.11 – “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”

Here we see the psalmist preaching to his own soul. How crucial this is in the fight of faith. Most of our unhappiness in life are due to the fact that we are listening to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves. Many of us often allow negative thoughts or the lies of Satan to dominate our mind, when instead, we should be speaking positive thoughts and God’s truth to ourselves. We need to learn to meditate and to preach the gospel to ourselves.

Here, we see the psalmist speaking to his emotions. He is not allowing his emotions to dictate his mind, realizing that he must keep his hope in the Lord. This is absolutely critical for us to understand and to commit ourselves to doing in the midst of trouble or difficult situations. We cannot allow our emotions to get the best of us and control our lives. We cannot allow our actions and thoughts to be dictated by how we feel. To be governed by our feelings and emotions will cause emotional disasters and lead us toward spiritual suicide. We must preach the gospel to ourselves; preach diligently or we will give way to a downcast and disquieting (anxious or worried) spirit.

To live out our identity in Christ, our significance and values cannot be found in our achievements nor our failures nor the evaluations of others, but in Christ alone.

One of the old Puritans once said, “For every look we take at our sanctification, we should take a double look at our justification”. In other words, whenever we look at our imperfection and failure, we should remind ourselves again and again of what Christ has done for us.

Sadly, the vast majority of believers do not understand what it means to be ‘in Christ’ and still find our basic identity ‘in Adam’, in ourselves. We do not understand that because of our union with Christ, His obedience becomes our obedience, and His righteousness has become our righteousness.

We need to reckon that in this life, we are and always will be imperfect, a saved sinner, seeking to grow in holiness and relating to God on the basis of grace and grace alone, which is ours because we are in Christ!