How to Deal with Your Spiritual Perfection
“But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation”
Colossians 1:22
As a Christian, facing the truth about yourself is hard. For me, this juncture of my life was something that did not feel natural. “Who do you think you are, saying you are spiritually perfect?” the enemy whispered quite often.
However, facing the fact about having a perfect spirit was the turning point to enjoying a deeper relationship with God. I stopped hesitating as I stood on the cliff of religion, and instead, I jumped off into the ocean of God’s grace.
Because I had been told that I’m a bad person for so long, by actual Christian teachers, I believed them. Satan works hard in the pulpits every Sunday morning as preachers beat people down, lying to believers about what God has truly done inside of them. Like so many others, I too was a victim of trash teaching, “You are a dirty sinner! You are rotten at heart! You need to feed the good part of you and starve the bad!” WRONG.
I have a good heart, all Christians do. How is this possible? Because God has made His home in my heart, after giving me a new one. Ezekiel foretold what our Creator would do in us, way before Jesus was even born:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
God has given us a soft heart, a good heart. Stupid teaching will cause a preacher to pull a verse out of context from Jeremiah, which says we have wicked hearts (see Jeremiah 17:9). Nope. We did have wicked hearts, and now we don’t. Jesus will not live in wicked places.
Therefore, we don’t have a good part of us and a bad part of us–one to starve and one to feed. That’s called schizophrenia. We are not at battle with ourselves! WE ARE COMPLETE! We simply need to be ourselves as heaven-ready saints, which we are in our spirits! (See Romans 1:7, 2 Corinthians 1:1). You don’t need to “get out of Jesus’ way,” you need to be you!
Now, can we make bad choices that do not match up with our spiritual perfection? Absolutely. We still live on a fallen planet in which there are many players: the power of sin, Satan, his demons, poor choices of other people, flawed DNA, temptations for our flesh, so on and so forth. Lots of things, situations, circumstances, and people can influence us from not living organically. This is not heaven. Heaven is in us, but our physical bodies are not there (see Ephesian 2:6, Philippians 1:21).
But as for us believers in Christ, we have perfect spirits no matter what is going on in our environment. Despite what our attitudes and actions may be because of our environment’s influence, we remain steady at heart. Choices do not change identity! Legalistic people hate this fact, but a spade is a spade! A child of God is a child of God!
It was Paul’s goal to convince believers in Christ of their spiritual perfection, and he had a very difficult time doing so. As I learn more about this truth myself, I can see the soul of Paul spring from the pages of his teachings. He was passionate, to say the least, about informing people of what Jesus had really done for them. What’s He done? Well, we Christians are ready for heaven, in full, right now! We have no reason to be afraid of God, and no part of us is bad! (See 1 John 4:18, Romans 8:1).
Again, can we make bad decisions? Yes! But those bad decisions do not surprise God, and they do not alter our everlasting genetic code. How is this possible?…Jesus.
Our problem is we are focused on our actions and attitudes and not on our identity. It is impossible for any of us to become more righteous than we are right now at this very moment. What Jesus did at the Cross, and our faith in that brutal punishment, causes us to receive from God, a new, righteous spirit! (See Romans 6:6-7, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:8-9). We are reborn! The spirit inside you has a new genetic code that is born of God! (See John 3:7, 1 John 3:9). This new birth of yours resulted in you being on the same level as Jesus, in your spirit! (See John 1:12, Romans 8:17, 1 John 4:17). Whether you felt something or not, this free righteousness by way of being spiritually reborn happened the very moment you believed it happened!
When this happened, what we owed God was paid for in full–DEATH! Sin requires death (see Romans 6:23). Why do you think Jesus had to die? Now, for those who think that what they are doing and not doing completes or sustains what Jesus did–I’m sorry, but you are wrong. If you could add to Jesus’ sacrifice to complete it, or sustain it, the gospel would be based on “earned rewards.” In turn, grace would not be grace. Paul tells the Romans this truth:
“And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)
We don’t “get” our salvation, we receive it. “Getting” means you are reaching out to take it, receiving means you are standing still with your hands open while saying, “Thank you.” Just like you can’t get or sustain your earthly DNA, you can’t get or sustain your spiritual DNA. It’s a gift! Paul explains how perfect we are in spirit, to the Christians in Colossae:
“But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22)
Do you see that it was Jesus’ physical body that reconciled us with our Creator? Why is that important? Because physical bodies die, because their spirits are sinful. Jesus’ spirit was not sinful! Further, He never committed a single sin in His entire life! Therefore, He did not deserve to die. We did, He didn’t.
The sin of the world had to be paid off with the Father once and for all, Jesus knew this. And because He loves us so much, He decided to take care of this problem which would have resulted in eternal separation from God. Jesus did not enjoy going to the Cross but He knew what would happen if He did! Therefore, He became sin so that we could become right with God!
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
YOU ARE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD! All of humanity now has the option to become one with God forever–by grace through faith! The power of sin and death has been dealt with for good! Christian, do you not know who you are?!
To be clear, Jesus did not enjoy Friday, but He knew Sunday was coming! The author of Hebrews pens this truth:
“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame” (see Hebrews 12:2)
What would compel Jesus to do such a thing? LOVE! HE LOVES YOU! God, the Father loves you! Jesus loves you! The Holy Spirit loves you! This is why the Trinity wanted to make you spiritually perfect just like them! Look!
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
C’MON PEOPLE, THIS IS GOOD NEWS! This is why the gospel literally means good news! God loved us so much He sent His only begotten Son to this planet, to play by His own rules, and to pay off a debt that we could never pay for ourselves! What a good God! What more could you possibly ask for?!
The self-centered Christian will blurt out, “Yeah right, Matt! God is mad at us! His wrath is coming down hard on everybody!”
Bud, no it’s not. Not on Christians. What in the world do you think the Cross was for? Partial payment? What a moronic idea, as if God decided to only take care of some of our sin at Calvary; as if He’s yelling at us, “Those don’t count!” The notion of us, created beings, having the power to add to Jesus’ crucifixion by what we do and don’t do? Wow. Sounds like pride to me. It actually sounds demonic. But anyway.
Listen, Jesus took on the wrath of God–completely–at that Cross. God’s plan actually worked, believe it or not! He’s not naive, He’s a genius! So go ahead and try to add to what He’s finished and Jesus might just say, “I never knew you,” after everything fades to black. Please hear me, we are at peace with God, freely. Jesus’ body took on the Father’s wrath for good:
“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” (Romans 5:9)
Do you see that? Paul asked a rhetorical question and didn’t even put a question mark at the end of it. Instead, he yelled to get his point across. We’ve been saved from God’s wrath through Jesus’ body…through His bloodshed. This is why we should have a mindset of peace:
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1)
So today, my friends, know this: You have peace with God. It’s a peace which comes through Jesus. Yes, this peace is totally unfair, no matter how you look at it–grace isn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for Jesus, and it’s not fair for us. But grace is good, so good! This peace allows us to be justified with God, which means you’ve been perfected in spirit. God requires sin-free perfection, and this only happens once and for all time (see Hebrews 10:10,14).
“But Matt, how is this possible?!”
By way of faith! Believe! From the beginning of Creation, God has been interested in one main thing: “Do you believe me?” Had Adam and Eve believed God, they would have never did what they did, same with us. If you’d believe God when He says you are perfected inside, you’d live that way! Begin to believe Him today! Begin to believe He’s recreated you as a perfect individual! Believe Jesus! Believe what He’s done for you! Believe what He’s done in you!…Believing the truth changes everything.
A prayer for you: Good morning, Dad. Thank you for teaching me the truth of who you’ve made me to be. For so long, I kept insulting myself all the time because I thought those insults were the truth–you’ve taught me otherwise. I thought I was being humble, but I was actually lying. Insulting myself is not what you want me to do at all. Instead, you want me to be real, honest, talk about my struggles, and then stay focused on the real me, my spirit. My spirit is absolutely perfect just like you! You’ve killed off my old spirit, given me a new spirit, and then made your home IN my spirit! I’m forever grateful! Right now, I lift up all who are reading this, directly to you. So many of them have been lied to by the grace-confused Christians, they don’t know what to believe. But if you live in them, you are already hard at work trying to convince them of who they are, which is spiritually perfect! Once they begin to actually believe this, they will live it out! Sure, they’ll mess up, but they’ll still know who you’ve made them to be and that those mess-ups don’t define them in any way. Open up their hearts and minds today to this wonderful truth! The truth of what Jesus has done for us! FREE SPIRITUAL PERFECTION FOREVER! ABSOLUTE, HEAVENLY PERFECTION! In His name I pray, amen.
This devotional is from 60 Days for Jesus, Volume 3. Get your copy here!