Perfection

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48 (NIV)

Pastor Ben tells me that Faith Alive’s spiritual theme for July is "perfection.” He encourages us to continue to build and improve on what we have attained “until the perfect likeness of God, which is Jesus the Son, becomes obvious in us and our services to humanity.”

He says, “Perfection is all about completion, so we must aim at completing well whatever we have started so long God is in it. We must work to improve our today, to give us a better tomorrow, for our tomorrow should be closer to God than today. The closer we are to him (the author and perfecter of our faith), the more perfect we shall become.”

How apt that Pastor Ben is preaching about perfection in July, this seventh month. “Seven is a perfect, complete number,” he says. “God rested on the seventh day, Naaman’s leprosy was cleansed after his seventh dip in river Jordan, there are seven spirits of God, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven churches of Asia, seven Angels, and seven days in a week. Elijah prayed seven times to bring down the rain after the three and half years of drought in Israel…Welcome to July, welcome to the journey of perfection, welcome to God's image and likeness.”

“Let's work to complete well what we have stated in him,” Pastor Ben says. “Let no one hear you idly saying, ‘no one is perfect.’”