January 08, 2010
Trying to be Perfect
It’s rare to see someone stumble and fall and then nonchalantly pick himself up and dust himself off. Normally we jump up quickly like nothing happened and then we glance around hoping no one was watching. I think we go through something similar when we sin. Of course we know that God sees us when we sin, but He forgives, and He doesn’t laugh. In our pride we prefer that others think we’re perfect and we really don’t want them to see our sin. James says, “For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.” (James 3:2 ESV)
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Gail;
-----Three statements in I John are difficult to understand. “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has either seen Him or known Him.” (3:6) “He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.“ (3:8) And, “No one born of God commits sin; for God’s nature abides in him, and he can not sin because he is born of God.” (3:9) I don’t know, but I think these statements are legs of the stool upon which sits the belief of some that they must be holy and without sin. But this is a hard belief to hold, because John also wrote, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” (I John 1:8), and James 5:15 says, “...and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” On the surface, this passage in I John appears to contradict the Bible’s message that all have sinned and the believer is perfected in Christ’s righteousness but not yet in his own errant, human nature.
-----That the Bible is true and without contradiction of itself is an axiom of faith I use in all my pondering of its interconnections. Although I may not have arrived squarely upon the solution of this difficulty in I John, I have perceived the heart of David to be a possible resolution. David knowingly did some pretty rotten things. But regardless, his chosen nature was to know and follow God. That is why he repented when faced with what he did. But he also did many things right. Both his repentance and his righteousness proceeded from his choice of being after God’s own heart, but not the evil he did. It is in that direction of going after God’s heart that there is no sin.
-----Life is not monolithic such that we are completely good or completely bad. It is not crystalline such that every tiny aspect of who we are lines up with either the principle of righteousness, or the principle of evil. We are more like conglomerate with every one of our aspects rather randomly mixed together, the good and the bad both. I don’t know, but I believe John’s treatment of the sinless nature of God’s child has more to do with the righteous principle that sorts the bad aspects from us and organizes the good within us. God has given us the freedom to choose our direction, too. And if we choose towards Him, we do not sin in that choice. All of those evil pebbles and stones in the conglomerate do not proceed from that choice He grants to my spirit. But their occurrences do remain because they proceed from the death of my human nature which lingers until my living spirit is pulled from it. So I think I understand that John does not refer to the total absence of sin in the believer’s life, but rather to the total absence of our reborn spirits from being amongst sin’s source - the other direction chosen.
-----Now maybe I am wrong about all that, but it somewhat develops for me an understanding of how normal it is for Christians to get dusty. And if we thought honestly about it for a moment, we might even want to be seen clamoring back to our feet and patting off the dust. One of my favorite sayings is the committing of an error is far less important than the gracefulness of recovery from its effects. Errors are normal life. But recovery from them is special life. The more it is done deliberately and carefully, and the more briskly the dust is beat off the clothing, the more directed toward God is the spirit within the conglomerate.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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