Thank you for joining me! We will be discussing an important topic today, sharing on being perfect and what that means. It is a command! May the Lord give you fresh revelation and knowledge as you study with me today. Eric

Absolute perfection is a quality that belongs to God alone. Here is what the writers of the Old Testament had to say about God, His nature, and character. Deuteronomy 32:4 (NKJV), “He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.” Psalm 18:30 (NKJV) reveals, “As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the Lord is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” Then, Psalm 19:7 (NKJV) states, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” What an amazing God we serve!

It is even more mind boggling to realize that He loves us and desires an intimate personal relationship with us! Realizing we enter into a close relationship with the Holy Creator of the Universe also helps us understand that our Heavenly Father has certain expectations of His children.

Matthew 5:48 (NKJV) declares, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In this verse, referring to believers, ‘perfect’ denotes maturity and it is a command. Over the next couple of posts, we will examine this command, to gain a clear understanding of what action we must take to be in alignment with it.

Before we can look at perfection for the believer, though, we must begin by looking at the foundation we have in regard to our relationship with God. That means we will start by looking at how we begin the journey.

If we research how to construct a building that would be solid and stand for a long time, we would discover the most important part of our building would be the foundation. The foundation is what supports the building and bears its weight. If our foundation is not solid, the winds, rains, and storms would eventually cause irreparable damage and possibly a collapse (Matthew 7:24).

So, a solid foundation is necessity to get a good place to start, although later we will consider what would happen if we had a wonderful foundation but never progressed beyond that.

Interestingly enough, we find the Holy Spirit addresses our foundation as well as our spiritual growth in the Word of God.

Let’s dig in! The author of Hebrews writes to believers who should, by now, be mature in their understanding of God and in good doctrine. When he begins to press the readers with deeper matters, he begins with a recap of the foundational principles of our spiritual life of faith. “So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from dead works and placing our faith in God. You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.” (Hebrews 6:1-3, NLT)

The first fundamental principle listed is ‘repentance from dead works.’ The Greek word for ‘fundamental’ is ‘themelios’ and is defined as the “first principles of Christian life or knowledge; the rudiments”. That definition indicates that this is one truth that every believer should know and that they should have become aware of it early in their relationship with God.

‘Repentance’ means “a change of mind”. ‘Dead’ means “destitute of a life that is devoted to God”. ‘Works’ means “an act, deed, or something done”. Putting these definitions together helps us understand this fundamental principle:

We must turn away from living to perform works which have originated from and are directed by our own flesh, will, and desires. The works we do that are apart from God’s will and purpose do not lead to eternal reward. Our salvation, our spiritual life, comes as a gift from God and not from works of righteousness which we have done. If we do not understand this truth, we have missed the first foundation of our spiritual life.

Having faith, or the conviction that God exists, is the creator and ruler of all things, and is the provider and bestower of our eternal salvation through Christ, is the second fundamental principle listed in Hebrews 6:1. This principle involves us making the decision to recognize that Jesus came in the flesh to remove the consequence of sin in our lives, which separates us from our fellowship and relationship with God.

The third part of the foundation of our spiritual life is the doctrine, or teaching, of baptisms (symbolic purifications by immersion). Barnes’ Notes on the Bible for verse 2 clarifies the phrase ‘doctrine of baptisms,’ “There are two baptisms whose necessity is taught by the Christian religion - baptism of water (Mark 16:16) and the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:11). Baptism is the rite by which we are ‘initiated’ into the church.” When Jesus was water baptized, the Holy Spirit came to Him and filled Him with power.” We read in Acts 2 verse 4, “And they were all filled with the Holy spirit and began to speak with other tongues (spoken human languages) as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

The fourth elementary principle listed in verse 2 is the ‘laying on of hands."‘ ‘Epithesis’, the imposition of hands, is a sacred rite transmitted by the Jews to the Christians employed in: a) praying for one another, b) conferring divine blessings; especially bodily health and the Holy Spirit, and c) inauguration of an individual’s role of teacher and/or minister of the church. (See 1 Timothy 4:14; James 5:14.)

The ‘resurrection of the dead’ means “resurrection to life”, and is the next elementary principle listed in Hebrews 6. This speaks of two events. One is the resurrection of the dead and the second is that of all people at the end of the present age, at the time of the final judgment.

Lastly, is ‘eternal judgment.’ ‘Eternal’ means “without end, never to cease, and everlasting”. ‘Judgment’ indicates the last or final judgment - eternally enforced.

As we’ve looked at Hebrews 6:1-3, I need to repeat once again, that these teachings are the ‘fundamental’ beliefs that make up the foundation of our spiritual life.

Where do you stand in your knowledge and understanding of these first principles God has revealed through the inspiration of the Holy spirit? Does your spiritual life have a solid foundation?

Sadly, many in the church today have not been taught these foundational truths or have had a slothful attitude of hearing, studying, and learning them and have no foundation for further spiritual growth.

I believe some of the problems found in the church today stem from many hinderances that have been brought to bear upon the church by the devil, the one whose desire to steal, kill, and destroy members of the church.

Think about it! For a long time the church depended totally on either their parents or pastors for their spirituality. Children had no comprehension of needing to establish their own relationship with the Lord. We used to say, they “needed to be loosed from their mother’s apron strings.” You will not get to heaven because your mother, grandmother, or pastor is a devout Christian! Every one of us must establish our own personal relationship with God, by accepting the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. That also means every one needs to gain knowledge of what the Word of God teaches.

For a long time, many ministers have been preaching a barren gospel. I filled a pulpit for an absent minister one Sunday. Following the service, I was astonished when one of the parishioners approached me and said, “I thought it was nice, the way you used the Scriptures in your sermon.” She proceeded to inform me that their pastor did not do that.

Many church members are in the dark spiritually because they have never been taught the Scripture. The Scripture is very clear! We are to hide the Word of God in our heart! They need to hear the Word of God in church and read it for themselves at home.

For example, too many Christians have lost the understanding of worship. Many believe that worship is “that stuff people do at church”. The understanding that worship is a continual daily lifestyle that seeks to obey and honor God is lost to many. Yes, it includes things like gathering with other believers and honoring God through singing praises to Him, but it is never about getting a good feeling from that rocking guitar solo.

Prayer is another casualty in the loss of Biblical understanding. Prayers should never be thought of as Christmas wish lists or Amazon gift lists that convince God to give us what we want. Prayer is communication with God, and Biblically, we should spend more time in prayer listening than speaking. While we are encouraged in the Word to bring honorable petitions to God in prayer, prayer should not overlook us learning what we can do for God instead of just trying to get what we can from Him.

I could go on, however, I trust you have come to understand that we must know the Word of God to build a solid and stable foundation for our faith. In fact, Christians must realize that the opportunity for deception by the enemy, especially in the last days, comes from their lack of knowledge.

Here is what the writer of Hebrews 5:12-14 (NIV) reveals about those who have not established this foundation, “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”

If upon self-reflection, you find yourself in this category, of being one who has only partaken of milk and realize that you are unskilled in the Word, decide today to bring about the changes necessary in your life so that you can become one who builds on the elementary principles in the Word of God. Read the Word of God. Listen to Bible preaching ministers and teachers. Read devotionals that are full of the Scriptures, etc. Why is this so important? Verse 1 of Hebrews 6 revealed to us that we are to go beyond our foundation - to perfection!

We have a lot more to share concerning this subject. Next time, we will publish Part 2 of “Go On to Perfection!”

* NKJV - New King James Version
* NLT - New Living Translation
* NIV - New International Version