Arguing or Agonizing?

Perfection?  Do we ARGUE about its possibility or AGONIZE to possess its reality?  Is there a state of "perfection" for the believer in this life?  Did the apostles believe that a believer could become "perfect"?  Did Jesus really mean what He said - "but you become perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect"?  

 

Yes, He meant it, and so did the apostles and their fellow bondservants.   This perfection was not a state they believed only a few "saints" could attain; on the contrary, Paul wrote -"Christ in you the hope of glory, Whom we proclaim, admonishing and teaching EVERY man in all wisdom, so that we may present EVERY man perfect in Christ."  EVERY man perfect in Christ?  

 

Yes, and Paul was not alone in this quest.  Epaphras of Colossae was a devout man of prayer and Paul described his life of intercession this way: "one of your own, a bondservant of Christ, always agonizing in your behalf in prayers in order that YOU ALL STAND PERFECT, fulfilled in all the will of God."  Epaphras not only agonized in prayer that the Colossians BECOME perfect, but that they STAY that way as a group.   These two beloved servants of Christ should be our example.  

 

Let's stop ARGUING over the possibility of believers becoming perfect and begin AGONIZING in prayer that all the believers we know become perfect - perfectly like Jesus - unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ!