. . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect —Matthew 5:48
I don’t like everyone. I struggle to treat some decently because of my natural response to them: LSU fans for example. In Matthew 5:38-48 Christ calls us to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those we don’t really like.
In these verses, Christ calls us to be more than a good person, or even good Christian, but God Himself is our standard. “. . . be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This is more of the “river” concept. What God has poured into us, we pour forth into others. In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God.
Nick
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