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God’s Guidance Doesn’t Require That We Be Perfect
(02/06/2008)

Proverbs 3:5,6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

2 Timothy 1:12b for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.

Psalm 37:5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

Proverbs 16:9 The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.

Psalm 37:23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

Psalm 31:3 For You are my rock and my fortress; For Your name's sake You will lead me and guide me.

John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”

As suggested in the movie Luther, “we preach best what we need to learn most.” Perhaps you have struggled with the same paradox that I have. I’ve always known that God’s Word is replete with promises to guide us. But I’ve also known that God requires us to listen for His voice, trust Him, and be obedient for His guidance to be effective.

Although until recently I was never conscious of the thought, I’ve operated for years under the assumption that for one reason or another God was unable to guide me. I’m a special case, you see. Either I have been too deaf to hear His voice or I’ve wasted too many years in slavery to sin or I’ve become too stuck in my presuppositions for God to get me onto the path that He originally intended. Oh, occasionally I accidentally find myself being of use to God’s kingdom. But for the most part, I exist in a perpetual state of limbo because I’ve just never gotten it together enough for God to be able to utilize me the way He anticipated.

However, I’ve had a bit of an epiphany lately. I don’t have to be perfect for God to be able to guide me! I don’t have to understand it all and be sinless for God to direct my daily steps as well as the general direction of my life! If that were the case, then no one would be in God’s Will! There’s been only one perfect man and He was also the only begotten Son of God!

Forgiven

1 John 1:8,9 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Romans 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

God doesn’t expect us to never sin for Him to be able to guide us. He knows us better than we know ourselves and He knows that we’re like stupid, stubborn sheep who are constantly trying to go our own way. But as a good shepherd he uses His rod and His staff to comfort us (Psalm 23:4) and nudge us back in the right direction (even if it means a swift swat on the behind). What He does require of us is that we be honest with ourselves and with Him and confess when we sin. Not a technical confession from a cold calculated heart that has no true remorse, but a repentant confession born of a heart who truly regrets grieving the Holy Spirit because he loves Him so…but who all too frequently chooses sin because the old man just won’t stay in the grave sometimes.

Perfected

Matthew 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
God calls us to be perfect. I know, you’re saying “but you just said we didn’t have to be perfect!” God calls us to be perfect but knows that this side of heaven we will never be perfect…in ourselves. But by our repentance and our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord, we have inherited Jesus’ perfection!
Hebrews 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

1 John 4:17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.

God is outside of time (which is a created thing) so He sees us exactly as we were, as we are, and how we will be! He is “The Great I AM.” God not only sees us right now just as we are, but He sees us through the eyes of eternity…He sees the perfected child of God that we WILL become! Think of it this way. Suppose you had a child who had a bit of an attitude problem for about 2 seconds a year ago but they had been a perfectly loving and obedient child since then. What would your attitude be towards them? Those two seconds would have been forgotten long ago and you would do anything you could…you would go out of your way to try and not only give them the things they need but the desires of their heart! In the same way, we can rest in the assurance of our salvation and the promise that God will perfect us and we will spend all of eternity in that state! This life is but a blink of the eye in terms of forever. There is no “yesterday You”, “today You,” and “tomorrow You” in God’s mind…it’s all just “you” washed in Jesus’ blood for all eternity! There’s a mystery in it…
Ephesians 2:4-7 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1:6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

So we are able to appropriate God’s forgiveness by confessing and repenting of our sins which also allows God to see us now as Jesus is…seated at the right hand of the Father! Therefore, there is nothing which can prevent God from guiding us! But there is an essential ingredient…a catalyst if you will…which is required for any of this to be effective.

Faith (i.e., trust in Jesus Christ)

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Just as with salvation, it isn’t enough to intellectually accept the fact that you’re forgiven and God sees you as perfect. You have to have faith…you have to trust that Jesus has kept His Word and will always keep it. You have to truly believe that if you trust Him that He will guide you! That doesn’t mean that all of your dreams and ambitions will come true (His ways are not our ways Isaiah 55:8,9), but that He will be faithful to steer you back to the path that He has in mind for you if you stray. That often involves discipline. As Hebrews 12:4-11 states, it isn’t pleasant but it is essential in maintaining God’s guidance in our lives.

Now it’s easy to trust that God is guiding you when you have all the money you need and a satisfying career and good health and all your relationships are doing well. But the true test of the quality of your faith is in the hard times. Will you trust Him then? Will you trust that He is guiding you when you don’t know where the money is going to come from? When God has you waiting for His timing and everyone around you tells you that you need to do something even if it’s wrong? When the doctor has just told you or someone you love that there’s nothing more they can do? When your spouse divorces you and you lose your family?

James 1:2-4 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
If, by the grace of God, you are able to continue to trust Him during those times then when you come out on the other side (and you WILL come out on the other side even if it’s in heaven) then the trying of your faith will result in a reward beyond price!
1 Peter 1:6,7 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ

Psalm 48:14 For such is God, Our God forever and ever; He will guide us until death.

Disclaimers

Does all this mean that if we’re Christians that we can go about indulging our favorites sins and pursuing our selfish ambitions instead of God’s will for our lives because we know that He has forgiven us and will guide us regardless of what we do? Of course not! If you approach your life in this fashion (whether consciously or not) then you really need to exam whether or not you actually are a Christian. Someone who has actually been born of the Spirit of God (John 3:5) will be unable to sustain such an attitude indefinitely before God in His mercy disciplines them in order to bring them back. If you are able to do so and God doesn’t discipline you, then you don’t belong to Him (Hebrews 12:8). This explains the wide variety of heresies and worldly churches that we see in the world today. But if you are born of the Spirit, then I must tell you that the most miserable people I have ever known are Christians who have tried to live like the world. I know because I was one of them.

God’s holding the reins but if like a stubborn mule we insist on going our own way than God will have to use greater force (i.e., discipline) to get us to go the way He intends. And the longer and harder we fight Him the harsher the discipline.

Now if you’re not a Christian or you’re just “spiritual” or you think that everyone’s going to heaven and all the world’s religions are just different equally valid ways to God then none of what I’ve written in this article applies to you. The only guidance which you can be sure of is that God will guide you into the Lake of Fire after the Great White Throne Judgment because you are none of His (Jn. 14:6, Jn. 3:18, Matt. 7:23, Matt. 25:41, Rev. 20:11-15).

Summary

If you’re truly born of the Spirit, then you can rest in the fact that God has forgiven your sins. All He asks is that when we sin that we confess it (not rationalize it) and get back on the path of repentance. You can rest in the fact that because of Christ’s sacrifice and your faith in Him that we have inherited His perfection and that perfection will one day be made manifest. And you can rest in the fact that He has PROMISED to guide us if we will simply TRUST HIM! However, if you refuse to trust Him and worry it to death, then it’s the same thing as actively sinning and opposing God’s Will.

Psalm 37:8b Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.
So God does not require us to be without sin for Him to guide us. But we must give up our unbelief. By faith in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and repentance from dead works we have inherited His righteousness and we can trust that He will guide us even unto death. Enter into His rest…
Hebrews 4:9-11 There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.