As a followup to things already mentioned earlier, I make the
truth applicable, by referring to what He told me once a few years
ago.  "Phil, you don't have to be perfect, because I am." Many
times, since the Lord spoke this to me, I have used it to bring
stability to my thinking that is being challenged by circumstances
beyond, or out of, my control.  It may just be circumstances that
I don't understand intellectually or it could literally be, as
with my recent spinal surgery, something totally beyond my
ability to control or understand.  Regardless of my emotional
response to such things, and sometimes it is off the wall as was
the case with the surgery, I mean, when you think this is very
likely your time to leave this planet and leave your family
behind, you can quote Scripture all day long and still not
experience perfect peace.  So does this mean you aren't a very
good Christian?  Does it mean, if you really believed the Word,
you wouldn't react that way?  Does it mean, other people are
better Christians than you because they don't act that way?  Does
it mean you are just a weak Christian in the first place?  If
these things, and others like them, are true, then King David,
Elijah, Noah, Job, Paul, Peter, and Abraham, just to name a few,
aren't very good examples of perfect  Christians.  You see, the
truth is, this is why Jesus loves you in the first place.  Not
because you are perfect but because He is.  He doesn't change how
He feels about you due to circumstances you are facing.  What if
I'm involved in sin of some kind?  Good question.  The answer is
still no.  Your sin, however, especially if it is something you
are doing you already know is against God's Word, is a blockage
the Enemy uses to keep you from knowing God intimately.  Sure,
Jesus still requires responsibility for sins committed but He is
your way out as well as your way onward in your walk with Him.  He
still forgives your sins according to First John 1:9 but of course
it is a matter of application.  When I find myself a lot less than
what I wish, and this is normally due to circumstances, I remind
the Lord that He told me that I don't have to be perfect because
He is.  This is not faith and confession; it is agreement with the
truth He has confirmed in me.  No, silly.  I'm not truly reminding
Him of what He said; I'm reminding myself.  More specifically, I'm
reminding the Enemy because he is the one trying to unbalance my
relationship with the Lord.  Besides, Jesus likes it when we talk
to Him using His own words and the Bible is filled with hundreds
of personal promises the Lord has given us.  Nope, we don't use
the promises to become perfect or even to become more like Him. 
We used to sing a little cute song in Sunday school when I was
growing up.  I can't recall the whole song, although I can hear
the melody in my mind even as I type, but a phrase in the song
says, "Be like Jesus all day long."  It took me nearly 50 years of
my Christian relationship with God to learn the promises in God's
Word are not to make me more like Jesus.  Until His return, or
until we die and go home to be with Him, we are as much like Jesus
now as we ever will be.  We are as saved, born again, as we ever
will be.  We will never become more holy in His sight.  We will
never experience more righteousness than we have right now nor
will we experience being more pure in His sight than right now. 
Why?  Because, before the foundation of the world, meaning before
anything existed at all, we were conformed to the image of His Son
according to Romans 8:29 and you cannot, I repeat, you cannot
improve upon that image no matter how hard you try.  Yes, it is
true we one day will be walking in completeness and have a
physical body as Jesus did following His resurrection.  Until
then, we walk in what we know.  There are ways of getting rid, and
otherwise, bypassing the things that hinder us on earth.  Sharing
in agreement is one method.  Accountability is another. 
Application is yet another.  Awareness is even another.  The Lord
told me once many years ago, "Phil?  If it is complex, it isn't
Me."  Wherever you are in your walk with the Lord right now, is
exactly where Jesus wants to be and, in fact, He is there even if
we can't sense His presence.  He has made a way of escape and it
is Him and His Lordship.  I used to relate to the salvitic
experience and relationship with the Lord as a game.  If I don't
know the rules, how can I play the game?  I would complain to God
that I didn't know His rules.  Why would these terrible things be
happening to me other than I wasn't following His rules.  Upon
coming out of surgery a month and a half ago, one of the first
things Jesus spoke to me in my spirit and my thoughts was this. 
"It isn't a game."  I heard it so loudly I said it out loud, with
my family around, a couple of times.  I didn't know what He meant
right away but a couple of days after coming home, He told me what
He meant.  My relationship with Him had no rules except for who
He is and not who I am or what I am trying to become.  He said
that my relationship with Him wasn't a game but a covenant and He
keeps His covenant with His own because He cannot deny Himself. 
Even if we do, that is, deny by believing lies about ourselves
supplied by the Enemy, Jesus will never deny Himself as far as how
He identifies and relates to us as Lord.  When things are over, He
will still be there where He has always been; standing in the
midst of your life.


Phil.
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