Perfection — someday

We have been driving from the middle of Arizona home to Alberta. On our way down, the roads were good for one day and then the snowstorms hit. We had a couple of days of very unpleasant driving. However, on our way back home, we have driven three days on bare and dry roads, with blue sky and sunshine. Only the last hour and a half looked more like winter. We loudly thanked God many times today for blessing our journey with almost perfect travel conditions.

Perfection has been on my mind in another way. Yesterday’s Bible readings told me that the fullness of Christ is in me. Lord, this makes me glad to be Your child, but at the same time even more aware of how short I come in measuring up to what You have done. With Christ in me, I’d like to be more like Him than I am. I feel so imperfect.

Today’s reading begins with the same topic. As Spurgeon says, I feel in my soul the imperfection that is in me. Every day teaches me that I fall short. Every tear that wells up in my eyes weeps imperfection. Every cross word that I speak mutters imperfection. Every sour thought smacks of it. I too often see inside my own heart to think for even a brief moment that there is perfection in myself. 

Yet even in this discouraging realization of imperfection, You give me comfort. You tell me that I am “perfect in Christ Jesus” and that in Your sight, I am complete in Christ and accepted in the Beloved. That is my encouragement and comfort. I do not have to be perfect because in Jesus, this is how You see me.

Yet there is a second perfection yet to be realized. This is as certain as what You have already done, and is a longing in my heart. 

To (His people) God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. (Colossians 1:27–28)

The teaching of the Bible works alongside Your Spirit to make me mature, yet one day every stain of sin will be removed from my life. Jesus will present me faultless before Your throne, without spot or wrinkle, no blemishes and totally mature. Not even Your eye that sees all will see anything but the perfection of Jesus Christ in me.

Then I will know and feel the great joy of this enormous yet brief promise: “Complete in Christ.” Now I cannot comprehend the heights and depths of Your salvation, but my heart leaps for joy at the thought that one day all that is ugly and sinful will be no more because You will transform all into the purity and perfection of Christ.

Perhaps it is pride that makes me wish this could happen sooner and quicker. Forgive me for that pride, yet increase my desire to walk with You in maturity and my patience to wait for You to do it in Your perfect timing.