PERFECTED AS THE MASTER continued

The wisdom of the fathers

PERFECTED AS THE MASTER???continued

"Everyone who is perfected shall be as his Master." The words suggest to us very distinctly that in discipleship there is more than one stage. Just as in the Old Testament it is said only of some that they served the Lord with a perfect heart, while of others we read that their heart was not perfect with the Lord (1 Kings 11: 4, 15: 3; 2 Chron. 25: 2), so even now there are great differences between disciples. Some there are to whom the thought of aiming at the perfect likeness of the Master has never come: they only look to Christ as a Savior. And some there are whose heart indeed longs for full conformity to their Lord, "to be as the Master," but who have never understood, though they have read the words, that there is such a thing as "a perfect heart" and a life "perfected in love." But there are those, too, to whom it has been given to accept these words in their Divine meaning and truth, and who do know in blessed experience what it is to say with Hezekiah, "I have walked before Thee with a perfect heart," and with John, "as He is, even so are we in this world."?

As we go on in our study of what Scripture says of perfection, let us hold fast the principle we have learnt here. Likeness to Jesus in His humiliation and humility: the choice, like Him, of the form of a servant, the spirit that does not exercise lordship and would not be ministered unto, but girds itself to minister and to give its life for others, this is the secret of true perfection. "The disciple is not above his Master, but every one who is perfected shall be as his Master."?

With the perfect love of God as our standard, with that love revealed in Christ's humanity and humility as our model and guide, with the Holy Spirit to strengthen us with might, that this Christ may live in us, we shall learn to know what it is that every one who is perfected shall be as his Master.?

(from Be Perfect" by Andrew Murray)