The Lord Jesus said in Matt. 5:48 that we should be perfected even as our heavenly Father is perfect; we need to let this word expose our utter inability to be perfect and turn to our spirit to live by the divine life of our Father so that we may be perfect and fulfil all the requirements of the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. Amen!
In our series of loving the Lord and loving one another, this week we come to the topic of, Being Perfect as the Heavenly Father is Perfect by being Perfected in His Love.
As human beings, we have an aspiration to love and to be faithful to our love, but we have to realize that most times we fall very short of this.
There’s the ability and desire in us to love because we were created in the image of God, and one of His attributes is love, so we have the virtue of love.
We have something that looks like love but is not the real thing, for only when God as love fills our virtue of love can we really love.
We need God our life; only when God comes in as our life and lives in us can we actually express God and fulfil all the requirements of God.
We need to be perfected in the divine love so that we may be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. And we are in this process of being perfected.
We are in the process of God’s organic salvation. On one hand, we have been saved, and on the other hand, we are being saved.
Similarly, we have God’s love in us, but at the same time, we’re being perfected in this love.
This thought of being perfected is very strong in the Bible.
In the concluding word of 2 Corinthians, Paul said that his heart, his main burden, is for the saints to be perfected.
We have many problems because we are not yet perfected.
The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and the wonderful love that is in us is God in our spirit one with us.
But the problem is with our soul and our heart and the rest of our person besides our spirit.
The divine love needs to flow into all our inner being to saturate our soul, our heart, and our person until we love God with all our mind and heart and soul.
On His side, God loves us; He is actually a very emotional God, for He loves us with an everlasting love, and His jealousy is stronger than death.
When He loves us and sets His love upon us, we cannot but love Him back, and we will respond to His love.
But this love needs to find a course, a channel; the divine love in us seeks a channel in our self-bound soul.
It presses on its way, impelling us to do something according to God’s will and by His love, and this divine love wants to be manifested.
At the end of the Bible, we see that God will gain something according to His love: He will gain the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb; His love will prevail.
The New Jerusalem is a gigantic universal couple that continually experiences God as love and loves God. Today we need to be perfected in this love.
We are one today, for we have God’s life, His word, and His glory (John 17), but we need to be perfected into one.
The Divine Life of our Father is the Highest Supply to meet the Highest Demand of the Kingdom of the Heavens
At the end of Matthew 5, to conclude an exceedingly high section of the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens (see vv. 17-48), the Lord Jesus said, “You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (v. 48).
The previous verses are a picture of a believer’s perfection, a definition of what a kingdom person is.
The Lord concludes by saying that we shall be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.
To be perfect is one thing, and it is not easy to be perfect; to be as perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect is much more than this.
The solution to this is not to try harder or to strive more to be perfect; it is to realize that the divine life of our Father is the highest supply to meet the highest demand of the kingdom of the heavens.
Such a short sentence, You, therefore, shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, is both a commandment and a supply, both a requirement and a solution.
The kingdom people, the audience for the Lord’s decree of the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens, are the regenerated believers of the New Testament, as it is indicated by the title “sons of your Father” in v. 45.
Only the sons of God can be as perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect; if you are not a son of God, no matter how much you try, you cannot do it.
Only by having the divine life and nature of the heavenly Father can we be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.
If we are not a son of God, we cannot work out the kingdom constitution and its requirements; but if we are a son of the Father in the heavens, there is a way!
Praise the Lord, we believers in Christ have been regenerated with the divine life and nature of God, and we can live by this life and nature to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect!
We are the children of our heavenly Father; we have the Father’s divine life and divine nature; therefore, we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is.
May we be filled with hope concerning this matter and may we realize that only when we live by this life and nature of our heavenly Father can we be perfect as He is perfect.
The demand of the new law of the kingdom of the heavens is much higher than the requirement of the law of the old dispensation; this higher demand can be met only by the Father’s life, not by the natural life.
For example, in the Old Testament, we were commanded not to murder, for whoever murders is liable to judgment.
However, the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens says that we should not be angry, for whoever is angry at someone, is liable to judgment.
We may have never killed anyone, but we cannot say we have never been angry at someone.
We may enjoy the Lord in the morning and then have an exchange of words with our wife, and we suddenly are filled with anger.
We may be at work and someone mistreats us or offends us, and we become angry.
If we are angry with our brothers and start saying bad things to them, calling them a fool or a dummy, we are liable to the judgment of the Gehenna fire. Oh, Lord!
![You have heard that it was said to the ancients, "You shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be liable to the judgment." But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to [the judgment of] the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, Moreh, shall be liable to the Gehenna of fire. Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, Leave your gift there before the altar, and first go and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Matt. 5:21-24](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/You-have-heard-that-it-was-said-to-the-ancients-You-shall-not-murder-and-whoever-murders-shall-be-liable-to-the-judgment-683x1024.webp?resize=450%2C675&ssl=1 "You have heard that it was said to the ancients, \"You shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be liable to the judgment.\" But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to [the judgment of] the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, Moreh, shall be liable to the Gehenna of fire. Therefore if you are offering your gift at the altar and there you remember that your brother has something against you, Leave your gift there before the altar, and first go and be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Matt. 5:21-24")
This requirement is so much higher than the requirement of the law, and it is impossible for us to keep it.
If we bring our gift to the Lord in prayer, we need to first go and be reconciled to our brother, seeking to have forgiveness before him, and then come to contact God.
How can we do this? It is not in and of ourselves but in the divine life and by the divine life.
The kingdom of the heavens is the highest demand, and the divine life of the Father is the highest supply to meet that demand.
The higher demand of the kingdom of the heavens can be met only by the higher life of the Father God, and we have this life in our mingled spirit.
May we access this supply.
The problem is that we would rather try harder, we would perfect ourselves, and we would strive and struggle to be better, but we would not come to this supply to partake of it.
God’s supply is right there within us: the divine life and nature of our heavenly Father are in us, ready to meet the highest demand.
We simply need to come to Him, pray, open to Him and enjoy Him with His life and nature, and we will be able to spontaneously keep the highest demand of the kingdom of the heavens.
Thank You, Lord, for commanding us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Hallelujah, our heavenly Father is perfect, and His divine life and nature are in us to supply us to meet this highest demand of the kingdom of the heavens! Oh Lord, in ourselves we can never meet this demand; we can never be perfect as God is perfect in ourselves and by our own efforts. We come to You, Lord, and we take You as our life and person. We come to You and we want to be one with You. May Your life become our life and may Your nature become our nature. Live in us today. May there be a spontaneous living of Christ in us. We give up our efforts and struggles: we simply come to enjoy Your life and live by the perfect life of our heavenly Father!
If we walk according to our Spirit and Live by God’s Life, we can be Perfect as our Heavenly Father
If you read Matthew 5-7 we will realize that, in ourselves and by ourselves, what the Lord requires of us in the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens is IMPOSSIBLE.
It may be possible for us not to physically kill someone or commit adultery, as the law of Moses demanded, but who can live with others and not be angry, not covet, not lust, and not speak mean words to others?
The demand of the new law of the kingdom of the heavens is actually not for us to fulfil in ourselves; this demand is the expression of the divine life.
As regenerated people of God, as people of the kingdom of God, we have a new life, the divine life of God, and the expression of this life is described in Matt. 5-7.
As we see this highest demand of the kingdom of the heavens, our being is open to the Lord, for we realize that we can’t do it in ourselves but the divine life in us can do it.
Hallelujah, we are able to fulfil the demand of the kingdom of the heavens – we can be perfect as our heavenly Father when we live by the divine life!
The Old Testament law is a picture of God and what He is; the constitution of the kingdom is a picture of Christ, a manifestation of Him with His life, and He is now within us.
When we realize that Christ lives in us, that His life and nature in us can make us perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, we will be delivered from all our struggling and trying and we will be turned to our spirit!
The impossibility of fulfilling the highest demand of God’s new law should drive us, motivate us, and impel us to come to God, partake of His life and nature, and allow HIm to do this in us.
We cannot do this in ourselves, but our being is opened up to Him, and we go to Him for the deeper and higher supply to meet this higher demand.
We cannot live by the supply that we have received last year from the Lord; every day we need to come to Him in a fresh way to enjoy Him and partake of Him, and His supply needs to be fresh, up-to-date, and new.
The Lord’s present supply meets our present need today and enables us to meet God’s need.
We become God’s regenerated children by the coming of the Spirit of God into our spirit to regenerate us (Rom. 8:16; John 3:6) and to make our spirit the dwelling place of God (Eph. 2:22).
If we walk according to our regenerated human spirit indwelt by and mingled with the divine Spirit (1 Cor. 6:17), we will live by the life of God to fulfil the righteous requirement of the law (Rom. 8:4).
The righteous requirements of the law of God are not for us to fulfil but for them to be fulfilled in us as we walk according to the spirit.
This is the key. We need to access the life of God. We need to enjoy His life within us.
When we are in Christ, when we enjoy Christ, and when we abide in Christ, the law of the Spirit of life will spontaneously and automatically deliver us from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2).
As long as we are in our spirit and live in the spirit, as long as we walk according to our mingled spirit, the righteous requirements of the law of God and the law of the kingdom of God will be fulfilled in us.
If we simply walk according to the Spirit, we will have the fruits of the Spirit.
As long as we live in spirit, not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, the highest demands of God on the kingdom people will spontaneously and automatically be fulfilled in us.
When we live by our Father’s life and nature, we will spontaneously fulfil the higher law of the kingdom of God.
On one hand, we are exposed of our utter inability to fulfil God’s law; on the other hand, we have the divine life in us that can live out everything that is outlined in the requirements of the kingdom of God.
If we walk by our regenerated human spirit, we are the children of God living by His life.
What God wants is not imitation; He doesn’t want us to try our best to imitate Christ with what He did on earth.
Just as a human father who has three children realizes that it is by their growth in life and being perfected that they can express his image and be like him, so we as children of God need to grow in life and live by this life, be perfected, and we will live out Christ for the manifestation of the Father.
Hallelujah, we shall be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect!
Praise the Lord, we children of God will be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect because we have our heavenly Father’s life and nature within us! Amen, Lord, we turn to You and we take You as our life and person. We choose to walk according to the spirit and live in the mingled spirit today so that the righteous requirements of the law may be spontaneously fulfilled in us. We give up any attempt to copy or imitate You, Lord, and we simply want to live in the spirit and walk according to the Spirit. May we be the children of God who live by the life of God to express God and manifest God. Grant us to see, Lord, the hopelessness of our natural life. May all our vain efforts and struggles be put aside and may we simply turn to the Father’s divine life and nature within us! Amen, Lord, live in us today. Perfect us in Your life and in Your love. Make us the children of God who are perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message, and portions from, Life-study of Matthew, msg. 20, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Loving the Lord and loving one another for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ (2022 fall ITERO), week 7, entitled, Being Perfect as the Heavenly Father is Perfect by being Perfected in His Love.
- Hymns on this topic:
– The Heav’nly Kingdom e’en requires / That we as God should perfect be; / This standard we must fully meet / That we may share its ecstasy. / The Kingdom is the reign of God; / To match His nature is required; / ’Tis only by the life of God / The Kingdom’s entry is acquired. (Hymns #943 stanzas 6-7)
– I would cease completely / From my efforts vain, / Let Thy life transform me, / Full release to gain; / Build me up with others / Till in us Thou see / Thy complete expression / Glorifying Thee. (Hymns #841 stanza 6)
– My old person has been nullified; / With my Lord upon the cross he died; / Now in nothing shall he be applied; / He’s dead to me. / My new Person in my spirit dwells; / Springing in me as a bubbling well; / Flowing out until each part He fills / With abundant life. / Christ, my Person, in my spirit lives; / And my heart to Him I’d daily give; / That my inner man could have a home / And a place to settle down, yes, / A place to call His own, and— / There be my complete reality, / There expressing all He is to me, / Living in my heart abundantly / As my Person real. (Hymns #1180 stanza 1)
About aGodMan
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I have the life of my heavenly Father within me!…I am now living by this life in my spirit and walking according to the spirit. By this life in my spirit I spontaneously fulfill the highest requirements of the law of the kingdom of the heavens. This is not my boast; it is my humble testimony to give glory to the Lord. This does not mean that I am able to do anything. It means that He is able, for He is in me as my life. He is able to do the same in you and for you. In order for this to be your experience, you need to have a vision of the hopelessness of your natural life. After your natural life has been thoroughly dug out and exposed, you will realize that it is a hopeless case, that you should have no trust in it, and that you must turn to the Father’s divine life and nature within you…You can easily turn to the Father’s life because at this very moment it is in your spirit. Simply walk according to your spirit, and all the righteous requirements of the law will be fulfilled in you. Life-study of Matthew, pp. 251-254, by Witness Lee
The demands of the law of the kingdom of the heavens are much higher than those of the law in the Old Testament, and they are impossible to keep in ourselves.
But praise the Lord, we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect because we have His life and nature!
May we realize our utter hopelessness in fulfilling God’s demands in ourselves and may we live according to the Spirit!
Amen Lord Jesus! Lead us and keep us in the reality of Romans 8:4!
amen brother in Matthew 5:48 the Lord said that we will be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect
but praise the lord that we don’t have to do in our ourselves and try to be perfect but instead we need to live by the Life that the Lord has given and this life will cause us to grow in life and conform us to the image of the firstborn so, this will cause us to be perfect
Aaaaameeen! Do it in us Lord!
In the past we have pointed out that the heavens are for the earth, that the earth is for man, and that man is for God.
The desire of God’s heart is to dispense Himself into man.
The heavens and the earth are for this dispensing.
This is the central point of the whole Bible.God’s economy [plan] is to carry out the dispensing of Himself into man.
We share in this economy through our stewardship, our ministry of dispensing the riches of Christ.
Amen, yes Lord by ourselves we cannot fulfill God’s demands, may we be those who live in the mingle spirit to enable us to God’s demand.
To fulfill the highest demands of the new law of the Kingdom – inluding to love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us – we need the highest supply to meet this demand.
In ourselves, we see that our natural man is a hopeless case and it cannot fulfill such a demand but praise the Lord that as regenerated believers who have the divine Spirit mingled with our human spirit, as sons of our heavenly Father, we have the ability to live and walk according to the Spirit and spontaneously live as the Kingdom people!
Because we have the life and nature of our Father, as we grow in this divine life, we shall be perfect as He is perfect, living out the Kingdom of God!
Hallelujah!
We need to have a vision of the hopelessness of our natural life.
Then, we will give up all hope in ourselves and turn to our spirit.
The demands of the kingdom of the heavens can only be met by those who walk in the spirit.
The demands of this realm seem unattainable to the world, but those who have the life & nature of God can realize this standard because our heavenly Father’s life & nature is capable of being perfect as our Father is perfect.
We don’t need to imitate God; we only need to grow in the divine life…
Aaaaameeeen! Dear brother I must tell you something… “You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”
Amen brother!
O Lord I am so short of this kind of love! Help me to grow in the Father’s life and love!