Perfection Loves - The Imperfect

God’s love is perfect, because He is perfect. It is without variance, nor hindered by the condition or performance of it’s recipient. It is not conditioned upon anything, but perfect in and of itself. God has no need but is complete, in and of Himself. God cannot be added to nor can anything be taken away from Him, whereby God might be in some way diminished. And love is the very essence of what God is, as stated in the book of first John, “God is love”.

God can show wrath and hates sin, because of love. And those He loves He chastises. What is chastisement? Is it not but correction, just as we love and correct our very own child for their own good? Love has many facets to it but all work toward bringing the recipient to a place of wholeness and perfection. What we must conclude, is that perfection loves the imperfect. Perfection reaches out to the imperfect with the desire to perfect them in itself and by itself. God, who is love, has done this in Jesus Christ.

Love is the healing balm for all that needs healing, it is the thread that repairs and holds together all that is not whole. Love is the mender of the breach, whatever the breach might be.

As is so often quoted from John three sixteen: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that who-so-ever believes in him should not parish but have everlasting life and verse seventeen: For God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved”. It is obvious from scripture, that when Christ died for us, we were imperfect. As is stated in Romans chapter five, we were sinners, we were His enemies, we were without strength or ability to help ourselves and we could not add a thing to God, who is complete in Himself.

Everything we have learned in Adam would tell us that such are not worthy of life, much less God’s life. But God, who loved us with love that passes our understanding, deemed us worthy of His life, and through death, even a shameful death on the cross, displayed to the world, true love. God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

In our earthly thinking, we tend to love the lovable. If a person conducts themselves properly and most assuredly if the person agrees with or point of view, we just love that person. This does not however have anything to do with the love of God. Our love has always been performance based. If one is not performing to our standards, we not only dislike them, but we like to tell others about their faults and in so doing, become the accuser of the brethren. The old saying, ”If you do not have anything good to say about someone, don’t say anything at all”, is still a good rule. We should rather, pray for that someone and cover their nakedness, not expose it. Speak well of them, call things that are not as though they were and deem them worthy of God’s love, for He died for them as well. Judge not, that you be not judged, for with the same measure that you meet out to them, it will be measured onto you.

The gracious nature of the love of God is compelling. It is the goodness of God that leads us unto repentance. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians, chapter one “having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us excepted in the beloved”. It is written in the book of first John, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”.

The point being made in John’s statement, is a testimony to the grace of God. Who of us was deserving to be called a Son of God? No one, there was none righteous, no not one! We had all gone astray, Adams fall was the fall of us all. God requires perfection, even as He is perfect, and thank God, perfection loves the imperfect unto perfection.

Art Groesbeck