The Invitation/ Prepared/ On Way to Perfection

The Triad Circle of Perfection

Deut 11:1, 13:22 November 19, 2015

The great account of the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 reports in a span of 31 verses no less than 44 spiritual attributes she does in regard to her husband Jesus. All are a credit to a perfect wife. She has a full array of praiseworthy qualities indicative of those who have the greatest love in their hearts for Christ. They who have the greatest cause to love are they who are forgiven much. They are most likely to be the people who will fulfill the first and greatest commandment: i.e. that we love God with our whole being, body, soul and spirit. How many verses of the Bible, Old and New Testament declare this highest and most significant and fundamental of all spiritual directives. Peruse just a handful of them and ponder one of the great duties of every man or woman ever born.

Matthew 22:37 – “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt LOVE THE LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”

Mark 12:30 – “And thou shalt LOVE THE LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”

Luke 10:27 – “And he answering said, Thou shalt LOVE THE LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

Deuteronomy 6:5 – “And thou shalt LOVE THE LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

Deuteronomy 11:1 – “Therefore, thou shalt LOVE THE LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always.”

Deuteronomy 11:13 – “And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to LOVE THE LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Deuteronomy 11:22 – “For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to LOVE THE LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;”

Deuteronomy 13:3 – “Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye LOVE THE LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Deuteronomy 19:9 – “If thou shalt keep all these commandments to do them, which I command thee this day, to LOVE THE LORD thy God, and to walk ever in his ways; then shalt thou add three cities more for thee, beside these three:”

Deuteronomy 30:6 – “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to LOVE THE LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.”

Deuteronomy 30:16 – “In that I command thee this day to LOVE THE LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.”

Deuteronomy 30:20 – “That thou mayest LOVE THE LORD thy God, [and] that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he [is] thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Joshua 22:5 – “But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to LOVE THE LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Joshua 23:11 – “Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye LOVE THE LORD your God.”

When God’s people moved into the Promised Land to possess it He gave them this stern advice when He reiterated this command from the law:

“But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to LOVE THE LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Joshua 22:5

God’s expectations for His people was not only to love Him wholeheartedly and completely, but that a person should walk in all His ways (walk in the Spirit) to cleave to Him like a dutiful wife, and to serve Him with all (not part) of their heart and soul. This condition in the law was what they were to diligently heed above all else. If they achieved this perfection there would be blessing in abundance. If they failed to heed the call to love God there would be curses and disaster. This either-or edict showed both the gravity and the profound nature of the command to love. There was no second option or discussion of the matter, as we so-called evangelicals love to debate.

Keeping the law in general has proved impossible for Jews and Gentiles, let alone this greatest of all laws, which immediately proved impossible for corruptible man to walk in successfully. The law is perfect, right and holy, of this we can all be sure, but man without walking in the abiding love of God by the Spirit, frustrates the Law and makes it impotent. Not that it is weak or imperfect, but our sinfulness made it weak and unable to convert the heart. The shame is on us, not on the Law of Moses and the Ten Commandments, for they are right and healthy. The husband of the Bride, even Christ, is the provider of the solution for man’s unsolvable dilemma, for at His direction the Holy Spirit is sent to us to lead us into a walk of deliverance, freedom and Truth. Paul explained it to us in this way:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:1-4

It is our flesh that made the perfect Law impotent and unable to make us perfect. Only Christ’s love (activated by His death and resurrection) and allowed to live in us and we then, reciprocating His love back toward Him, which permits us into a perpetual life of ‘true life-action’ which amounts to the existence of the perfect and virtuous woman in reality and not mere religious idealism. God declared in the Law that it was His undying objective to have this kind of actual reciprocating vital love instilled into the individual person so that they could become worthy of ‘marriage’ to Him forever. It seems true, as Jesus said, the more we realize how much we are forgiven, the more we can find it in our heart to reciprocate His love with fervent spiritual passion.

In our desire to pursue this kind of love for God in our own heart, those who experience the love of Christ first and foremost are able to love God with a passionate zeal more so than those who think they have little or no need to be forgiven for their offenses against God or man. Jesus pointed this out to Simon the Pharisee in the famous parable about the debtors. This was immediately after Mary Magdalene had anointed his feet with expensive perfume, showing her great love for her Master. One may recall how the parable goes. There were two debtors, one owed 50 dollars and one owed 500 dollars, but both debts were forgiven. Jesus asked Simon, “Who will love most?” Simon correctly answered, the one who was forgiven most. Then Jesus declared this fact about loving God: “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are FORGIVEN; for she loved much: but to whom little is FORGIVEN, the same loveth little.” Luke 7:47

The only way to achieve the perfection of the virtuous wife is to enter into it, be immersed in it by the Spirit. This ‘perfection’ is the call of the last days just before His appearing in the clouds according to His promise. “Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous one, shall give me in that day, but not only to me but also to all those that love His appearing.” 2 Tim. 4:8 We say this is the crown of the Bride, the one who will sit upon the throne of Christ judging the nations and dispensing the love of her fair and mighty King. Rev. 3.21 By loving Christ (our husband) “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength with all our heart” Mark 12:30 we have accomplished the first of all Christian goals.

As the widow who gave her last penny into the temple coffers, we have given Him all our living. It is the perfect woman, what is first called the beloved one, a virtuous woman, the virgin and chaste espoused wife, and finally in Revelation, the Bride, who realizes with passionate joy how much Christ has forgiven the sins of the lost souls.

The one and only gateway to the perfection the Bride seeks is by loving Christ with her whole heart, soul, mind and all thy strength (giving everything, body, mind, intellect, pride, ambition, reputation, power, spirit) and without restriction, lays her life before Him in complete trust. Only then can she be able to serve God as described in the perfect service as the virtuous wife, which she renders willingly and lovingly to her perfect Husband, Jesus Christ. Only by giving her heart to Him can she fulfill the command to love. This is a critical point where upon we must now stop and take notice. It will be helpful for us to make a closer more detailed examination of how love is able to carve out an exclusive, singular passageway through our hearts, so that we may enter into the hallowed and ideal realm of God’s spiritual perfection…

Part II

There is a Tri-Fold Perfection for Three Spheres of Our Spiritual Life

The following teaching is devised to lend understanding for the very real, but acutely ethereal, perfection which can be realized by any soul hoping to be reckoned as Christ’s Bride “in-waiting”. This is possible when love’s power exists in us in a dynamically reciprocating way so that we are able to return our love to Him.

Consider that there are three separate identifiable spiritual realms within the believer. Within each one of these three realms exists a three-tiered application of our faith. In turn, within each of these three tiers within the three realms, exist three expressive ways by which our love for Christ find substance and evidence of reality. If this triad of love is proven to actively exist within a believer, which is the evidence of our reciprocating love for Christ, the Father will reckon us perfectly in love with His Son, which is to say, perfect in His eyes. If this be the case, what other opinion could possibly count as to our being accounted worthy? Jesus suggested we be wise and not fear what men can do to us, but fear only what God’s opinion about a matter is, and what He can do.

This triad of perfection cannot be understood (or actualized in the believer) through religious devotions or by striving and straining to do right by our own works, no matter how pious they seem to us or other people. Only by Christ’s love-power working in us can perfection of love be achieved in us by faith. Only through and by faith. These triads of perfection are the primary works of faith for and about love. This is the applied meaning from the Epistle of James 2:26 where it says, “Faith without works is dead.” Just do not forget, that our works are to be works of faith (in God’s power), and not works of the flesh, our strength, or our intellect. Our works do not require faith, they only require our will, our ingenuity, our arm, our muscle, our connivance. God is never impressed with these because they fall short of that designated perfection which He has willed that we should devote our faith. If one does not understand this they cannot hope to understand ‘perfection’. One must pray for understanding with a believing heart, then by faith one can receive the truth of these triads of perfection of Brideship. They can help us to discern how we are to obtain the ‘unobtainable’ perfection which is characterized in the virtuous wife and the other portraits and parables of Brideship woven throughout Scripture. None of these reports on the three divisions of perfection ought to be taken as ways to build our own righteousness. Each of these should be used as more of a monitor in us to detect if love’s power, nurtured by the Spirit, is growing into perfect faith.

God will accomplish Believing, Walking, Dying For Us
First, as depicted in the graphic above, it can be said that there is a circle of perfection. Each of the three basic elements of faith interacting at all times with each other in an endless cycle. Actively believing in redemption and ultimate perfection, which is to be realized for the Bride in her deliverance by the promised Rapture is one of the three elements. This is part of the triad of faith, among the three essential ingredients which prove to our own heart that we are on track for a fruitful and perfection of faith. Walking in the Spirit is another essential. This requires an obedience and yieldedness of faith in the Holy Ghost that of daily, faithful rigors. The other essential is termed by Jesus as, picking up our cross daily, denying self and following after Him. Jesus and the Holy Ghost set the pace, direct the path, call the shots, and hear the prayers of those who are ‘perfect’ with special interest and delight. Those who are believing in His delivering imminence of the Rapture, who are also walking in the Spirit, while uniformly dying to self daily are living in the homogeneity of the circle of perfection, experiencing by faith the life of the Bride-in-waiting.

Our Part of Perfection: Desiring, Asking, Doing
God will empower us to become different, successful in escaping this homogenized life that demands of us that we be regular and average, that our faith follow the herd mentality of sterilized Christianity, by giving us gifts of the Spirit, adding to our faith such things as knowledge with genuine living circumstances helpful to teaching us about real love of God, our fellow Man and all of God’s creation. The Lord can get us in touch with some place or person to aid us in our ‘journey to Brideship’. We must enter and stay with it, by our own free will, through the learning pains and trials. We must persevere, though we still live in a cold, harsh world surrounded by fearful circumstances and false friends and brethren.

Therefore, the triad of perfect life of love is: first, Desiring, second, Asking, and third, Doing. Each hinges on our will to have them accomplished by God in us. The Lord, through comfort, exhortation, spiritual inspiration and epiphanies given by the Holy Ghost, build these things and ingrain them in our core being, so that what is wholly supernatural and godly becomes natural, though not automatic reflex, but an automatic compulsion the way greetings, gestures and proper responses become automatic to a civilized human being.But we must provide the courage to separate ourselves, to suffer affliction in the cause of Christ’s love and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Believing, walking and ‘dying’ to self – these essentials can never come to life in us by complacency neither can they come about by presumptive faith in our own good nature, nor by demanding that God do it for us.

We must desire spiritual righteousness and goodness if we are to find it. When we desire it then we come to the conclusion that we must ask God to tailor our lives so that we can ask Him to make our lives suited for a spiritual way, then we will have the courage to stand up, and do it. We must desire, then we will ask, then we will hear the answer to our prayer and have faith to do the perfect works of love. Jesus said to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. He would not have told us to reach for this goal if it were not possible.

Part III

Perfection’s Promise Is For: Today, Tomorrow and Forever

The third of our triad of perfection is its reality in time and space. There are three separate realms of reality in which we live. God is not subject to time and space. This we know intuitively and by the Scriptures. It is written, that “by Him all things consist.” Col 1:17 He is the creator of all things including the universe as we know it and He has constructed it for His good pleasure. Some things He has revealed, but as the Scripture says, the “hidden things belong to God.” But when we live in the Spirit (the Spirit not being subject to time and space) we, too, no longer are confined to the simple realms of this world and the physical laws of the structures of this universe. The sought after perfection of love, if realized in truth, is therefore not confined, it too is everywhere alive through Christ and the Holy Ghost. It is today, tomorrow and forever. Just as Jesus is “the same yesterday, today and forever”.

Perfect Today
First off, our perfection is for today, this very hour. What is meant by this is that it is to be alive, real and effective in the moment. I do not mean in a moment of time, but in a moment, an act. It is homogenized perfectly when it occurs through obedience to the Holy Ghost, accompanied by denying self and bolstered by the humble confidence of believing God. There is nothing futuristic about this action in the moment, in the sense that we shall someday be perfect, or I will do perfection tomorrow, or in the life to come. It is in the now, this moment, a moment not limited by time or excused by procrastination or apology. It is the vital love of Christ alive and operating on the world through His disciple. We can enjoy it in the here and now, not by our will power but by the power of His Word as it resounds in our heart and directs us to do God’s Will. The perfecting saint must not live for tomorrow but in the moment trusting Christ by the Spirit to direct us in what is righteous. Obviously, we need the Spirit of God residing in us, actively having the final say in what we do and think.

Experiencing a challenging maintenance of an ongoing perfection of faith day to day, regularly and in the moments and circumstances of our life, the disciple can actually follow in the footsteps of Christ. This perfection is as a house that is cleaned perpetually and daily in a sound and perfect fashion, or as a machine needs to be maintained by preventative maintenance regularly if it is to operate efficiently; these are done in that day, in the present for present need. There is a perfection of the now, it is called for in the moment, it has to be spontaneous and it will be well done and correct. There is no law, no rules but they are the operation of the ‘fruits of The Spirit”. As the Scripture declares: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Gal. 5:22-23

Perfect Tomorrow
Second, there is a realm of approvable perfection if we maintain faith for the hope of our calling, the way one rallies in energetic confidence for an inspirational cause. One gets ready for the rally and looks forward to tomorrow’s opportunity that by believing and faith that it shall happen.

Perfect Forever
And thirdly, the believer is perfected in the unswerving and abiding knowledge that they will be ultimately and irrevocably perfected in the life to come and for all eternity.

This homogenous perfection of eternal existence is a testament to the power of the love of Christ. There are three who bear witness in heaven, three which bear witness on earth. Permit me to say there are at least three sets of triads which testify to love’s perfect fruits in man, which can, by the strength and glory of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and His shed blood, testify sweetly to the love of God, so that a believer has it as a possibility one may be actually and miraculously perfected now, tomorrow and forever in eternity, and that by desiring, asking and doing, one can be schooled and trained to believe God, walk with the Spirit and deny self.

Part IV

The Ultimate Wife – She is Perfected
Admittedly, this is not the run of the mill believer. The person of Proverbs 31 is the ‘perfect wife’. People object to this notion thinking that all believers are equal in the eyes of God, but this human notion of fairness is nowhere born out in the Bible. Scripture shows all variety of faith and all degrees of pleasing God by people called by His name.

When pursuing the conduct of the ultimate wife we come to realize that this is not only the picture of a perfect wife, but it is a character portrait of the spirit of the Bride of Christ. Most times, if not at all times, this sketch of the Bride’s makeup and spiritual constitution is grasped as a study in how one is to turn oneself into a perfect wife for an earthly husband and then, by projection of spirit, into a perfect minister and servant of Christ. Women it is seen, have a scriptural model, a role model, placed before them for the understanding of duty and calling toward her husband. Down through all the epochs of church history this has been the rendering of the perfect wife of Proverbs 31. Only in the apostolic age, with Peter, Paul and John and the other disciples and fellow-laborers in the newly born church, was this possibly looked upon with a more spiritual focus and insight, with a more true perspective having nothing to do with gender or marriage in this life.

Perfection does not come by works or through keeping the law. Paul spent his life, teaching, re-teaching, informing and testifying, urging and educating the churches as to the difference between living by the law which is death and failure, and living in the spirit which is life and glory. Much of the letters of his hand which became Holy Writ grind out this most fundamental change proclaimed in the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament which applied to Jew and Gentile alike. The letter of the law kills, he wrote, the spirit is life and liberty. God taught this essential truth of salvation and perfection in one felled swoop when he gave the vision of clean and unclean things to Peter telling him not to call anything He said was clean, unclean. He can make us good, and even perfect, if we will submit like a good wife to our loving husband, Jesus. He has given to us all the means to make this possible. Man and woman are in the same boat on this critical issue of spiritual perfection. Earthly marriage is only a living similitude, an analogy of truth that all can understand. The ultimate marriage is with Christ in heaven for all time. Note that Jesus told the legalists of his time, the Pharisees and Sadducees, that there is no marriage in heaven.

A small laundry list of these portraits and parables serves to help us see the wide-ranging theme of Brideship across the landscape of Scripture:

1. The ‘Great’ Mystery: Christ and the church: Ephesians 5
2. Adam: not good to be alone Genesis 3
3. The Song of Solomon The Book
4. The Virtuous Wife, Prov 31
5. Ezekiel 16 God Divorces unfaithful wife
6. The Book of Esther; Chosen Bride of the King
7. Book of Ruth; From out of land of Unbelief
8. Great Bride Roll of illustrious women:Sarah, Deborah, Hanna, Mary, M. Magdalene, Anna, (as well as, men: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses, David, Joshua, Samson, Elijah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Simeon, the apostles, Paul) et.al.
9. Isaiah 62
10. Joel 2
11. Many parables of Jesus Matt 25, etc.
12. Philippians 3
13. The Sun-Clad Woman, Rev 12
14. The 144,000 of heavenly Mount Zion Rev 14;
15. The Bride, City from Heaven Rev 21

The epochs of the church are a bit different than the way they are told or are being realized by the typical church history gathered by such men as Eusebius, and early historians, or the scholars of the recent past, Renan, Gibbon, Schaff, Milman, Liemann and such. The epochs of church history we should be most interested in these last days are the ones which lifted the churches out of extreme ignorance (called apostasy), into which it had fallen in the so-called Dark Ages and Medieval Times when the church was dominated exclusively by the institution that lusted after the temporal power of the world and mortgaged its spiritual future in a bid to be ruler of the world. The Epoch commonly called by historians, Reformation, began the uphill climb out of godless oblivion, but got only a few steps out of the deep and slippery hole of ignorance and delusional darkness. The period of Restoration, beginning in earnest around 1800, was an epoch of shining light in which the Holy Spirit revived His relationship with the Church to what it had once been in the beginning days of the apostolic churches. Christ was given a renewed reverence and whole-hearted attention.

As God had promised in his prophets, the things eaten away and seemingly lost forever, would be restored to the church. Men like the Wesley brothers, Jonathan Edwards, Edward Irving, Joseph Seiss, Arthur Bloomfield, Gordon Lindsay and an array of others were used by God to begin the long climb toward a new and glorious day – the day of the Bride, a day in which some believers are now living as they wait to meet their bridegroom on the day of their wedding, the Rapture…

Part V

As God is Perfect:

“He is the Rock, his work is PERFECT: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” Deut. 32:4

Jesus said:“Be ye PERFECT, even as your Father which is in heaven is PERFECT.” Matt. 5:48

“The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is PERFECT shall be as his master.” Lk. 6:40

Any religion which calls itself Christian, and allows one of its members or patrons to acquire good standing while not paying heed to the urgency of loving God with their whole being, or living in substantial truth with proof of loving God substantially in their life, is no Christian religion at all. No matter what it declares, has obtained in reputation, or whether it has a billion or two adherents. Before any objections, remember this, loving God with our whole heart and being is the very first commandment.

Declaring our religion as Christian is the only grounds which institutions, governments, nations, most all churches and every official census bureau considers as what makes a person or church Christian. Nevertheless, even the unanimous consent of the entire world does not make it so. If it is not paramount to you and you are not earnestly striving to love God with all your being: body, soul and spirit you are not living as a Christian and therefore that makes you not a Christian. We repeat, it is not deserving of being called Christian, neither should it be thought of, nor treated as such, if one is not willing to be in love with God act – being one of those who seek to love God according to the first command which God has issued, i.e. that we love Him with all our being.

The second most important commandment, as we are told by Jesus, is like the first. We should try the best we can to love our neighbors as ourselves. Any denomination known to Christianity that does not insist on these two primary pursuits, no matter how frustrating it may seem to obtain the summit of love’s lofty heights, and no matter how many times we slip and fall on our ascent, is a slacker’s religion. Every Christian teacher is obliged to more than teach, they are obliged to urge with vehemence of heart, no matter that we all seem so little when cast before love’s halogenic light, is not worthy to be accepted or thought of as a true teacher, any institution that does not do this, is not worthy to be called Christian.

And so, the Bride of Christ will love in deed and not merely in word. Any man or woman who dares to call themselves Christian without caring to pursue the task of loving God wholeheartedly should not have their name etched upon a fellowship, church, or denomination’s membership roll.

FURTHER –
We are compelled by truth to note that PERFECTION is often the OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE THINK it might or should be – Isaiah 42 and 43 are very important about antithetical ideas of perfection. Spiritual seeing requires that we admit we are blind; hearing that we are originally born deaf; spiritual health demands that we first recognize that we are ill and that we need desperately to have of sickness treated by the true physician.

Christ’s actual Bride-in-waiting will have a different form of beauty than what is known in the world, a beauty not consistent with carnal ideas or fleshly opinions but it is a higher and truer beauty nonetheless. She will not be wise in worldly ways, not be strong in fleshly might, not be applauded by the devotees of this present life. She will look weak, beleaguered, unworthy of noticed. She will be shunned those who are otherwise impressed by physical beauty, even disdained. By all appearance in this life she will not be desirable or esteemed, or fawned over by fans and admirers, like some movie star debutant. She may be called a whore and a Jezebel by the church, even though the opposite is true.

Ironically, she is the one beloved, chaste as a virgin and waiting for her wedding day. She is the one who loves her fiancée with her whole being, body, soul and spirit, without wavering. As Revelation 14 declares there is no guile in her. She is not trying to profit by her relationship with God for personal worldly gain. She does not sell the gospel as a means for paying her self-aggrandizing luxury taxes. The world hates Jesus; it will hate her nearly as much. Jesus, her espoused husband shall not cry in the streets and make a huge show over her, but He, like her, waits for the wedding day. Then, as Isaiah informs us, He will roar and not be silent.

Out time is a time of a new thing, something never done before, something that will only be done once. It is a time not only of reform, but of restoration and of Christ’s marriage to Man, but not only a time of restoration, it is a time for reconciliation with God and His Christ, and He will have a spiritually perfect and glorious wife without spot or wrinkle, we are told. She is exclusive, she is holy and without blemish, washed under the power of the Word and without wrinkle, she will never age, always be at His side for His adventures in eternity.