God's Standard

There is a very simple truth, a characteristic about God and man, that I believe is the foundation to intimacy with God and free access to everything he has for you. Unfortunately, it is also a truth that I don't think is understood by much of the body of Christ. It is this: God is a holy God and his required standard of living is perfection. That means perfect holiness, perfect righteousness, and perfect obedience. He can not have any fellowship with anything or anyone with imperfections. It also means that God’s love, fellowship, or goodies can only be acquired through flawlessness. In Deuteronomy 28, a Non-denominational favorite, God speaks through Moses saying this:

“And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.” (v. 1-2)

If this is the prerequisite for blessing, then who qualifies? Notice it says all commandments. You know, in the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and English the word all means all. Not some, or as many as you can. It means ALL. There are many other scriptures that testify to the fact that God required and still requires absolute perfection (Deut 26:18, Deut 19:9, Josh 22:5). Scriptures like these can make a person feel less that worthy of God’s goodness.

In the Old Testament, God’s law pronounced a blessing on those who fully obeyed his commands and a curse on those who did anything less. Deuteronomy describes both conditions very well. Suffice it to say that the curse means everything that can go wrong does go wrong. While the blessing is when everything that can go right does go right. James 2:10 tells us that if we keep the entire law but miss it on one point, we are guilty of breaking the entire thing. God’s law is like a huge glass window. It doesn’t matter if you throw a pebble through it or run a truck through it. Once it cracks, the entire thing will shatter. Galatians 3:10b (NKJV) says:

“Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

There’s that word “all” again. There’s just no getting around it. So it can be concluded:

100% PERFECTION = BLESSING and 99.99999% PERFECTION = CURSE

Doesn’t that just give you the warm fuzzies? I imagine not. Who wants to know that they fall short of what God requires? Who wants to come to the harsh realization that even on a “good” day, you fall miserably short of God’s standard. Isaiah 64:6 says that your ability to meet for God’s standard is like a filthy rag, or more specifically a used women’s cloth. Nice visual isn’t it. Romans 3:10 says, “There is none righteous, not even one”. While at the surface these ideas can seem depressing, it is imperative that every person come to the end of self and understand how incapable they are of ever fulfilling all of God’s law.

1 John 4:16b (KJV) says:

“God is love.”

Well, if that is true and God is who he says he is, then what would Love do in this situation? Here is all of mankind doomed to a life of sickness, poverty, insecurity, worry, bad relationships, demotions, danger, death, and every other horrible thing imaginable. These creatures were made in Love’s image. Will he just abandon them?!

Enter Jesus.

“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He even gave up His only begotten unique Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal, everlasting life.” (John 3:16 AMP)

To be continued...Comments are always welcome.