Can a Christian Be Perfect?
While every spiritually-reborn believer is “made complete in Christ” (Colossians 2:10), there’s no such thing as a perfect Christian in this fallen world, not in a practical sense. The Bible says point blank that every believer misses it now & then no matter how spiritually mature s/he may be:
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
1 John 1:8-10
Other passages testify to this as well:
Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.
“…for there is no one who does not sin…”
A popular international minister said that he hanged out with many of the top ministers you can name in America and stressed that every single one of them had a down side. In other words, each had areas where they were less than exemplary, including specific flesh issues. Yet this is different than saying they were involved with gross sin. Fivefold ministers — apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-13) — should be freed-up from major sin issues, which is accomplished through learning to walk in the spirit on a regular basis and becoming spiritually mature.
This explains the qualifications for leaders in the body of Christ detailed in the epistles (1 Timothy 3:1-7 & Titus 1:5-9). Although all fivefold ministers have their limitations and miss it now & then, there’s a difference between this and habitually failing in a major moral area or willfully living in the flesh. Obviously if a fivefold minister, like a pastor, isn’t freed-up from the flesh they’re not going to be able to help others walk free since a person can only give what they’ve got. It’s a simple principle: If you’re not free, you can’t help someone else be free.
The qualifications cited for overseers in Titus 1:5-9 say that the minister must be “blameless,” but blameless is not the same as sinless since every believer will miss it now & then, as already covered.
The key to keeping yourself blameless before the LORD is twofold:
- Be quick to humbly ’fess up when you miss it (1 John 1:9) and God will be faithful & just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, which means you’ll once again be righteous in the Lord’s sight and even “free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22). This is what the Bible calls “keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8 & Luke 3:8). Some other key passages include Psalm 32:5 and Proverbs 28:13.
- Stay away from “willful sins” (Psalm 19:13). there’s a difference between a person struggling with a certain sin, yet humbly keeping with repentance, and a person who regularly engages in willful sin. The word ‘willful’ in the Hebrew is zed (ZAYD), which means arrogant, proud, presumptuous or insolent. In other words, people who commit a willful sin know it’s a sin but still do it and aren’t sorry about practicing it. This is “great transgression” in God’s eyes, as David put it, and will eventually incur judgment if the individual continues to walk in it with no care of repentance (Galatians 6:7-8).
It’s crucial to keep yourself blameless before your Maker in this manner. Interestingly, only humble people can do this because it takes humility to honestly admit that you’ve missed it and confess accordingly. Arrogant people, by contrast, have a very difficult time admitting that they’ve made a mistake, how much more so revealing that they’ve sinned? This explains something that Scripture emphasizes repeatedly: “God opposes the proud but shows favor [grace] to the humble” (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5 & Proverbs 3:34).
Put simply, arrogance repels God while humility attracts God (Isaiah 66:2).
You could say that the LORD is only close to the humble and this explains why only humble people are greatly used of God, like Moses (Numbers 12:3) and David (1 Samuel 18:23). Yet please understand that, while humility is meekness, it’s not weakness. On the contrary, it’s spiritual strength.
So, while no believer can be morally perfect in a practical sense in this “present evil age” (Galatians 1:4), they can certainly grow spiritually wherein they walk humbly and blamelessly before their Creator and others.
Understanding positional truths will help the believer grow spiritually and walk free of the flesh. A positional truth reveals the believer’s position in covenant with God and therefore how God sees him/her in Christ. A good example is Colossians 1:22, which says that the believer is “holy in God’s sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” When believers grasp that the LORD sees them as holy, without blemish and free from accusation — and accepts this by faith — it has a positive impact on their identity in Christ and therefore their practical lifestyle. You can learn more about position truths in this video.
Related Topics:
How to Keep Yourself BLAMELESS (while Not Being SINLESS)
God Deals with People According to the Light they Have
Spiritual Growth is Like Climbing a Mountain
Understanding the Fear of the LORD
The Seven Keys to SPIRITUAL GROWTH
comments powered by Disqus