“I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience; and as for your works, the last are more than the first. Revelation 2:19
Jesus knew well the service of the church in Thyatira, but there was some tough stuff behind His 'nevertheless' too. That could easily describe any of us. We do have the fruits of the Spirit growing from our branches, but we also have some things in our lives that the Lord would have against us. I have yet to meet the perfect Christian.
In 1983, I began four years of military service in the United States Marine Corps. In those four years, and contrary to some of the boasting I heard, I did not meet one perfect person. Nope, sorry, not one. Since the end of my active service, I have not yet met a perfect human being in the flesh. Nope, still looking for that perfect human.
In our verse for today, Jesus cut down the church at Thyatira because they were not perfect...no, no, no, dead wrong! Congratulated on works, love, service, faith, and patience, the church had some thing that needed a cleansing, but perfection was not the issue. Perfecting is our Lord's work; and if He were to hold a lack of perfection against any of His saved ones He would only be holding it against Himself. After all, imperfection cannot perfect itself - how could it know perfection being imperfect?
No one that I knew joined the service to become perfect. We served and we are thanked for our service on this day. In a similar way, we give ourselves to Jesus to serve Him. And from the day of salvation we are all perfect humans? Nope, sorry, Christians join the service of God, but if it was an army of human all-stars He sought, I don't think I could belong and my brothers and sisters in Christ would say the same thing.
Perfection is something I leave with God; service is something to which I can say, "Yes, Lord!" And perhaps one day too, my Lord will say to me, "And as for your works, the last are more than the first."
Ever increasing faith!Bucky
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