“That the man of God may be perfect” (2 Tim. 3:17).
The bird population inside the beautiful glass cage at the retirement home has recently increased by six tiny, brown, baby birds.
As they have grown, all six birds have appeared to be developing the same way. They have exhibited similar changes in color, they make similar chirping sounds, and they have developed similar flying abilities. In all things, they look alike, except for one marked peculiarity. One of the little birds has never developed a tail.
Initially, this lack of normal development was not evident, for at first none of the babies had a tail, nor could any of them fly. But then tail feathers began to appear on the other five. As they began hesitantly fluttering from branch to branch, that lack became increasingly obvious in the sixth. Our tailless little friend could no longer keep up with his siblings. Not possessing the means to properly balance himself, his clumsy, pitiful attempts to fly have been both sad and comical to watch.
Though safe from natural predators in his little world, he has become a nuisance to the other birds, and a danger, at times, even to himself. Unable to turn quickly and easily in flight, he has frequent collisions with the glass windows. Unstable when perching on a branch, he cannot properly balance himself, resulting in constant disruption to the other birds that are trying to rest there. Unpredictable in his landings because he cannot brake his flight, his approaches are positively annoying to the other birds, as he frequently collides with them.
Such an undeveloped spiritual state ought not to characterize those who are Christians. The results of such an imperfect condition in believers is of infinitely greater consequence to souls than the lack of a tail is to our little friend!
The Word of God often refers to the process of spiritual development in believers’ lives as becoming perfect. This does not mean that a child of God is to seek to attain a condition of sinless perfection. But there are many scriptures which exhort us to “be perfect” in the sense of being “fully matured” as believers. God does not intend that we be like that little bird, lacking what is part of normal growth thus finding our lives marked by instability, unable to live as mature men and women of God.
Abraham, one of the brightest examples of faith found in the Old Testament, was told by Jehovah, “I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17:1). A few chapters later (Gen. 22) we have the sublime proof of Abraham’s perfect (fully matured) walk of faith before the Lord.
And how brilliantly does that proof shine! When told by God to offer his beloved Isaac for a burnt offering, we read that “Abraham rose up early in the morning.” Had he lacked fully matured faith, he would not have been able to rise “early in the morning” in immediate obedience to God’s command. What innumerable blessings have resulted to the family of faith because of Abraham’s fully matured faith (Rom. 4:11-12).
But “just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked” (2 Peter 2:7), is a solemn example of the sad results of a believer’s life which has never properly matured. Consider the tragic effects of Lot’s imperfect, undeveloped life of faith on his dear family and on those among whom he lived in Sodom!
By contrast, in the New Testament we see a lovely example of the blessing resulting from the life of a fully matured believer, “Luke, the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). He writes: “It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order” (Luke 1:3). Thus the Spirit, using this mature vessel, gives the divine record of the Son of Man in the gospel of Luke and, later, the history of the formation of the church, His bride, in Acts.
There is yet more. Again and again we are warned in Scripture of the loss incurred by those who, as the writer of Hebrews says, “are dull of hearing.” Had the Hebrew believers possessed fully developed faith, they would have been teaching others. But such was not the case, for we read, “Ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God.” Because the Hebrews were not perfect, they had “need of milk, and not of strong meat.”
When speaking of desire for the Word of God, believers are to be like newborn babes, always thirsting for the “sincere milk of the word.” Why? “That ye may grow thereby.” By desiring to feed on the Word, proper growth and development occur.
But as to maturing in the “most holy faith,” believers need more than milk, because “every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe” (Heb. 5:13). Mature believers are referred to as “them that are of full age.” These, feeding on the “strong meat” of the Word, have their senses exercised “to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5:14).
Regarding our spirit as brethren, we are to be babes free of malice. Regarding our minds, we are to be grown men fully matured (1 Cor. 14:20).
Worldly life-styles will deny believers that spiritual food which results in full Christian maturity. The Apostle had to feed the carnal Corinthian believers “with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able (1 Cor. 3:12). His desire was that they might grow and mature, until they, like the Ephesians, might come “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13-14).
Believers are not to remain as babes “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine”—thus unable to walk the path marked out for faith. However, let us remember that the natural man can never receive “the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14-15 JND). Thus, it is only in “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4) that there can be spiritual maturity.
Oh! that we “may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:17), not like that little, underdeveloped bird—unable, unstable and unpredictable—in the path of faith.
Ed.