Practice Makes Perfect

If you were to interview those who have been deemed the “greatest” in their respective sport, each of them would concede that perfection is impossible (except for maybe a bowler). They’d likely go on to tout incredible discipline, evidenced by long, tedious hours of practice, often over years, sometimes even decades. Still, perfection for them is something they’ll never achieve. Yet, somewhere in the back of their head is a resounding, recurring theme, “Practice makes perfect!”

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
It’s similar in the spiritual life. The Bible tells us that perfection is indeed the end goal of sanctification, albeit over a lifetime of God’s grace transforming us. But even then, after the fullest of lifetimes has been lived by the most upright and blameless of us all, no one besides Jesus Christ has ever lived a perfect life. It seems almost counterintuitive, for the omniscient God of the Universe to propose perfect sanctification when He, Himself, knows its impossibility for us in time.

Well, to be fair, as most of you know, we are perfected positionally in Christ when we are saved. And we are perfected wholly when we make it to Heaven. It’s the in-between time where perfection is impossible. The best we’ll ever witness is God’s perfect grace working in us. We have the privilege of realizing the effects of someone perfect working on someone imperfect.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.
Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
So, are we to quit running the race set before us? May it never be! We are to be like the aforementioned star athletes - training, disciplining ourselves, and being ready for spiritual battle. Which of us hasn’t stood on the “free throw line” and wished for a perfect shot? Which of us hasn’t wished for a perfect round of golf. How about a perfect vault in gymnastics? We know full well that none of these things are possible, yet isn’t that our hope? In a way, perfection is what motivates us, drives us harder.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.
While we must concede that we’ll never experience absolute perfection in ourselves in this lifetime, we must strive as if it were possible, for that is God’s will for us.

God sets goals that His grace can certainly achieve, as we’ll soon see in Heaven, so His command to maintain this attitude even now, as a function of divine hope, is certainly not misplaced (how dare we even entertain such a thought). The writer of the Book of Hebrews wrote about the value of training hard with this kind of attitude.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
As has been coming from my pulpit as of late, so much of living the spiritual life is doing so with the right perspective. So much of sanctification is just that, an issue of perspective. Truth and experience are what we need for wisdom, and, “wisdom is vindicated by all her children” (Luke 7:35). Divine wisdom, you see, is an element of perfection - the meeting place between divine and human perspective. I suppose sharing even one iota of it is more than sufficient a display of grace; yet, the Holy God of the Universe has promised so much more to those who “practice to make perfect.”

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,
NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,
AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
If we’re honest, our greatest opportunity to practice is when we fail. Failure is a way of life for us believers, and we know it, having an understanding of sin, itself. We “miss the shot” as much as we “make it” it seems. Yet, we must be encouraged by God’s ability to sanctify us. Over time, as we continue in our imperfections and learn from our mistakes, we realize that this kind of “practice” is essential to our pursuit of godliness, that is, perfection, “knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope” (Romans 5:3b-4).

“Practice makes perfect!” That is the secular proverb. We’ll be perfect in Heaven soon enough; but, until then, let’s keep on practicing as if we might achieve it even now, for that is God’s will for us. As with all things spiritually appraised, God sees a heart set on righteousness, and this is pleasing to Him. “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).

Love in Christ,

Ed Collins