These words haunted me when I was a young believer: \u201cTherefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect\u201d (Matthew 5:48). It was difficult enough setting an example as the \u201cPastor\u2019s Kid\u201d but being perfect was an ominous challenge in my youth. It was hard even for me to be good, how could I ever be perfect? I was still struggling with this idea as a Seminary student and week-end pastor of a small rural church. Then a godly Missions professor quoted someone in class one day (and I cannot document the quote or even assure I have it exactly correct). The quote, as I remember it, was, \u201cReleased from the necessity of being perfect, I am now free to be good.\u201d It was a \u201cHallelujah\u201d moment. I would have shouted, but in those days, one could get dismissed from Seminary for such action. Then I did what I should have done years earlier, a word study. The word means \u201cfinished, complete, pure, holy.\u201d Originally, it was applied to a machine that was complete in its parts. Applied to people, it refers to completeness of parts, where no part is defective or wanting. The word implies full development, growth into maturity of godliness, not sinless perfection. Ever since that day, I have tried to polish my parts, so the whole of me can represent godliness. As the country song says, I am a work in progress. So let\u2019s see. What parts do I need to work on this week?<\/p>\n
Join me in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Alastair, the youngest son of David and Amanda. He was badly burned on his right hand and may need skin graft surgery. They serve in Asia.
\n\u2022 Pray that London Olympic volunteer teams are able to get visas to work during the Games. A number of visa requests have been rejected.
\n\u2022 Pray for Ted and Beverly as they travel from the U.S. back to Warsaw on Wednesday of this week.
\n\u2022 Pray for summer missionaries and mission trip teams as they travel and serve this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
These words haunted me when I was a young believer: \u201cTherefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect\u201d (Matthew 5:48). It was difficult enough setting an example as the \u201cPastor\u2019s Kid\u201d but being perfect was an ominous challenge in my youth. It was hard even for me to be good,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}