Why Jesus Has To Be Perfect In All Of His Ways
There is a lyric in the great song “Good Good Father” written by Pat Barrett and Tony Brown of Housefires, and made famous by Chris Tomlin. It says, “You are perfect in all of Your ways”. Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djrY_eFDOwE
During a recent Immanuel session, I looked at Jesus and had a deep and clear sense of His perfectness. He is completely perfect in ALL His ways. In that moment I could feel His perfect patience. I could feel His perfect knowing. I could really sense His perfect goodness. And He was perfectly able and willing to help.
I also felt a deep realization that He has to be perfect…If He wasn’t, how could I trust that He wouldn’t become impatient, frustrated, angry, etc… If there was even a hint of possibility that He would not be perfect, I would constantly be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I would always have it in the back of my mind that if I did something “wrong”, He would snap. If He waivered one millimeter, I would have to be guarded in the way that I interact with Him.
We filter how we expect Him to react and respond through the lens of our life and experiences. We expect Him to respond like our father when he was disappointed with us. Or react with the impatience of our mom when we were moving too slowly and she was in a hurry. Or like our employer who judges and rewards based on our performance.
But Jesus is perfect in all His ways. He is NEVER triggered. He never flinches. He is never surprised. When we begin to see Him for who He really is, and experience His true nature, we learn to develop trust that He will not get upset with us. He knows us perfectly! How could anything we do take Him by surprise?
But it takes dedicated time with Him letting Jesus be Jesus. It takes moment by moment intimate encounters with Him to develop our capacity. And as that trust grows, we can let Him into those places that hurt so that we can get to deeper levels of relationship with Him.
In order for that to really take place, I need to KNOW (from experiencing His perfectness) that He is perfect in all of His ways.