Devotions with Pastor Dick Guilfoil

"Not as though I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”    Philippians 3:12
 
It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He
can do;

• God's purpose is to make us one with Himself.

The emphasis of some holiness movements is apt to be:

• That God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum.

If you go off on this idea of personal holiness, the focus of your life

• Will not be for God
• But for what you call the manifestation of God in your life.
• "It can never be God's will that I should be sick."

If it was God's will to bruise His own Son,

• Why should He not bruise you?

The thing that tells for God

• Is not your relevant consistency to an idea of what a saint should be
• But your real vital relation to Jesus Christ, whether you are well or ill.

 
Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection.
Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God

• Which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life.

When you obey the call of Jesus Christ,

• The first thing that strikes you is the irrelevancy of the things you have to do.

The next thing that strikes you is the fact that

• Other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives.

Such lives are apt to leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary,

• By human effort and devotion we can reach the standard God wants.
• In a fallen world this can never be done.

I am called to live in perfect relation to God

• So that my life produces a longing after God in other lives,

Not admiration for myself.

• Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God.

God is not after perfecting me to be a specimen in His show-room;

• He is getting me to the place where He can use me.
• Let Him do what He likes.

 
 Pastor Dick