There was an artist who lived in Virginia whose name was Herbert G. Phipps. Part of his art was sculpting and his work was exquisite.
Someone asked him once how he made such beautiful sculptures. He said, “It’s easy. If I am trying to sculpt a duck out of a piece of wood, I look at the wood and I remove all the parts that do not look like a duck.”
Oh if it were that easy, right?
In our last visit together, we considered how as believers we are perfect. It does not come by our personal performance but our perfection is being in Christ and his perfection becomes our perfection.
But there is this thing called sanctification.
What is sanctification? It is being set aside for holy use. For the believer it both instant and ongoing.
1 Corinthians 6 shows that sanctification is instant in that as soon as you are a believer, you are sanctified and justified.
It is also an ongoing thing and this truth is all through Scripture but specifically in Hebrews 10:14 it says Christ has perfected us for all time and we are being sanctified.
What does this mean? Like Herbert Phipps, we are being shaped. Shaped into the image of Christ. Becoming like Him. As we grow in Christ, the things that do not look like Christ are removed. We work this out as God works in us.
So, yes, on our own we are not perfect, but we are both perfect and being perfected.
S.D.G