“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven…You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5: 44, 48)

The Lord wants us to be perfect; and so it is written: “ You shall be perfect, jus as your Father in heaven is perfect.” He has given us , every one, all the grace that He has, bringing the fullness of His salvation, that everyone may be presented perfect in Jesus Christ.

The very purpose of this gift of His boundless grace is that we may be made like Jesus, who is the image of God. It is written: “to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift…till we all come…to a perfect man” (Ephesians 4:7, 13).

Do you want to be like Jesus? Then
Receive the grace that He has so fully and so freely given.
Receive it in the measure in which He has given it, not in the
measure in which you think you deserve it.
Yield yourself to it, that it may work in you and for you the
wondrous purpose for which it is given, and it will do it.
It will make you like Jesus.
It will accomplish the purpose and the wish of Him who has given
it.

“Yield yourselves unto God.” 1

Let no professed Christian take counsel of his own imperfections and say that it is impossible for a Christian to live a sinless life. It is impossible for a true Christian, one who has full faith, to live any other kind of life. “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2 RSV). 2

1 Jones, Review & Herald, April 17, 1894
2 Waggonner, The Glad Tidings, p. 42