Practicing Perfection

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
(Hebrews 5:14 – ESV)

It has been said that practice makes perfect, but it is not just that any type of practice makes perfect but that perfect practice makes perfect. A baseball pitcher cannot simply throw the ball around and keep missing his target, and then think that because he has spent time throwing that this alone will lead to perfection. No, he must hone his skills and get to the point where he can hit his target, time and again, so that then when he is in a game he will repeat what he has practiced. He has to get it right first, and then repeat that process, perfect practice makes perfect. Imagine the pitcher who never threw a strike in practice, taking the mound, and believing he will succeed hitting the strike zone just because he has been throwing the ball in practice, yet never actually hitting his target! Ridiculous, isn’t it?

Well it is the same for our biblical life. We have to learn to learn. Those that are “perfect”, or mature, have learned to handle meat because they have learned to handle milk, they have become mature, skilled, and they practice, they know how to grow, they exercise their judgment and know how to exercise judgment. They have learned to discern.

One true and first test of discernment is that godliness leads to discipline and diligence (2 Peter 1:5, 10 – eagerness and earnestness, which implies effort to be speedy) and if not it is deception. Godliness wants to be godlier, it exercises (the word for trained in this verse is our root word for gymnasium) their senses, their perception. Their judgment is exercised that is why they can exercise judgment. Learning leads to maturity, and mature learning makes for mature discerning. A baby doesn’t run before it crawls.

When we are immature, the truth becomes a toy, when you have something but don’t know what it is really for, you don’t know how to properly use it. They are unskilled and unproductive. Those that won’t discern will not be able to apply the truth or they will turn truth into lies, and take something advanced to advance their own agenda.

We must concentrate on Christ. Why is this so hard? Because your natural instinct is to turn to yourself, instead of to Jesus. That is why we want moral exhortations rather than true grace, we want steps, programs, formulas, and things like that because we want to be able to use God to get things right rather than actually trust Him with controlling it all. You see we can even give it all to Him and yet still be in control of it, we sort of loan Him the leadership of our lives, and then snatch it back when we feel threatened, persecuted, frustrated, or that we are suffering too much. We say, “wait a minute, this isn’t going right, you are doing it wrong, or I can do a better job, or you are missing something”. We want results but He wants a deeper relationship. God is able to change your instinctive patterns without you having to jump through hoops. It will take real work, not cookie cutter formulas, but real fellowship, and this is what good relationships are all about. If we will submit to His will and commit to study, then God will use our own experiences to teach us more precisely, we will learn to discern.

When you are facing hard or disappointing circumstances, boredom, loneliness, money problems, fighting with a spouse, distance from a friend, it’s easy (and instinctive) to turn, and we think we are trusting God but we are only turning to ourselves many times. You need to go to God, He hears you, but will you hear Him, from His Word? God gets better, He gets brighter as you trust Him and are able to see Him through the circumstances. That is how He shows His brilliance. He can shine when nothing else can. I hope you can learn to discern that. You can over time if you are willing to do what it takes to become mature. Perfect practice makes perfect.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©