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Perfect—As He Is, November 5
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect.
Matthew 5:48
.
As becomes beings to whom the Lord God has given the faculties of
reason and of action, we should use our powers in accordance with the divine
purpose. God desires to be honored and glorified in the work of His hands.
Every human being will have to give an account to God for the way in which
he has used his entrusted talents. We are under obligation to use our powers
aright that we may be qualified for eternal life in the kingdom of God. God
demands perfection from every human being. We are to be perfect in this life
of humanity, even as God is perfect in His divine character.
God made every provision in man’s behalf, creating him only a little lower
than the angels. Adam disobeyed, and entailed sin upon his posterity. But
God gave His only begotten Son for the redemption of the race. Christ took
on Him the nature of man, and passed over the ground where Adam fell, to
be tested and tried as all human beings are tested and tried. Satan came to
Him as an angel of light to induce him, if possible, to commit sin, and thus
place the human race entirely under the dominion of evil. But Christ was
victorious. Satan was defeated, and the race was placed on vantage ground
with God.
When the Father gave His Son to live and die for man, He placed all the
treasures of heaven at our disposal. There is no excuse for sin. God has given
us all the advantages He possibly could give, that we may have strength to
withstand the temptations of the enemy. Had man, when tested and tried,
followed the example of Christ, he would have given his children and his
children’s children an example of steadfast purity and righteousness, and the
race would not have deteriorated, but improved....
Many act in this our day as though this were a matter of small importance.
But had the human family, even after the fall of Adam, worked according
to the example of Christ, every father and every mother would leave their
children an example of how to conduct themselves so as to fulfill their obli-
gations to God, then the world would have been as Eden. The earth, now a
desert of sin, would have rejoiced and blossomed as the rose.—
Letter 143,
November 5, 1900
, to Elder McClure, a minister in California.
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