I like a quotation from Hodge’s Outlines. Let me repeat it here:

“The more holy a man is, the more humble, self-renouncing, self-abhorring, and the more sensitive to every sin he becomes, and the more closely he clings to Christ. The moral imperfections which cling to him he feels to be sins, which he laments and strives to overcome... And it has been notoriously the fact that the best Christians have been those who have been the least prone to claim the attainment of perfection for themselves.”

What we have explained so far is that perfection in the Christian life is a journey, and not a destination or end. You cannot say, “I have arrived.” Yet you must embark on the journey, knowing full well that your destination as a believer in Christ is not in this world, but in the world to come (eternal life).

Now, the challenge before those of us who are identified with Christ today is summarized in Ephesians 4: 1:

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

We must begin to ask, are we walking worthy of the name of Jesus?

Many Christians remain stunted and dwarfed in spiritual things. Year after year, they appear the same, if not worse. No advancement and no refining

~ takes place in their lives. They exist, but do not” grow up into Him in all things” (Eph 4: 15). This is very unfortunate, for it is tantamount to a frustration or wastage of divine endowment.

The Lord said about the Kingdom,

Mark 4:26-29 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full com in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

The seed of the word of God has been sown in our lives. Let us ask ourselves, what has been the result? Are we satisfied to believe in Christ, and to say, “I am safe,” without wishing to know in our own experience more of the fullness which is to be found in Him? It should not be so; we should, as good pilgrims on a heavenward journey, covet to be enriched in the knowledge of Jesus. That is the road to perfection.

Many of us are busybodies. It is quite good to keep other men’s vineyards, but we must not neglect our own spiritual growth and ripening. Why should it always be winter time in our hearts? Why is our spirit man always in the dry season? The rain is falling all around, why are we dry still? May God give us a new season; may He give us the former and latter rain together, which shall give promise of an early harvest of revival in our lives.