Episode #206 Relying on God’s Absolute Perfection- Knowing God

Hey friends, it's Jen, and welcome to this episode of Good God Talks. Today, we're talking about how God is infinite, but specifically, how God is infinite in His perfection. He is perfect, and His perfection continues in every direction.

If you've been around the podcast for a little bit, you've likely picked up on the fact that I am an achiever, can do, to do list type personality. And I love that about myself. It's part of how God created me.

But one of the ways that that can be difficult for me is that I skew towards perfectionism. I want to get everything right with no mistakes. And I fall short of that goal all the time.

I'm learning to rely on God and his grace and his kindness and his provision because I falter in this area, but God never does.

In theological terms, this attribute of God is sometimes referred to as God's absolute perfection.

As humans, we're a mix of a whole bunch of things and we show up differently at different days and different times in different circumstances. But God isn't partial that way. He's not like 50% loving and 25% justice and 25% truth. He is 100% of all of those things all of the time.

We can't catch God on a bad day, and He doesn't use up any of those attributes. It's not like, oh no, God ran out of His love for today, so sorry, you're just going to have to deal with whatever you can get.

He is 100 percent of who He is, all of the time. He is flawless at being himself.

I want to read for us some verses that look at different aspects of God's perfection. In Deuteronomy 32:4, it says,
“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deuteronomy 32:4)

In Psalm 18:30, it says

“This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.” (Psalm 18:30)

Psalm 19:7, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”

So just in those three passages, we looked at:

1. His work,
2. His ways,
3. His laws,
all being perfect.

And in Deuteronomy 32, it talked about how his ways are justice, and I wanted to highlight that for us in this conversation, because sometimes we can see justice and forgiveness as being separate from each other.

How can God be a 100% just and a 100% forgiving at the same time?

Well, we see an answer for that in 1 John 1:9.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Because God is perfectly—to infinity—all of these things, his forgiveness doesn't pull away from His justice. But he is faithful to us and able to forgive us AND uphold his justice because he paid the price for our debt of sin.
In 1 John 4:16, it talks about how God is love.

God doesn't fall short of love. He's not going to be more loving one day than he is another. And our actions don't change whether or not God's love for us remains. Now we, by our actions, can change how much we receive from the good that God has for us, just as we saw in that passage about justice and forgiveness.

But God remains the same. His love for us doesn't falter or change.

And this can be hard to wrap our brains around because of our own human limitations. We can love and act justly, but we do so imperfectly. We can have good days and bad days with the people that we love.

But God doesn't falter like that.

He is flawless in who he is.

And he doesn't ebb and flow in these attributes. And so there's a greater element of trust and reliance that we can have in trusting that he is infinitely perfect in being who he is.

And I'm not saying that's easy to do, but it is available to us. And so that's where we're taking this conversation with God today. And here's our question:

God, how can I grow in trusting your perfection?

I wonder what he wants to share with you.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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