December 18

Read: Hebrews 13:20-21

Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus… make you perfect in every good work to do his will (Hebrews 13:20-21).

The Perfecting Power Of God

“The appeal to reason is here the appeal to the power of God. ‘Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus…’ The indescribable power by which that greatest of all miracles was wrought is here pledged for our perfection.

“When Jesus took up again His own life and strode in calm majesty from the tomb, He symbolized by that emergence an utter and final victory over every form and degree of sin. That authority over sin extends to the cleansing of indwelling sin from the heart of the believer.

“When we think of the depth and strength of the depravity and derangement of fallen nature, by which the inner life is wrenched violently out of joint with the divine will, we Could easily join the ranks of those who cry, ‘Impossible,’ to the grace of Christian perfection. But when we stand at Joseph’s tomb and see the light that streams from the empty sepulcher, we know ‘what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead’ (Ephesians 1:19-20) Then we laugh at impossibilities and cry, ‘It shall be done.’

“That performance of power assures the possibility of perfection. The resurrection of Christ from the dead is mentioned only this one time in Hebrews, and it is cited here as a guaranty of God’s power to make us perfect” (W. E. McCumber).

Lord of earth and heav’n above, Fill me now with perfect love; Sanctify by power divine, And from dross my heart refine.

— Hymns of the Living Faith