Jesus was made perfect through suffering
Live to Love Scripture Encouragement - Een podcast door Norm Wakefield

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Hebrews 7:28 For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever. We are living to love with Jesus, who was made perfect forever. We cannot love perfectly in our own strength, but when we abide in Jesus and He loves through us, His love is perfect. 1 John 3:5-6 says about Jesus, “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins.” So when we are abiding in Him, receiving His love, and giving His love to others, we don’t sin because it is His love, and His love is perfect. It is acceptable to God because it is the love of God Himself. The love of God has been made perfect. It has been tested and proven through suffering and trials. Yes, Jesus has always been perfect. Before He came to earth, He was perfect. But His perfection needed to be lived in a human body so He could give us His extra coat of righteousness. I like this idea that I heard many years ago. Jesus already had a coat of righteousness, but He needed to make another coat of righteousness to give to His people who were naked and ashamed. So He came to earth and made a new coat for us. Heb. 5:8–9 speaks of that coat of perfect righteousness made for us. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” What does it mean that Jesus was made perfect? Wasn’t He already perfect? The word teleloo can be understood to mean to accomplish or reach a goal. God tested His Son so that He could accomplish the goal or finish the task His Father gave Him to do as our high priest. Jesus came to accomplish our salvation by performing for us a righteousness we did not have through His obedience to His Father’s will and by offering Himself as a sin offering. He showed us the sustained direction of His will toward our highest good, no matter what the cost. He had to lay down His life, His comfort in heaven, His lofty position, and become a servant to us, so we might know what God’s love looks like. That’s the kind of love Jesus displays in us for those God puts in our paths. We become their servants. We lay down our lives, learning obedience through the things that we suffer, and Jesus’ love is made perfect in us. The apostle John put it this way in 1 John 4:16–17. “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.” Like Jesus, we are being made perfect through suffering. We are completing the task God has given us to do, namely, bring glory to His name by loving with Jesus. Jesus was made perfect through suffering, and so shall we be made perfect through suffering. If He was made perfect forever, take heart; so will we be made perfect forever in Him.