Rom 6:8 (NIV) Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live WITH Him.

We died so that we could live with Him. We never will be perfect. But, Jesus sure is. If we will die out to ourselves, we can live by means of Christ. The more we allow Him to live His life and do His ministry through our life and body, the more we will live a perfect life and do a perfect ministry.

The whole goal of the beatitudes is to accomplish this one thing. They are attitudes that help us yield to Jesus and all He has to offer. They open our mind, heart, life, and ministry to Jesus because they create in us all the necessary attitudes of submission and a yielded spirit and body.

The new and untrained Christians start out and continue to live their life by trying to USE the benefits of God’s provisions. In other words, they try to use God and the things of God to accomplish their own goals. They try to USE Scriptures, prayer, church attendance, and various other religious mechanisms to bring themselves to a place where they can be the person THEY want to be. They also USE these spiritual systems to get the things they want.

During these times in our life, we can’t be USED by God because we are busy trying to USE God. Perfection then becomes an impossible thing. Even getting close to perfection is completely out of the question. WE are never going to be perfect. Yet, we can live a perfect life and do a perfect ministry, if we will quit trying to live it and minister it and let Jesus live His life in us and do His ministry through us.