Trading Shame and Striving for Wholeness in ChristSample

Perfected Forever

We are wholly satisfied and sufficient because we are in Christ. That is the hope of the gospel that we need to be reminded of every day.

God knew there was nothing you could do on your own to make yourself good enough. He grieved as his people swung between self-condemning shame and self-sufficient striving. So God the Son came to dwell with us in the flesh—fully God and fully man. In his divinity, Christ Jesus perfectly displayed God’s faithful love, compassion, grace, and patience toward us. In his humanity, Jesus humbled himself to sympathize with our weaknesses and limits. He demonstrated the dignity of God’s image-bearers and fulfilled the good work the Father prepared for him.

When Jesus hung from the cross, one of his final sentences was, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The Greek word for “finished” in this verse comes from the same root as the word perfected we read in Hebrews 10:14: “For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified.”

When Jesus offered his life as the final sacrifice, he paid the price for our sin and reconciled us to the Father. When we repent and believe in him, Jesus fully covers us in his righteousness.

Moreover, Jesus continues to transform us from the inside out to make us perfect like him.

More than two thousand years before we were even born, Christ had already accomplished everything needed to make his people enough.