The Best, not the GoodVance HavnerI encourage everyone to listen to this message. It's a powerful message that needs to be heard by the "spiritual perfectionists" among us as well as by the "it's fine as it is"-kind of Christians.Of course I know that if you are one of those two people, you won't admit that you are a perfectionist or a indifferent Christian...but anyway...just listen to this message (as long as it doesn't keep you from reading your Bible and spending time alone with the Lord Himself!)Here are some quotes I typed down while listening to the sermon:Are you dating the world?No decent, married man dates another woman. No true Christian dates this world to flirt with it, is to fall in love with it and to live in spiritual adultery. Physical adultery often begins with the look and a casual conversation that seems innocent enough. And Christians are lured away from the Lord, gradually, in pretty much the same way. The first flirtations are harmless, and the warnings are ridiculed. Gross iniquity. Ah...the perfectionistHe’s a perfectionist and he has such a concept of the ideal Church that he is unwilling to work in a real Church. His view of the invisible Church makes him invisible at Church. And the abstract best is the enemy of the concrete good. That’s entirely possible. Don't give up...press on...trust GodDon’t expect too much all of a sudden. You don’t learn it all in a day. You don’t grow up overnight. Let’s be sure we thank God for the process already made. We wan’t to fly before we walk. We want to be perfect before we start towards perfection. Paul says, I count not myself to have apprehended, but I am on the way and by the grace of God, I am what I am. He blended the idea with the actual and the best did not defeat the good. It’s not a mark of godliness, dear friends, to be forever condemning oneself.Sometimes we confuse obtainment with attainment. My Lord said: “Come and I’ll give you rest”. That’s obtainment. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me”. That’s attainment. And we don’t graduate in a year. You can’t be faultless, but you can be blameless. No..it's NOT ok!But I find myself again and again in one of these ornate temples, where the end of the chapter has become the end of the book. They have arrived in a new building and I mean: arrived. They have settled down to camp there. They’re not moving anywhere. The attitude of the true ChristianHe’s not bitter in heart, for he expects nothing of himself and very little of others and everything of God. He’s not satisfied with things as they are, but he’s not impatient. He’s not content with the good, but he enjoys the good while he moves on towards best. He doesn’t confuse the end of the chapter with the end of the book. Each victory will help him another to win. He may loose a battle now and then, but he wins the war. And he doesn’t settle for a lesser goal. Each experience is not a sopping place, but a stepping stone…on the way from the good to the best. A warning to ALL of us...The devil doesn’t mind how many sermons we preach or prepare, if it will keep us from preparing ourselves. Your brother in Christ,Paul
