We need to Live by God’s Divine Life to Be Perfect as Our Heavenly Father Is Perfect

As believers in Christ, we have the heavenly life and nature of our Father, and can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, for we receive the dispensing of His divine life and nature, we are exposed of our inability to live Christ, and we live by the divine life to be even as our Father, perfect.

Amen, Lord, we open to Your divine dispensing today. We open to the dispensing of Your divine life into our being. Thank You for the divine life in our spirit. We want to live by the divine life in all things today. May we be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect by living by the divine life in all things! Amen!

This week in our deeper appreciation of the crucial points in Matthew chapters 5 through 7 we come to, Being Perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect.

After the Lord spoke the beautitudes, the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens, He concluded with, You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48).

Wow, God wants us to be perfect, He requires us to be perfect as He is perfect, and we shall be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect! Amen!

In order for us to be kingdom people who are perfect even as our Father, we need to have many dealings.

To deal with something means that we are not passive about it; we don’t just sit, relax, and lie back, and we deal with something. This is not how it works.

When we deal with something, it implies that we are sitting at the edge of our chair, we are exercising our whole being, so that we may take care of a particular matter.

Just as athletes deal with their whole being in order for them to receive a prize, so we need to deal with the Lord in all things, even to have a proper heart in all things, dealing with our inward parts before Him, so that we may be proper persons.

We need to be renewed and transformed, and our inward parts need to become conditioned in a proper way that allows the Lord to do His work in us according to His economy.

We need to cooperate with the Lord in what He wants to do in us. For God to gain the kingdom people, there’s a particular kind of exercise that is needed from our side.

We shouldn’t just read the bible, take good teachings from it, and try our best to do what we understand we should do; we need to come to the Lord and have many dealings with Him about all the things we read in the Word.

We need to deal with the Lord concerning our spirit so that our spirit would be pure, exercised, and free.

We need to deal with the Lord concerning our mind, emotion, and will so that the Lord may have a way to be expressed through our soul.

And we need to deal with the Lord concerning our body, how we care for our body, for Him to be expressed and testified through us.

As Children of God with His Divine Life and Nature, we can Be Perfect as our Heavenly Father is Perfect

In Matthew 5:44-45 the Lord Jesus tells us that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us so that we may become sons of our Father who is in the heavens.

Our heavenly Father is perfect in His love, for He loves both the good and the bad, He causes His sun to rise both on the evil and the good, and He causes rain to fall both on the just and the unjust. He is perfect in His love.

We need to love others even as He loves them so that we may be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

How can we be perfect as our Father is perfect? How can we be perfect in His love?

In ourselves, in our natural man, we are very narrow in our love, in our caring for others, and in our loving others based on what they are, what they do, what they say, etc.

The demand of the new law of the kingdom of the heavens is much higher than the requirement of the law of the old dispensation. Such a high demand can be met only by the Father’s divine life, not by our natural life.

Matthew 5:48 tells us that we therefore shall be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Wow, we can be perfect, and we shall be perfect, and we shall be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect!

This is possible only when we realise, first, that we are children of God having His divine life and nature, and second, when we live by the divine life of our heavenly Father!

The highest demand of the kingdom of the heavens can be met only by the highest supply of the divine life, the life of our heavenly Father.

When we live by the divine life in our spirit, we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

The Gospel of John in particular shows us the divine life, Christ as our life, for us to meet the highest demand seen in the gospel of Matthew, chapters 5-7.

Thank the Lord that we have God as our Father! We can have the highest living of the kingdom of the heavens by living by the divine life of our heavenly Father in our spirit!

Actually, the demand of the law of the kingdom of the heavens in Matthew chapters 7 through 7 is simply the expression of the divine life which is within us, the believers in Christ.

We believers are the regenerated kingdom people, and when we see the highest demand of the constitution of the kingdom, our inner being is open, for we realise we can’t do it in ourselves.

We are exposed, we are convicted, and we turn to the Lord to take Him as our life and everything. It is by living by the divine life in our spirit that we can be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

We are the Father’s children, having the Father’s divine life and divine nature, so we can be perfect as our Father is perfect.

We do not only have the law of the kingdom – we have the Law-Giver Himself in our spirit! He in us can fulfil this law.

We cannot save ourselves – we need the Lord as our Saviour. We cannot keep God’s law and become His kingdom people; we need His divine life to live in us and be expressed through us.

We need to be saved further in the Lord’s life, not only from sin and eternal perdition, but even more, from living in the flesh and the natural man to living by the divine life to express our Father, who is perfect.

When we live by the divine life, we spontaneously meet the highest requirements of God, for we are perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

It is not by our own striving and improvement; it is by taking, enjoying, receiving, and applying the wonderful divine life.

This is our Christian life, and this is the living of an overcomer every day.

When we look at the requirements of the new law of the kingdom (Matt. 5-7), we see how much the divine life within us can do for us!

When we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord as we read His word, we see how much He can do in us and for us, for we have the divine life and nature of our heavenly Father, and we can be perfect even as our Father is perfect.

We do not need to improve ourselves. We do not need to try harder. We do not need to try our best to do this and that for God. What we need is to contact the Lord more and more.

We need to live by the divine life in our spirit. When we live and walk by the Spirit, the righteous requirement of the law is spontaneously fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:4).

We have the perfecting life of our heavenly Father in us, and we need to keep turning to the Lord, apply His life, use His life, enjoy His life, and exercise His life.

We need to turn to our Father and realise that we have His life and nature, and it is by His life and nature that we can be perfect.

Lord Jesus, thank You for commanding us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. We come to You, Lord, for we cannot be perfect in and by ourselves. Oh Lord, we turn to You. Thank You for regenerating us with Your life and nature to make us children of God, citizens of the kingdom of God. Hallelujah, we are now kingdom people, those who have the divine life and nature of our heavenly Father! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit and our whole being to live by the divine life. We exercise to contact You and live in the mingled spirit so that the righteous requirements of God may be spontaneously fulfilled in us. Hallelujah, whenever we live by the divine life and nature of our Father, we are perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect! Oh Lord, we open our whole being to You. We do not want to work harder to improve ourselves or do better; we simply turn to You! May we turn to our Father, realising we have His life and nature, and may we live by the divine life and nature so that we may be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect!

Receive and Enjoy Continually the Dispensing of God and Live by the Divine Life to be Perfect Sons of our Perfect Father

When we read Matthew chapters five through seven, we realise that we cannot meet such a high demand of the law of the heavenly kingdom; in ourselves, we can at most love those who are lovable, obey some of God’s laws, and do some good works for God, but we can’t meet these high demands.

The law of the kingdom of the heavens exposes us, touches our natural being, shines a bright light on our natural choice, and shows us that our natural man cannot fulfil such a high requirement.

It exposes and subdues us and, as we turn to the Lord, we give the divine life the full opportunity to live in us.

This will make us perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect.

On the one hand, we can live the kingdom life and have the kingdom living by remaining in the divine fellowship to receive and enjoy continually the dispensing of the processed Triune God (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14).

On the other hand, we need to exercise to live by the divine life in our spirit so that we may be perfect sons of our perfect Father.

We may have thought that God wants to help us to love others, even those who hate us, and that He wants us to behave better; this is a natural concept concerning what God wants from us as His kingdom people.

God first wants to expose our natural being so that we may no longer trust in ourselves but look to our Father to realise that we have His life and nature within us.

As we are exposed, we come to see that we must stay close to Him, and we must live by His life and nature in our spirit.

In this way, we will be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. We eat Him and live because of Him (John 6:57). We partake of His divine life and nature, and we live by His divine life and nature.

May we day by day and even moment by moment remain open to the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.

As we open to the Lord in prayer, telling Him that we can’t do it but we allow Him to do it in us, we absorb Him into our being, we receive a rich transfusion of His life, and we will live Him.

Without the divine dispensing being continually received and enjoyed by us, we are merely good people who try harder to please God, but we do not express our Father, who is perfect.

Without living by the divine life, we cannot live for a single moment that will be pleasing to God. But since we are sons of the heavenly Father possessing His life and nature, it is logical that we, His sons, should be perfect even as He is perfect.

We are His children, His offspring, His duplication, and His extension; He is perfect, so we should be perfect. God’s full salvation is to make us perfect not in the way of sinless perfection, but rather, in the way of us receiving the divine dispensing and living by the divine life day by day.

He wants us to reach at the end point, at the maturity in life, where we live Christ, even overcoming in Him and by Him day by day.

In order for us to be perfect even as our Father is perfect, we need to enjoy the dispensing of the divine life and nature into us by enjoying the Father Himself (2 Cor. 3:6).

May we not take the word of God as instructions concerning how we should behave outwardly.

This will only lead to disappointment, for we cannot do it, it is too much for us, and we’re very far away from what God requires us to be.

May we open to the Lord, receive His divine dispensing, and learn to live by His divine life in our spirit so that we may be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

We cannot fulfil God’s highest laws except by the Father’s life and nature. He uses His word and many contrary things in our environment to expose us so that we may be fully subdued, turn to Him, stay near to Him, trust in Him, and live by His life and nature.

Lord Jesus, thank You for dispensing the divine life and nature into our being. Hallelujah, we have the perfect divine life in us, and we can be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect! Amen, Lord, we open to You. We open to Your divine dispensing. Dispense more of Your life and nature into us. Keep our vessel open to You so that we may receive more of what You are into our inner being. We exercise our spirit, Lord, to live by Your life in our spirit. Thank You for sending so many contrary things in our environment for us to be exposed in our natural being and touched. Oh Lord, we are subdued and exposed, we turn to You, we stay near to You, we trust in You, and we choose to live by the divine life. We give up all our efforts, for they are vain, and we open to receive Your divine dispensing. We exercise to live in spirit and by the spirit so that You may live in us a perfect life, making us the perfect children of our heavenly Father, who is perfect!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Matthew, msg. 19, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crucial Aspects of Matthew 5 through 7 (2025 September ITERO), week 6, Being Perfect as Our Heavenly Father Is Perfect – day 1.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – God’s children, we’re born to be kings with His Son, / And we need to be trained that we may overcome / And to know how to rule in His kingdom as kings, / That His kingship thru us be expressed o’er all things. (Hymns #947 stanza 2)
  – Lord, Thy life abundant, / Flowing, rich and free, / Constantly refreshes / And empowers me. / Death by life is swallowed, / Weakness is made strong, / All my bonds are broken, / Gloom is turned to song. / I would give myself, Lord, / Fully unto Thee, / That Thy heart’s desire / Be fulfilled in me. / I no more would struggle / To myself reform, / Thus in me to hinder / What Thou wouldst perform. (Hymns #841 stanzas 4-5)
  – Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / In all things Thy will be done; / I but a transparent vessel / To make visible the Son. (Hymns #403 stanza 1)