I don't believe that I have ever loved the Lord my God with all of my heart,

and with all of my strength for five minutes.

I can always conceive of a greater affection,

a greater love for God than I presently enjoy.

I think for us to come to the conviction or the conclusion that we are in fact completely

free of sin in our lives, we have to do one of two things, and usually we would do both

of them. One of those things would be to alter radically the

full measure of the demands of God's law. We would have to drag the law down to the level of our

performance. And this was the error that the Pharisees made. They had a superficial

understanding of the full demands of God's commandments. And for me to deceive myself into thinking

that I am perfect, I have to really have a superficial understanding of the law of God. For example,

I don't believe that I have ever loved the Lord my God with all of my heart

and with all of my mind and with all of my strength for five minutes.

I can always conceive of a greater affection, a greater love for God than I presently enjoy.

And the second mistake is like unto the first.

In order for us to be persuaded that we have achieved perfection in any kind, we have to

have an exaggerated view of our own performance.

So we bring God's law down and bring our own performance up so that the two can meet.

And either one of those is an extreme danger for Christian growth,

and both of them together is basically fatal.

So I caution you against that.

Thanks for listening to Ultimately with R.C. Sprole.

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