Often Christians can get condemned for still remaining sinful even after they invite Jesus to be the Lord of their lives, but truth be told, no one becomes perfect overnight. God allows us to go through a process of trusting in Christ's work more and more to bring transformation into us.
Our faith calls for us to surrender everything to Jesus and make Him the Lord of every area of our life, but that doesn't mean to say that we become instantly holy and perfect overnight. When we give our lives to Jesus and make Him the Lord of our lives, that becomes an indicator that work has begun.
Ephesians 2:9 tells us, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
Just as we are God's workmanship once broken but now restored, we now become works in progress as we allow God to restore us to do good works, not try to progress in good works to restore us to God.
The moment we give our lives to Jesus, our spirits are instantly made perfect and whole by His grace, but the body and flesh that we exist in still remains broken as a result of our sin. And sometimes believers think that it's their job to fix their broken bodies, that they have to read the Bible more, pray more, tithe more, go to church more to receive the favour of God.
But see we've got it all backwards. We don't work hard to gain God's favour. We work hard because we have already received His favour. There's no point in trying to be perfect right away because we cannot do it on our own and it's not up to us. It has always been up to God to bring both a changed life and a renewed life.
However, this is not to be used as an excuse to just sit around and be okay with our sin because God Himself is never okay with sin. We are to remain proactive, not in trying to earn God's salvation, but to be proactive in believing in Jesus Christ and drawing closer to Him so that He may continue His work within us.
Colossians 2:6 tells us, "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him."
We don't need to become perfect to walk with Jesus, we become perfect because we walk in Jesus. Lordship is not about gaining instant perfection, but about relying on Jesus to be the source of our perfection and the One who helps us progress in our walk with Him as well.
