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"YOU ARE TO BE PERFECT, AS
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YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER IS PERFECT.”
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—Jesus Christ
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CHRISTIAN
How Sinners Like Us Can Be More Like Jesus
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WORD PUBLISHING
NASHVILLE
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The Perfect Christian
© 1998 by Tony Evans. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro
duced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—
electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without the prior
written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or
articles.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The New American Stan
dard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, by The
Lockman Foundation and used by permission.
Published in association with Sealy M. Yates, Literary Agent, Orange, California.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Evans, Anthony T.
The perfect Christian: how sinners like us can be more like Jesus / by
Tony Evans,
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8499-1505-8 <HC)
1. Christian life. I. Title.
BV4501.2.E8585 1998
248.4—dc21
98-31358
CIP
Printed in the United States of America.
98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 BVG 987654321
This book is gratefully dedicated to
my good friend
Dr. Joseph M. Stowell, III,
president of the Moody Bible Institute,
whose passionate and faithful pursuit of God
has greatly encouraged and inspired me.
Contents
With Gratitude ix
Introduction xi
1. How to Withstand Trials 1
2. How to Resist Temptation.......................................... 19
3. How to Respond to God’s Life-Changing Word....... .35
4. How to Make Your Faith Pure and Valuable to God .51
5. How to Avoid the Sin of Partiality .69
6. How to Balance Faith and Works . 87
7. How to Control Your Tongue................. 103
8. How to Tap into God’s Wisdom............ 119
9. How to Escape the Snare of Worldliness 137
10. How to Pursue Intimacy with God........ 155
11. How to Include God in Your Plans........ 173
12. How to Avoid the Corrupting Power of Wealth 189
VII
I
THE PERFECTCHRISTIAN
13. How to Cultivate Patience .207
14. How to Know the Power of Prayer.... .22 5
15. How to Restore the Straying Believer, .243
Conclusion.................................................... 261
Scripture Index .265
Subject Index... .269
vui
I want to express my gratitude to the people who helped shape this
book and bring it into being. Mr. Joey Paul and the staff at Word
Publishing provided counsel, encouragement, and helpful sugges
tions at each stage; and my editor and good friend Philip Rawley put
my ideas and words into clear literary style.
tv
Introduction
A pastor once asked his congregation, “Does anyone here know any
perfect people?”
A short man in the rear of the auditorium stood up and shouted,
“Yes, my wife’s first husband!” This man had learned from experi
ence how hard it is to measure up to a perfect standard.
Obviously, his situation was more a matter of a selective memory
than objective perfection. But that’s not the case with our God. When
He measures us against the standard of His perfection, our imper
fections are glaring—and yet God does not reduce His standard or
lower His expectations.
Jesus made this quite clear when He said, “You are to be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Clearly, God's holi
ness is nonnegotiable. He calls us to live up to His standard; He
never lowers Himself to ours.
This setup is a far cry from the spirit of the present age. You and
I are witnessing firsthand the “dumbing down” of righteousness.
Not only has the secular society lost its moral compass due to the
erosion of any sense of absolute truth, but we Christians are rapidly
descending the ladder of holiness rather than ascending the mountain
of’godliness to be near to and be like our perfect God.
xi
THE FERFECTCHRISTIAN
Day in and day out we are bombarded by the standards of this
ungodly age, which dupe us into thinking that being a tad better than
the world somehow makes us acceptable to God.
The reality, however, is that God in His absolute holiness is our
standard, not the world in its fallenness. Yet we, along with our
mates, children, relatives, friends, and other fellow Christians, are
falling prey to this softer, easier, and reduced definition of perfection.
That’s why I have written this book. I want to call believers back
to God’s demand for perfection, a demand based on His standard
alone. Leaning heavily on the no-nonsense, in-your-face teaching of
the apostle James, the half brother of Jesus, I will join him in calling
God’s people to respond to His demand for perfection.
James makes God’s goal plain: “That you may be perfect and
complete, lacking in nothing” (1:4). He wants us to grow up, to
become mature, to be sanctified, to become more like Jesus. My goal
in this book is to prick the conscience of dull, defeated, or delinquent
Christians who want to get their spiritual lives back on the right
road. But this book is also designed to help those who are already
seeking the Lord to know where they stand spiritually and to encour
age them to keep on keepin’ on in their pursuit of godly perfection.
God’s call to perfection, however, creates a dilemma for His chil
dren, for the Bible clearly teaches that perfection is not possible in
this life (see 1 John 1:8, 10). Why would God give us a standard we
can never meet?
But that is precisely the point. God calls us to pursue His perfect
standard of righteousness. As we do so, He inches us toward God-
like-ness (godliness) day by day, week by week, month by month,
and year by year. Furthermore, as we pursue godly perfection, we
find ourselves exposed to our own imperfections and needing to turn
to God for cleansing. Also, when we live in the light of God’s per
fection, we begin climbing to a new spiritual level, hating how unlike
Him we are and finding an ever-greater passion for being conformed
to His perfect image.
In these pages I want to confront you with the reality of your
imperfections and then challenge you to march in a new direction in
keeping with the perfect demands of our loving heavenly Father.
xii
Introduction
This is a book not only about facts but about function; evidence, not
esoterics; walk, not just talk; production, not just profession;
demonstration, not just declaration; duty, not just doctrine; and
commitment, not just conversation.
It is my hope that, by the time you finish reading this book and
v/orking through the after-chapter applications, you will be ready to
do whatever it takes to become a perfect Christian and, in the
process, discover a new level of spiritual life, power, and victory.
Although the pursuit of perfection won’t produce absolute per
fection in your life, you will grow tremendously in your faith when
you make perfection your goal. So have a seat and fasten your seat
belt. It’s time to get busy.
Tony Evans
Dallas, Texas
xiii
