"I was also perfect with Him, and I kept myself from my iniquity."
"To the perfect man, You will show Yourself perfect."
"As for God, His way is perfect."
"He is a shield to them that trust Him."
"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect."
Ps. 18: 23, 25, 30, 32.
"As for God, His way is perfect." In all He does, and all He is God is the perfection of goodness and beauty. In nature and grace, in heaven and on earth, in the greatest and the least, everything that is in God and of God, down to the very hem of His garment, is infinite perfection. If men who study and admire the perfection of His works, if saints who love and seek the perfection of His service and fellowship, but understood it, they would see that here alone perfection can be truly known and found –in God Himself. As for God — this is the highest we can say of Him, though we can comprehend but little of it — As for God, His way is perfect.
"He makes my way perfect." Of God's perfection this is the chief excellence — that He does not keep it for Himself: heaven and earth are full of His glory. God is Love; who lives, not for Himself, but in the energy of an infinite life, makes His creatures, as far as they can possibly receive it, partakers of His perfection. It is His delight to perfect all around Him. And especially the soul of man that rises up to Him. Between His servant and Himself, God would have perfect harmony. The Father wants the child to be like Himself. The more I learn in adoring worship to say, "As for God, His way is perfect," the sooner I will have faith and grace with the Psalmist to say, "He makes my way perfect."
As we believe this, that is, receive the heavenly truth in these words into our inmost being and assimilate it, we shall not wonder that the same man also said, "I was also perfect with Him, and kept myself from my iniquity." "The God that arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect," His alone is the power and the honor and the glory of what He has created. This makes the confession, "I was also perfect with Him," so far from being presumption or self-righteousness, nothing but an ascription of praise to Him to whom it is due.
And then follow the words in which the perfection of God and that of man are seen in their wonderful relationship and harmony: "With the perfect man, You will show Yourself perfect." As little as there can be a ray of the light of day, however dull and clouded it be, but what speaks of the sun, so little can there be any perfection but what is of God. In its feeblest beginnings in a soul, in its darkest and almost hopeless strugglings, it is all God's perfection wrestling with man to break through and get possession. As long as man refuses to consent, God cannot make His perfection known, for God must be to us what we are to Him: "With the warped, You show Yourself twisted." But where man's will consents, and his heart chooses this perfection and this perfect God as its portion, God meets the soul with ever larger manifestation of how perfect He is towards His own. "With the perfect man You will show Yourself perfect."
Christian! walk before God with a perfect heart, and you will experience how perfect the heart, and the love, and the will of God to bless, is towards you. Of a heart perfectly yielded to Him, God will take perfect possession. Walk before God in a perfect way — it is God who makes my way perfect — and your eyes and heart will be opened to see, in adoring wonder, how perfect God's way is with you and for you. Do take mightily hold of this word as the law of God's revelation of Himself: "With the perfect man, You will show Yourself perfect." To a soul perfectly devoted to Him, God will wonderfully reveal Himself. Turn with your whole heart and life, your whole trust and obedience, towards God — walk before Him with a perfect heart — and He will show Himself perfect to you, the God whose way is perfect and makes your way perfect, the God who perfects you in every good thing. Meet God with your, "With my whole heart I have sought You"; He will answer you with His, "Yes, I will rejoice over you to do you good, with my whole heart and with my whole soul." Oh! say it in faith, and hope, and joy, "With the perfect man You will show Yourself perfect."