God’s “Perfecting” Gifts (Part 1)

By Philip Martin Feb 03, 2016

Today I had an interesting thought. As I was having my devotions, I read a portion of Streams in the Desert by an old saint of God, Maltbie Davenport Babcock, about this verse in James 1: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”1 What I read triggered something inside me telling me to look deeper.

The first thing that caught my attention as something worth deeper examination was when Babcock shared the idea that “every good gift of God is a ‘perfecting’ gift.” That word “perfecting” was intriguing. I read on, “…as well as a gift without defect, a gift which is complete in all respects, a gift which is sound and one which is flawless.”

“Every good gift and every perfecting gift is from above.” In the past when reading this verse I tended to think that every good gift and every perfect gift were the same, or through simple deduction that good equals perfect. Therefore I was inclined to think when things went “good” that it was from God and when things went “bad,” those things must not have been from God. I was failing to see these perfect gifts as perfecting gifts.

However, now I started to look at God’s perfecting gifts through the microscopic lenses of Romans 8:28: “All things work together for good.” And John 15:2: “Every branch that bears fruit, he purges.” And Hebrews 12:6: “For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” The light came on, and to paraphrase Paul, “Before, my natural man could not receive the things of the Spirit of God, because they seemed foolishness to me; nor could I understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”2 I felt I was starting to get “the mind of Christ” on the matter and see it as He does.

So what are these perfecting gifts from God supposed to do for us or to us? Paul said, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”3 What is this eternal weight of glory He wants in us?

Babcock explains:

“Character is worth all it costs, and since God is ceaselessly, changelessly bent upon building character, the denial or trial that helps to bring it to pass is as much a tool of His invariable purpose as the gift that makes you laugh with joy.

“Circumstances do not make character. The noblest character can emerge from the worst surroundings, and moral failures come out of the best. Just where you are, take the things of life as tools, and use them for God’s glory so you will help the kingdom come, and the Master will use the things of life in cutting and polishing you so that there shall someday be seen in you a soul conformed to His likeness.”

Through these “perfecting gifts” God is changing us, changing our character to be “conformed to the image of His Son,” and as Paul also said in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” God wants our characters to be reflections of His Son’s character. All the chiseling, sanding, rubbing, polishing, purifying, molding, breaking, making, and remaking is for one purpose and one purpose alone. It is so that when people look at us they will see in us a reflective image of His Son.

J. R. Miller put it this way:

“The word ‘character’ in its origin is suggestive. It is from a root which signifies to scratch, to engrave, to cut into furrows. Then it comes to mean that which is engraved or cut on anything. In life, therefore, it is that which experiences cut or furrow in the soul.

1 James 1:17 KJV.
2 1 Corinthians 2:14.
3 2 Corinthians 4:17.





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