Our spiritual formation is never finished in the same way that our sanctification is an ongoing process. Perfection in the Greek NT means “completion” or “fulfilling one’s intended purpose”. Our purpose is to love God with our whole being, expressed by loving our neighbor as ourself. We are ever in the process of loving more fully, moving more and more away from inadequate expressions of love to more complete expressions of it. As we are constantly becoming, we are always arriving.
“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus…Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude.” Philippians 3:12, 15a (NASB)
