Think about this with me for just a moment. See how this thought affects you.
Can we accept the fact that Jesus, the God-man, needed suffering to be perfected? He was a man as though he were not God–and was filled with the Spirit without any measure or limit set on that filling. He was completely filled with the Spirit. He was also God as though He were not a man! And yet, “in bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10)
All I can say is this, if our Lord Jesus Christ needed to suffer before He could be all that God the Father envisioned for Him, how much more do we–frail children of dust, and sinful (Jeremiah 17:9)–need to suffer before God can trust us with the full extent of the anointing?
David also had to suffer for the sake of perfection. Saul served as an agent that produced hardship in his life for several years–even after David had been anointed to take Saul’s place as king. King Saul’s hatred of David was probably the best thing that ever happened to David, because it refined his anointing!
God raised up David to be Israel’s greatest king, but he also raised him up to receive spiritual refinement that would make him a true man of God. David was a man’s man! It would be hard to say whether God raised up David for Goliath or God raised up Goliath for David! David slew bears and lions with his bare hands! But, what made him great was when he became God’s man–a man after God’s own heart.
Even Paul said, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” (1 Corinthians 13:11)
Let’s close this thought by going back to the perfection of Jesus. Perfection is a process! We do not get the necessary refinement by merely praying for more of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had all the Holy Spirit that was available–the Spirit without limit (John 3:34). Yet, “although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” (Hebrews 2:10)
PRAYER: “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; 11 if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I could not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, 14 I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:10-14)
Thinking Out Loud 