Angels are important to us spiritually for we learn what God desires in the hearts of those who love and serve Him as we study His Word and reflect on what it teaches us.

From Psalm 103 we learn that one of the most important things about angels is that they are primarily God’s servants who hear God’s voice, and are always obedient to do the Lord’s will.

“Bless the LORD, ye His angels, that excel in strength, That do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word. Bless ye the LORD, all ye His hosts; Ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure.”

Psalm 103:20-21 KJV

From the Bible we learn that an Angel of God always hears God’s voice and obeys His will. God’s angels love God and trust Him.

But wasn’t the devil once one of God’s Angels?

Ezekiel the prophet wrote in reference to the anointed angel who became the devil: “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”

Ezekiel 28:15 KJV

• What does that word perfect mean?

תָּמִים

tâmı̂ym ~taw-meem’ Concordance)

(From the Strong’s Bible Concordance

From H8552; entire (literally, figuratively or morally); also (as noun) integrity, truth: – without blemish, complete, full, perfect, sincerely (-ity), sound, without spot, undefiled, upright, whole.

Strong’s Bible Concordance

What turned this Angel’s heart against his Master and Creator?

One of things the Bible mentions was enormous vanity and pride. “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.”

Ezekiel 28:17 KJV

Concerning the devil, Jesus had a few things to say. In speaking to the religious authorities who appeared perfect and flawlessly righteous outwardly, yet inwardly, in their hearts they were very corrupt.

Jesus said to them, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

John 8:44 KJV

Perfect is to God an altogether different concept from what is conceived by the devil and those formerly holy angels the evil one deceived into joining him in rebelling against our Creator.

God’s idea of perfection is a far cry from what humans imagine who have been seduced by the enemy into focusing on themselves and their appearance, on what they do, and if they do it better than others; how much money they earn, and how they can earn more, and then how they can best show off their success to others.

Depending on their age many souls are absorbed with either their popularity, their looks, their health, their jobs, school, career, their family, social media, etc.

Since they can’t see or hear Christ, they simply dismiss Him as irrelevant to their lives. They will value everything the world prizes rather than believing in what the Bible says is true.

They will not seek to know and love God for themselves in a vertical, personal relationship. For deep down they have a mistrust of spiritual, unseen things.

However God treasures those spiritual qualities in the soul who will listen to His voice, trust, and obey Him regardless of what anyone says or thinks about them, or what their obedience to Him might cost them.

It is a heart that completely acknowledges who God is, seeks to abide every moment in total submission to His sovereign authority, and to the Lord’s rightful expectation of worship that is due Him from their spirit, soul, mind and body.

It combines those attributes into a heart that passionately loves and desires to worship Him more than anything else.

God is their whole reason and motivation for living.

Such a heart looks like Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Gospel of Matthew relates that on the Eve of His Crucifixion, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was praying to His Heavenly Father and sweating great drops of blood, His temptations were so dreadful.

“And Jesus went a little further, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”

Matthew 26:39 KJV

The first commandment states, ““You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 ERV

God tries the heart His Word says. He tests us to see what we are made of. “For thou, O God, hast proved us: Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.”

Psalm 66:10 KJV

Therefore we undergo trials and afflictions according to His Word. And when we suffer we are to rejoice.

“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;”

1 Peter 1:6-7 NASB1999

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

James 1:2-4 NASB1995

No human will ever reach complete perfection this side of heaven. Only Christ was perfect. But Christ is always working on the hearts He redeemed with His spotless blood, and who have committed their lives to Him.

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
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Philippians‬ ‭1‬:‭6‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

Though the Christian is saved by God’s grace and given Christ’s righteousness, the Apostle Paul reminds us that we must not continue to live in sin once we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.

“So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want. If you use your lives to do what your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life. The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them.”

Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭12‬-‭14‬ ‭ERV‬‬

It is the Lord’s work in our lives to sanctify us within. We participate in this process through our obedience to Him. Our will must always be to do Christ’s will.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
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Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭KJV‬‬

God wants a soul to care what He thinks about them more than what the public or their family or friends think about them.

God is more interested in knowing that we esteem His honor, affirmation, and encouragement than the popularity, honor, and esteem of the world.

If we must have the world’s favor rather the esteem and honor that the Lord wants to bestow upon us for obeying His will, then we show Him that we neither love, fear, nor truly have any real faith in Him.

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭16‬:‭24‬-‭26‬ ‭KJV‬‬

If we do not really believe that we can hear and discern Christ’s voice so that we can learn to know His will for us, then we do not really believe that the teaching of the risen Lord Jesus Christ is true.

“Jesus answered them…My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.
I and My Father are one.”

John 10:25, 27-30 KJV

“Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.”

Ephesians 5:17 KJV

The holy Angels of the Most High God live to worship and obey the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.

Like the Angels who sang over the fields in Bethlehem on the first Christmas.

“Glory to God in the highest…”

Luke 2:14 KJV

They worship and glorify God always in the way He directs them.

God’s Angels exist to extol the perfections of their Creator, not their own.

For the moment an Angel’s mind becomes self focused it is no longer holy, and is transformed like vain Lucifer into a devil and must be thrust from the Lord’s presence.

Perfectionism is self focused, ever working to please humans. It never glorifies God, but exhausts itself trying to appear as if it had no visible flaws.

Jesus warned the Pharisees (religious rulers) that even though they appeared morally flawless outwardly, that in their hearts they were filled with dead men’s bones. He called them hypocrites.

Satan, the once beautiful, upright anointed Angel of God, a creature who seemed perfect and without fault, until “… iniquity was found in him, ” once beheld the beautiful face of God and worshiped Him.

So also did the third of the Angels whom the devil led into a rebellion against the Almighty.

They did not remain in their position with God because they trusted and believed an unholy lie.

What had been light became dark and corrupted with evil.

Whatever we might imagine we are outwardly, if we don’t truly know the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, if we do not seek His face in private personal prayer, humbly abiding in continual fellowship with Him, listening for His voice, and know and understand by faith His Word and will, and obey it, then we are in danger of offering our Lord the outwardly perfect sacrifice of the Pharisees and of Cain, instead of the sacrifice God has asked us for, which Cain’s brother Abel, and which Christ gave to the Lord, and which found favor with God.

Both Abel’s and Christ’s sacrifices involved the absolute submission of their entire wills to God. In both cases it was not necessarily the gift they desired to give to God, but the gift God desired from them.

Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent.”
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John‬ ‭17‬:‭3‬ ‭

Prayer

Heavenly Father, may You give me a humble, holy heart just like the Angels, that exists to hear Thy voice and obey Thee, to worship and extol Thy perfections, and those of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, thank You, I love You, in Jesus’ name, amen.