:My aim and desire are to press toward the mark of perfection in grace and holiness.
The only question I would have is do you think it possible? Any answer other than a resounding and boisterous YES, in my estimation is a denial of God's power, authority, and divine wisdom. Every answer that I have heard in my entire life for why we 'can't' attain unto it has ultimately been reducable to a denial of God's ability. If we are His workmanship, and God is the one perfecting us, then our inability can not overcome that for which we believe God. Any answer that does not take into account God's nature is an answer of denial of His nature. Every reason I've ever heard boils down to man accepting the lie of the enemy and continuing to obey Satan. Man's lack of will and lack of faith toward perfection is the only thing that can thwart God's ability to perfect us. If we will believe it, He can and will do it. None of Satan's lies are sufficient to hold us in his grasp. None of our frailties, our weaknesses, our inabilities are able to overcome His strength, His ability, His wisdom.
1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
10 ¶ But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
The path to perfection is one of suffering. If we embrace our suffering, as Paul did, and if we see our suffering as the best thing that has ever happened to us, then we too can recite the following verse as our own.
1Pe 4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:
Indeed the path to the Kingdom of God is suffering.
Ac 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.
If is through embracing our suffering that the old man is put to death. We must become like Paul who GLORIED IN HIS SUFFERINGS.
2Co 11:23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?
30 If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.
It is very few who choose to put to death their old flesh so that they can be perfected. Anyone who wants it, can have it because God is faithful.
wm