(This article also includes a podcast discussion. Click the play button below, or subscribe and listen on your Apple or Google podcast app.)
The Bible is our greatest source of truth. It gives us all we need for practical living and pursuing God. However, it doesn’t always answer those specific questions about buying a house, marrying a specific person, or how to get a child to stop putting paint in their sister’s hair. One of the greatest questions every believer asks is “What does God want me to do with my life?” And the answer to that begins in God’s word.
God’s big plan
Romans 8:28 is one of the most well-known verses around. People aren’t holding it up at baseball games, but it still offers great comfort to those trying to make sense of the destructive chaos that none of us can escape. Yet immediately following that verse, God gives us a wonderful insight into his grand plan for His people:
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30)
Let’s look at God’s desires for His people:
- We need to hear the gospel and feel the weight of our sin
- Through hearing the gospel, we will become justified before God through repentance of sin and Christ’s payment on the cross
- In the future, we will be glorified by receiving new bodies in a sinless world
Gospel – Salvation – Glorification. It seems simple enough. God desires His people to be saved, and He desires to have us spend eternity with Him. And as we know, nothing is powerful enough to stop what God has planned.
“For the LORD of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:27)
Yet for many of us, there’s a fairly large gap between becoming justified and being glorified. What do we do for the decades that we spend waiting for our beautiful eternity? Is the Christian life little more then getting saved, sitting in church every week, then dying so we can finally enjoy God’s goodness?
No, God has something far more incredible for us. We can clearly see God’s purpose in calling, saving, and eventually glorifying us, and that purpose is summed up in verse 29’s phrase “to become conformed to the image of His Son.”
The ultimate goal
Perhaps not as flashy as “God wants us to be rich,” what God desires for our lives contains unrelenting joy and unending satisfaction far beyond anything we could imagine for ourselves. During our brief time in this broken world, God wants us to become like Jesus Christ just as much as He wants us to find Jesus Christ.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3)
To spend a lifetime in pursuit of our savior, trying to be more like Christ and less like our former selves, isn’t something we eventually choose to do – it’s a natural step after salvation!
Consider some ultimate goals people think they should have if they want to be happy:
- Wealth
- Fame
- Living a long life
- Success in their career
Those things aren’t wrong, but anyone can desire them. They appeal to our greed and pride. They allow us to find satisfaction apart from God.
Yet God doesn’t ask His children to settle. Far from it! He wants what’s best for us, even if we quietly think we know better. And all throughout the Bible, from Genesis to the almanac, God is always pointing His people to their savior. He wants us pursuing Christ, and in that pursuit, our desires will fall in line with God’s.
Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)
But how?
God leading us to become more like Jesus Christ isn’t something we’re waiting for, but something we experience daily. God doesn’t need our help, as though we could offer anything to the process. However, God does require our humility and trust.
Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. (James 4:10)
We need humility because, like the rest of the world, we desire to be our own gods. We trust in our own wisdom and power to change, find happiness, and even earn merit with God. It’s pride that ushered sin into the world, pride that made us enemies of God, and pride that will keep us from seeing the richness found surrendering our life, not just our sin, to Christ.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body
And refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8)
The humility to see our own weakness is a necessary step in trusting God. Losing confidence in our power means we must put our faith and trust in something even more powerful. When we have that kind of trust in God, to trust that He knows best even if we don’t understand it now, makes becoming like Jesus Christ not only possible, but it becomes so much sweeter.
God gave us the Holy Spirit to grow us toward maturity in Christ. Christ put our old nature to death, removing our need to obey its sin-hungry desires. God doesn’t give us an impossible task, but a task that’s impossible for us. Our humility leads to faith, our faith leads to become like Christ, and that draws us ever-closer to God’s greatest desire for us.
Yet none of this comes from us. That faith that saves us is the same faith that will sustain us in this life. If we want more of that faith, we don’t need to look to ourselves for it. Our needs begin and end at the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. He saves us so we are capable of becoming like Him, and he gives us everything we need to see it happen in this life.
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5)
