God's Purpose And Destiny For Our Lives

We have already looked at two important aspects of destiny in previous lessons: personal relationship with God (receiving His love and giving Him our worship) and fellowship (or being in relationship with our brothers and sister's in the family of God). Now we are going to change gears and talk about another important factor to finding and fulfilling our destiny--discipleship.

You were created to become like Christ. God wants us to be like Him. Romans 8:29 says: "From the very beginning, God decided that those who came to Him (and He knew who would), should become like His Son."

So, what does God want you to become like? God wants you to become like His Son, Jesus. God created you that you would take on the character and the nature of Jesus. That is not to say that you are to become God, because you can't. But you are to become like Him in His character and in His nature. Another verse of scripture, Ephesians 4:15, says, "God wants us to grow up like Christ in everything, in every way, in every capacity."

God wants your character to be like His character. He wants you to live out the nature that God put in you, and the way that's going happen will be through a process and that process is called discipleship.

This is not an immediate thing and it is not an automatic thing. You can't put your life on automatic and just grow.

Don't you wish it was that easy? Don't you wish discipleship was just purely automatic? In other words, as I just get old, it just kind of happens. But it is a process that you are going to have to work at. You are going to have to expend your energies to grow and mature in Him.

Avery Willis defines discipleship as this: "a disciple is a person who develops a personal, life-long obedient relationship with Jesus Christ in which Christ transforms your character into the kingdom values. He involves you in His mission: in the home, in the church and in the world." That's pretty comprehensive but let me summarize it the way that I would define it.

A disciple is a devoted follower of Jesus Christ who's committed to daily obedience of God's will to carry out Christ's mission with Christ's character. God wants you to become like His Son, and your ability to carry out His mission is dependent upon how much of His character is in you. He wants you to become like His Son and it is something you have to work at. But, it is a very simple process.

If I were to boil it down, there are a couple of verses that really take the process and narrow it down in a very simple formula. Colossians 3:9-10 says: "Strip away that old personality along with its habits. Put on the new personality which is being renewed by learning to be like the image of its creator."

There are two things in this verse: stripping on the old and putting on the new. But you ask, Is that it? It's simply taking off the old and putting on the new. Let me give you another verse.

Ephesians 4:22-24 says, (in reference to your former manner of life) "Lay aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit that you may be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self which is in the likeness of God which has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

Strip away the old. It goes on at the very beginning and it says, "in reference to your former manner of life, not your present manner of life, but your former." Who is he talking to here? Believers. So the word "former" does not mean who you are today; it means who you were before you came to know Christ--because once you came into Christ, you became a new creature, a new creation. Everything has been made new. You are new, totally new. So what we're to do is simply strip away the things of who we were, not who we are; and begin to embrace how God has made us.

That verse tells us that our new self has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. That is who you are. The bible says that you are righteous. The bible says that you are holy. You have the full righteousness of Christ and all the holiness of God--that is already in you. But the process of discipleship is learning how to tear off the old and embrace who you really are.

It is a very simple process, but it is not an easy one. It is simple in the sense it s a very easy formula to understand. It would be like this: let's suppose you had a job that you just hated. You might say, 'I know this job, because I'm in it right now, but I hate this job. I hate my boss because my boss is a slave-driver and I feel like a slave. He's always putting stuff upon me, making me do this and making me do that and I hate it. Oh, I just feel bad and I don't like this job. It's drudgery. I get up in the morning. I drive to work. I go to work and the boss puts stuff on me. It's horrible. I just hate it.'

Let's suppose that somebody came by and offers you a new job. You might thing, 'I like that. I want that job!' And let's say that it is a great job. It pays five times your current salary. Plus the employer says, 'I'm going to release you; I'm going help you be creative; I'm going to help you to release all about how you are designed and fashioned.' You would respond, 'Yes, thank you. Thank you so much!'

So now, you get this new job. You get up the next morning and you get in the car. Your mind goes on automatic and you drive to that old workplace and you park in that old parking spot. You go into that old place and sit at that old desk and that old boss starts ragging at you again.

You say, that is so stupid! Who would do that? But, you know, that is what we do. You see, God made you a new person. He gave you a new workplace. He gave you a new boss. He gave you a new home. Everything about you is brand new. But, what do we do? We get in the car and begin to drive back to the old place where we used to work, and you're not even going to get paid there anymore. There are no benefits, no retirement plan, no package. You're on your own in there, in this oppression.

You understand, that is exactly what we do. We get back in there to the old life instead of living the new one God has given us.

God wants you to know that's not who you are. You have a new employer, you have a new home, you have a new future--everything is brand new. So, don't go back to where you used to be. You simply need to live out who you are. This process means I "strip away"--strip away who I am not and put on who I am.

We can't fully grow and mature unless we begin to embrace the growth process that God is taking us through and cooperate with Him in it. The stripping away part is not easy for us, so God helps us. It is like when a sculptor is carving a statue from a piece of rock. Let's say he is sculpting a statue of a horse. He is cutting away pieces of stone to make his statue. If you were to go up to him and ask him "How do you make a statute of a horse?" he would rely, "I just knock out everything that doesn't like a horse."

Guess what God's going do with you?