God's Purpose And Destiny For Our Lives

God has destined us to be like Jesus, and He is actively at work in our lives to transform us. His transformation is a two part process. We looked at a verse about that back in lesson 11, but let's review it again. 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."

That verse says that our transformation is a two step process: putting off the old and putting on the new. We have spent a lot of time talking about the first part: to strip away the old. We have, in fact, spent the past four lessons discussing that, looking at ways God helps us in the process by chipping away at our old natures. That included hardships and difficulty to teach faith, permitting temptation to strengthen our ability to stand in holiness, and trespass to teach us how to forgive. Those can all be really tough things to go through, but they are only a part of the process, and not the final destination. You don't live in these places, you just pass through them on your way to the destination of becoming like Jesus.

Now it is time to move on to the second part: put on the new. That means that I am simply to put on who I really am.

How did the guys in the first church do it? Acts chapter 2:42 spells it out for us. It says that "they continually devoted themselves to the apostle's teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer."

A disciple happens to be is a devoted follower. The word 'devoted' basically means to persevere, to attend to something closely, to give constant attention to. They were continually devoting themselves to several things here. Most of these things, are very relevant to our won spiritual growth, and they to equip us so that we can fulfill our personal destinies.

An important aspect of discipleship is to build godly habits into your life. As God begins to work with you, to strip the things that are not of Him; He wants you to begin to embrace the things that are of Him. These are things that you can do to cooperate with that process, to help to put on to your life who you are in Him.

The first thing that they did was to apply themselves to the apostles teaching. So what does that mean they did? They had a habit of learning. They put themselves in place for spiritual growth. They came to church, and to their small group. They were hearing the word of God being spoken by the apostles, so they were committed to the Word. They put themselves in a position of learning. You need to do that as well, because you are not going to grow without it.

The next thing they did is that they had a habit of relating to other Christians, which we call fellowship; in fact they called it fellowship as well. The Greek word for that is koininia, and it is an awesome word because it means really a partaker. The root of the word means that you have something in common, like we have a common faith. We have a common relationship with our Lord Jesus. It means that we basically have a commonness about ourselves. The bible says, "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together" (Hebrews 10:25). In other words, don't stop hanging around the other believers, because you won't grow without it.

The next one is the habit of worship. The book of Acts says there that they focused upon the breaking of bread, and what is the breaking of bread? It's the Lord's Supper, or communion. What are you doing during communion? Who are you focusing on at communion? The Lord and what He did. You're focusing upon the works of the Lord and the activity of the Lord. That's what your focus is on and what we call that, worship.

Earlier, in a previous lesson, we talked about worship, so I won't spend a lot of time on it now.

The next one is and the last one is the habit of prayer, and really we talked about that as an aspect of worship. Prayer is our communication with God; it is talking to God. So they had constant communication with the Lord.

Let me give you a principle here. It's a very important principle: what you feed grows, and what you starve dies. Many of you have seen this before. If you feed the spirit, the spirit grows. If you feed the flesh, the flesh grows. You need to feed who you are. You need to feed the new nature. You need to cooperate with how God made you. Your spirit will then grow and if you starve the flesh, it will die. The bible says it this way, "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).

I don't think any of you reading this lesson still ride your tricycle. You probably don't even own it any more. You put it aside. As you grow up, some things have to go and you go to make an intentional effort. It was good for one stage of your life, but it doesn't last. It is the same with areas of our spiritual growth. There were things that were important to me when I was a spiritual babe. But as I grew in the Lord, I began to put them aside, so that I could grow up. God wants you to grow up.

As a babe in the Lord, you might have been allowed to hold on to some things from the "old nature." They might not have been a problem to you when you were only crawling spiritually. But they might be getting in your way as you learn to walk and then to run. It might be time to set some of them aside, to let go of them so that you can take on more of your net nature.

Why don't you pause for a few minutes and ask God about this. Ask Him to show you the one thing that is most getting in the way of you growing in Him. Check in with Him and see what He speaks to your heart. Go ahead and do that as soon as you finish this paragraph. You can close your eyes and tune into Him and hear what He has to say to you on that subject. Then, after you have spent a little time with the Lord asking Him about this, go back to reading the last few paragraphs of this lesson.

What has God been speaking to you about? What has God been asking to strip away? Has God been speaking to you about another god that you have been worshipping? Has He been exposing something? Maybe you need a different perspective on the trials. Or perhaps you need to let go of resentment or offense and forgive someone? What has God been ministering to you with as you waited on Him? What does God want you to do today, starting right now?

He might want you to run from something or may be to rebuke something. It may be just to embrace the character that God has been putting into your life. Maybe it's just to be honest with God. Maybe it's to find a spiritual partner, somebody to connect to or to relate to. What has God been speaking to you today? As yourself, "What does God want me to do today?" What is that one thing?

Perhaps it is more of a putting on than a taking off. Maybe you need to get more disciplined in your prayer or devotion times. Maybe you need to set aside 20 minutes a day for worship and fellowship with God, giving Him a higher priority than your busy schedule. If you are not sure what it is, then just pause again and ask God. He will be happy to show you.

Once you figure out what it is, then just do it. Start now, start today. If you think it will be difficult for you to do it, then ask Him to help you, and He will. But make a serious commitment with God to start on it today.

It is time to put off the old thing that is holding you back, and embrace the new thing that God has to replace it. It is time to mature and transform to be more like Jesus, so that you can better fulfill your destiny.