- Week One: “What on earth am I here for?” You are not an accident, God loves you and He has a good purpose for your life!
- Week Two: “You Were Planned for God’s Pleasure.” Your first purpose is to get to know and love God. -Worship.
- Week Three“ You Were Formed for God’s Family.” God wants you to learn to love other people and get along in His family. -Fellowship.
God’s will for you is that you grow up. Babies are cute, but if babies stay babies, It is tragic. Also, there are a lot of people grow older but never grow up. God wants us to mature and develop, and the standard for spiritual maturity? Jesus Christ.
God gave us a model of what He wants us to grow up like. It is a process, and this process is called DISCIPLESHIP.
God uses various ways to form us into his character. He uses the Bible, His word, to transform us. He also uses people, through fellowship. Romans 8:28 tells us “In all things God works for the good for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purposes.” God works all things for good to make us like Jesus.
There are three very unexpected tools for growth, exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ. He had trouble in the garden. He had temptation in the desert, and He had trespasses on the cross.
First of all, God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. In the Bible this word “trouble” is often called “trials.” TRIALS are situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him. God is always more interested in what you are, your character, than He is in what you do, your career, or accomplishment. Every problem we face has a purpose, and that is to make me like Jesus Christ, to build character in my life.
If you’re going to become like Jesus Christ, you’ve got to learn to trust God completely, even when things look terrible, things are falling apart. It is easy to trust God when everything is going great in your life.
The real test of your faith is, how is relationship with God when things are going wrong and you don’t feel good?
The first unexpected tool for growth, in becoming more like Christ is that God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him.
The second unexpected tool for becoming more like Christ is that God uses our temptations to teach us to obey Him. TEMPTATIONS are situations designed by Satan and they’re intended to harm us. God never tempts us to do evil, but He is able, to use temptations for good in our lives because temptation always provides a choice. Choices are needed to develop character in our lives.
There are several important truths to keep in mind as we go through temptations:
First, is not a sin to be tempted. Jesus never sinned. Martin Luther said this: “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”
Second, everyone is tempted in the same ways, all of us. We never outgrow temptation. We all are tempted throughout all of our lives. But Jesus’ example shows us that every temptation is an opportunity to do good, to make the right choice.
What temptation are you facing right now? How could God use that temptation as you choose to obey Him as an opportunity for you to grow in character? God wants to make you like Jesus Christ. He wants to build your character.
So far we have looked at two unexpected tools that God uses in our lives to make us like Jesus Christ, to build character in my life.
1st God uses trouble to teach us to trust.
Trials (troubles): situations designed by God to draw us closer to Him
2nd God uses temptation to teach us to obey.
Temptations: situations designed by the devil to draw us away from God.
The third unexpected tool to teach us to be like Christ is that God uses trespasses to teach us to forgive. Trespasses are situations designed by other people to hurt us. The Lord’s Prayer says, “Lord forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
Bearing the hurt of other people without retaliation is, the most important and the most difficult step in becoming like Jesus Christ. This is building character. It often involves being misunderstood, criticized, judged, being hurt verbally, emotionally or physically. These are not good things. These are evil things. God is not the author of evil, and He does not cause these things. God hates sin and evil. But He did not spare His son and will not spare us either.
What did Jesus do? What was His response to trespasses? He yielded His right to get even. He absorbed the hurt. He endured the pain. He responded to evil with good. If you’re going to become like Christ, you have to learn to forgive. How? You can’t learn to forgive unless somebody’s hurt you. The forgiveness is one of the primary qualities of God and God wants you to learn to become like Him.
Here are two tips: Number one, remember that God has forgiven you. The Bible says “Forgive others, just as God forgave you because of Christ” (Eph. 4:32). God will never ask you to forgive anybody more than you’ve already been forgiven by Him. Number two, remember God is in control. When you are hurt by somebody else, yes, they may mean it for bad, but God will use it for good in your life.
God uses trouble to teach us to trust, and God uses temptation to teach us to obey. God uses trespasses to teach us to forgive, because we can’t become like Jesus without learning to trust and obey and forgive.
- God will take us through an experience of trouble, where we learn to trust His love.
- God will take us through an experience of temptation, where we learn to obey Him and do the right thing.
- God will take us to a time of trespass, where we learn to forgive.
And we have a promise! “We go through exactly what Christ goes through. But if we go through the hard times with Him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with Him.” (Rom. 8:17)
I don’t know what you’re going through today But I do know how God wants you to respond to it, regardless of what you’re going through. I am confident of how God wants you to respond: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).
Pray this prayer with me:
Dear Father, life makes so much more sense when I realize that It is not about my career, It is not about my comfort, It is all about character and becoming like Jesus. Help me to use my life for that reason You gave it to me. Dear God, I want to grow in character. I want to become who You made me to be. I want to become more like Jesus in the way I think and the way I feel and the way I act. In the troubled times,“I want Your will for my life”. In going through a wilderness of temptation, please give me the strength to make the right choices. And in enduring the hurts of other people, please teach me to forgive as much as You have forgiven me.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK, and I hope to see you next week as we continue our 40 Days of Purpose!
- Reijo Nevalainen, ANTIA Project Leader