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?
In our last lesson, we looked at how God sculpts and molds are character so that we more closely resemble His Son Jesus. He does it similar to a sculptor forms a beautiful statue out of a hunk of rock. He removes (or chips away) the parts that don't like the statue he is trying to form. God takes us through a similar process, using difficulties and trials in our lives to chip away the dead, carnal nature; so that the true nature of Christ can shine through us. That is a process of maturity or discipleship.
A lot of us don't like the process by which He does that, but He is going do that in our lives. Let me give you three major ways that He sculpts the character of Jesus in us.
Number 1: God uses trouble to teach us to trust him. Okay, here is the word of God, and this passages might not sound like good news. James 1:2-4 says, "Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."
Let's look at that first phrase. It says "when trouble"--what does that "when" mean? Does it say if? Notice the word "if" is not in there. No, it says "when". It is inevitable, trouble will come. "when troubles come your way...when your faith is tested." What does trouble do for you? It causes you to be tested; It tests your faith by putting you in a situation where you have to trust God. Will you responding by trusting Him, or not? That is the test, and that is what is happening here. Are you going to trust God or not?
That word trouble there is translated as "trials" or "tribulations." In other words, we go through some tough times. God allows us to go through difficult times, and the reason he does so is you will not grow without them. Think about it. You grow whenever the pressures on. You grow more through failures and pressure than you do when it is not on you. Now, a lot of us say, "I voted for the comfortable life. I didn't vote for that trials and tribulations." But let me tell you, if you don't have any trials or any struggles, you will not grow. That's just the way it is. God is going to use these things to help us grow.
Romans 5:3-4 says, "Trouble produces patience, and patience produces character, and character produces hope." So, troubles, trials, tribulations are allowed into your life to produce patience, and patience produces character. God is building character in you.
God is more interested in your character than He is in your career. He is more interested in who you become than what you do. Your career is temporary, but your character lasts forever. I know that in the midst of it when things have fallen down upon us we are crying out, "Oh God!" and we are asking, "Why me Lord? What did I ever do? Why me Lord?"
In reality, God is not picking on you, He is just trying to help you grow. Every problem you face has a purpose, and it doesn't matter where the problem comes from. It may be a problem that you have created, or it may be a problem that Satan created for you. Or it may be a problem that you circumstances created. Regardless of the source of the problem, the truth is that God will use everything.
Romans 8:29 says that God planned from the very beginning that you would look like His son. Remember that? A lot of us don't realize that but before verse 29, there's verse 28. What does Romans 8:28 say? It says, "All things work together for good, for those who love the Lord, who are the called according to his purpose." God works in everything.
We are ready to embrace verse 29, which says that God wants us to look like Jesus, but we are not sure if we like verse 28. What is God going use to make me look like Jesus? Jesus went through it and you are not better than Him, are you? Look at this Mark 12: 32-34. It says that "they came to the garden called Gethsemane and Jesus said to His disciples sit here while I pray. And as He went to pray, distress and anguish came over Him. He said the sorrow in My heart is so great that it almost crushes me." Jesus knew sorrow. He knew pain. The bible prophesied that He would experience this, and he Did. Jesus felt it, and if Jesus felt it, guess what? You are going get to feel it as well.
Look at what Jesus said a few verses later in verse 36: "Everything is possible for You" (talking to God here), "Father, please take this cup of suffering away from Me. Yet I want your will, not Mine." I look at this and I see that It is okay to tell God that you do not like what is going on. "God this really stinks - I hate this!" I believe God likes your honesty; He likes your transparency, and He's okay with it. He is not going to say, "What is your problem? Just take it like a man."
God's not that way. When we cry out to God, God is there--He is waiting to hear from us. In fact, sometimes, the only times when we talk to Him is when we go through those times. If you talk to Him a little more often, then maybe....well, I won't go there, but you know where I am going to, right? The way that we get through the difficult time is to remind ourselves of what is ahead for us.
We know that God is going use those troubles. He is going to use those struggles to make us grow, because sometimes the only time you trust Him is when you have to. Sometimes we only trust God when we have no other source, no other recourse, except to trust him. God puts us in the position so that we will have faith. God wants us to grow in our faith, and the only way that we're going do it is when we're thrown into situations that demands us to have faith.
If we could do it ourselves, we'd do it wouldn't we? If we can get by without Him, we are going to. So God puts us in positions that we can't get by without Him, where we have no other recourse but to trust him. God wants us to grow. You are not going to grow without struggles, but what gets you through it is looking ahead. Remind yourself of the reward that is coming.
2 Corinthians 4:17 says "Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." Now, I know someone will say "'light and momentary troubles?' What is this 'light' stuff here? I don't think I have any of those light problems! Mine are all heavy." But in light of eternity, in comparison to eternity, they are light, because they are momentary, because they don't last forever. I know in the middle of it, if feels like it is lasting forever, doesn't it?
Some of you ladies know, whenever you are having that baby, it feels like it is going to last forever. You may thing to yourself, "I'm always going be this way; I'm always going to be pregnant." Then, in the midst of having this baby, it feels like, "Where's the end?" But the end does come. Everything you face here is only temporary, but what's it building for you? God is building an eternal glory that outweighs them all. Keep your eyes on that.
God is going to use trouble to teach us how to trust Him. but He is also going use temptations to teach us to obey Him. You see, troubles are those things God allows or even may design in order to get us to the place to begin to trust Him and grow in faith in Him.
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