THE DESTINATION

In Acts we read of Paul’s encounter with the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord Jesus that turned his life completely upside-down and from persecuting believers to planting churches. Jesus harnesses Paul’s misguided zeal and redirects it towards preaching the gospel all across different nations, peoples, and cultures and he begins to travel thousands of miles across land and sea proclaiming Jesus as Lord and calling people to turn away from sin and pledge their allegiance to him. As people responded to this good news, communities of Jesus-followers began to spring up all over the place and in the New Testament we have some copies of the letters that Paul wrote to these churches.

In these letters we get an insight into how Paul understood the goal and purpose of the Christian life. For example, in his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote..

‘And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another’.

To the church in Galatia he says…

‘my little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you’,

and to those in Rome…

‘for those whom [God] foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son’

Paul’s understanding is that the good news about Jesus is transformative; that when we put our faith in Jesus, are baptised, and filled with the Holy Spirit, then we begin a journey of becoming more and more like Jesus. He sees the Christian life as one of being transformed, formed, and conformed into the image of Jesus- this is the destination of the journey of the believer.

But why Jesus?

The answer to this is that in Jesus we see what it means to be truly human! God the Son became fully human in the person of Jesus and it is here that we see the fulfillment of what humanity were always created to be. Jesus is the example, the template, the revelation of true humAnity and therefore as we become more and more like Jesus, we become more and more fully human!

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

What do you think about the idea of the goal of the Christian life as one of becoming more and more like Jesus? Have you ever considered this to be one of your life goals?

If one of the major goals of our Christian lives to become more and more like Jesus, how can we tell if this is happening or not? Is this even a helpful question?

What do you think about the idea that to become more like Jesus is to become more truly human?

Let us know what you think!