More Like Jesus

5 min read

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us— Selah
2 so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.
3 May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you.
4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth.
5 May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you.

Psalm 67:1-5

And here, in a nutshell, we find God’s ultimate purpose, and God’s will for us. It begins with God’s act of grace toward sinful humanity; His grace is found in His covenant promise of blessing for those who fear Him; His blessing is manifested in His glory shining forth in and through His people; His glory is not contained in ourselves but proclaimed to the ends of the earth; the proclamation of His praise—that is, the gospel—brings His salvation to the ends of the earth, resulting in His praise to the ends of the earth.

God’s plan is being fulfilled through Christ in me (and in you), the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), and the instrument of God’s plan is the body of Christ, the church (Ephesians 3:10-11).

We see God’s purpose and will expressed throughout Scripture, from “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) to “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen” (Revelation 22:21). And this is the message that God has been developing in my heart from the moment that I got saved.

I remember, right after I got saved, I was so on fire for Jesus (it was a hot, red-orange flame with no focus). I was having a conversation with my pastor and one of the leaders, and I said something like, “That’s the whole point of anything that we do, right?” And my pastor and this leader looked at each other and, in retrospect, I realize that they had been talking around that very question because they had different opinions about what the “whole point” is.

And so my pastor asked me, “What is the whole point?” And I said, “To become more like Jesus.”

My answer wasn’t wrong, but I see now that that answer had me at the center of God’s purpose. My answer fell short of God’s ultimate purpose, which is the “whole point” of everything that we do. The “whole point” is to fill the earth with the glory of God in Jesus’s name, through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families, the church.

Of course, in order to fulfill God’s ultimate purpose, we must become more like Jesus. But becoming more like Jesus comes from going where He goes, doing what He does, saying what He says.

Discipleship is never merely about Bible study but about Bible duty—living out the word of God in this world, especially when it comes to the Greatest Commandment and the Great Commission.

Father, Your word is a light for our path, a lamp for our feet. Help me to see that Your plan is not for me-myself-and-I. Help me to see that Your plan is for us and for everyone, so that all peoples may declare Your praise. In Jesus’s name. Amen.