DISCIPLESHIP MINISTRIES

OF

GLOBAL CREATION MINISTRIES
REACHING AROUND THE WORLD
Apollo 17 hand-held Hasselblad

TRUTHS TO GROW BY

THE TARGET (cont'd)

First, what is the right target? What is it that God would have us reach for? What is our purpose and goal on planet Earth? The Apostle Paul provides the answer to this for us in Ephesians 4:13: “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect (mature) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” The key here is to become a mature person in Christ, as Paul explains the target is to grow or change into the “measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” The “measure of the stature” is to say the measure of the form, power, characteristics, and presence of Christ. In other words, the target is to be as much like Jesus as possible to the point of becoming a photocopy of Him. We, who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, are to be a photocopy of the “fullness of Christ.” Yeah, you get it. We are to be photocopies of all that Christ is with the exception of course of His Deity. We are to be just as holy as Jesus is, just as kind as Jesus, just as caring as Jesus is, just as controlled by the Holy Spirit as Jesus was, just as in love with God’s Word as Jesus is, and just as concerned for the souls of men as Jesus is. Wow, that’s a major target for sure. Paul brings up this same idea in Romans 8:29, which reads, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” God determined before He ever created the world that those who would accept Jesus as their Savior would be conformed or changed into the image of His Son. Wow, what an awesome God to decide that we should become just like Jesus. God knew that if we were just like Jesus we would have victory over sin, have great joy in our hearts, and bear much fruit for His glory. Obviously, change is in order. We are not by nature anything like Jesus. This target is a long way off and we must learn how to properly aim if we are going to even come close.
The process of aiming and changing is called sanctification. In John 17:19 Jesus is praying to the Father for our sanctification. He says, “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” To sanctify means to set apart. Becoming like Jesus, or being changed into His image, also means to be set apart. Imagine a town in the old west. The town is located in the desert and everywhere you look it’s dry. In the very center of town is a well. As expected there is water at the bottom of the well, but the well is very deep. The water in the well is set apart from the town’s dryness and it’s also set apart to wetness. Likewise, being “set apart” as a Christian is both to be set apart from some things and set apart to other things. We must be set apart “from” whatever Jesus is set apart “from” and we must be set apart “to” whatever Jesus is set apart “to.”
First, there are many things we need to be set apart from. They can be grouped into three categories. The first category is sin. Proverbs 15:9 says, “The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the LORD….” Certainly, if we are to be like Christ we must be separated from anything that is an abomination to Him. The way of the wicked or sin is an abomination to Jesus. All sin is the result of rebellion against God. We absolutely must be set apart from sin. In fact Paul further defines what our actions regarding sin should be. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God Forbid (Rom. 6:1-2a).” We may not sin even to cause grace to abound. Consider also Hebrews 12:1 which says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” We have a race to run and sin keeps us from running it well. Sin has no part in being like the Lord Jesus and so long as it has a hold on us we will never become like Him. This passage, also, talks about a sin that easily causes us to fall. All of us have a sin that we are easily tripped up by. This must be avoided at all costs. Measures must be taken to keep us away from possible temptation in this area. If we are easily tripped up by alcohol then we should stay away from places where it is easily accessible. By the way, all men should stay away from sexually explicit media. That means no movies that contain sexual material whether R rated, PG 13 rated, or PG rated. Identifying and dealing with sins that easily trip us up doesn’t ok sin that doesn’t bother us as much either.