Who Am I Becoming?

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,to comfort all who mourn,” – Isaiah 61:1-2.

As you have probably guessed, I am not following my typical pattern of using the devotional to explore the week’s message in more detail. Rather, I have been using this week’s devotionals to write about general subjects that have been on my heart and mind. In this devotional, I am asking each of us a question: Who are you becoming?

How long did it take to prepare for your career? The responses will vary widely depending on what your occupation is. In most cases it took some time. The Bible teaches that the goal of the Christian life is to become like Jesus? How long does it take to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ? If you want to be a person that God can use, a person who is becoming more like Jesus, then it will take time. It is going to take time spent with God. It is going to take days and weeks and months of journeying with other Christ followers. It is going to take years of participating in God’s mission, praying for God’s heart and obeying God’s words. It takes time, but with time comes progress.

The ultimate goal in life is to be more like Jesus. Are you more like Jesus this year, than you were last year? As a Christian, I yearn to not only know more about the Bible but to become more Christ-like to my family, friends, and people I meet. I want them to see something different in me, something uncommon, I want them to see Jesus in me. I fail more often than I care to admit. Perfection is a difficult target to say the least.

But If you just keep with the same old, same old you will typically get the same results you had before. It is so easy to turn a blind eye to our faults, but if we continue to do that, we will never grow. Ephesians 4:13 tells us, “…until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

So what needs to change in your life? God has put you on earth for a purpose, but have you discovered it yet? William Barkley said, “There are two great days in a person’s life, the day we are born and the day we discover why.”

If you are a Christian you know why and how. The question is are you open to change and transformation? We all have obstacles in life; they can be stepping stones to new heights or they can seem impossible to climb. The good news is, you can change. Jesus is in the business of changed lives.  We have heard the stories of people whose lives have been radically changed by Jesus. Their stories are about normal people, from normal backgrounds, who have decided to serve an extraordinary Jesus.  

My prayer is that you will challenge yourself in 2015 to be committed to becoming more like Jesus. So the answer to the question “who am I becoming” is more like Jesus.

Discussion Question:

1. Who do your actions say you belong to?
2. In what areas of your life has your culture crept in and watered down your view of Christianity?
3. How do I judge my progress at becoming more Christ like?
4. Pray and ask God to help you in becoming more like Him.