Have you ever thought about what God’s long-term aim is for your life? Do you know what it is?
Paul gives us a peek into God’s overarching designs in Ephesians 4. It’s towed like a caboose behind the whole section on how God has given gifts to different people in the church to equip the saints for ministry and building up the body. It springs up in verse 13: “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
There it is– God’s supreme agenda for our lives. It’s to change us into the image of his Son. A couple verses later, Paul says it again. “We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (verse 15). Becoming like Christ so Christ can be magnified. That’s God’s point of the whole program.
God’s Agenda Behind Our Vision
Now this assertion does not synch with a lot of vision-casting today. God’s agenda for your life is not first to successfully grow and plant churches. It’s not first for you to lead a successful business that reflects kingdom values, have a great income or become an influencer with a growing list of followers on X. These can be good goals, but when pursued as ultimate goals, they become toxic. Positively plutonium.
We all have dreams. And God uses our dreams to move us forward in life. But God’s primary goal is not even to bring our big dreams to fruition.
It’s to make us more like Christ so our lives make much of him.
I will be the first to admit that it’s easy to lose sight of this. Sometimes it feels like I’m banging my glass head against a stone wall. My longings for impact seem confusing and fragile because my dreams are unsatisfied. And I just don’t know what I should do. At other times, I might be soaring high because God is answering prayer and causing my efforts to flourish.
Regardless of the outcome of our dreams, learning to respond to God’s work and keep in step with his agenda becomes an important intersection for change in our lives. As we cooperate with him, we discover that it’s not ultimately about nailing the promotion, or raising well-behaved kids, or winning the prize on whatever our dream may be—as good as those desires may be. It’s about something much bigger: Christ forms souls as we pursue dreams. Sometimes God satisfies them. Other times, he denies them. But the dream becomes an intersection where transformation happens. The point is not merely the dream; it’s the deeper work beneath the dream.
Remembering this reality will help us to stay the course no matter what God sends our way. A crushing failure, an unexpected victory—God designs both so that we will come to more thoroughly reflect Christ in every facet of our lives. He is shaping us—cutting, pruning, polishing—so that we will become like bright diamonds that brilliantly refract the beauty of his glory.
This is his aim, no matter what path he has you on today. Whether you’re experiencing the loss of dreams or you’re humming merrily along rejoicing in your latest success, God wants us to see a reality more glorious than our dreams. He is working through every facet of your life to make you more like Christ so that your life will speak loudly about Christ.
Today’s Tenacious Question
Read 1 Peter 4:12–14. How might recognizing that God’s aim for you is to be more Christlike change the way you respond to either success or failure? How could it help you to persevere under trial?
Prayer
Lord, help me to respond in faith to the trials and successes you send my way. Guard me from forgetting that my purpose in life is tied up in this glorious cause. Today, let me look to Christ and desire conformity to him, no matter what it might require. In his name I pray, amen.
Photo by Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash
