In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

by Jen Wilkin

God is always more concerned with the decision-maker than he is with the decision itself.

This makes sense when we pause to consider that no decision we could ever make could separate us from the love of God in Christ.

For the believer wanting to know God’s will for her life, the first question to pose is not “What should I do?” but “Who should I be?”

If we focus on our actions without addressing our hearts, we may end up merely as better behaved lovers of self. Think about it. What good is it for me to choose the right job if I’m still consumed with selfishness? What good is it for me to choose the right home or spouse if I’m still eaten up with covetousness? What does it profit me to make the right choice if I’m still the wrong person? A lost person can make “good choices.” But only a person indwelt by the Holy Spirit can make a good choice for the purpose of glorifying God. The hope of the gospel in our sanctification is not simply that we would make better choices, but that we would become better people. This is the hope that caused John Newton to pen, “I once was lost

What is God’s will for your life? Put simply, that you would be like Christ.

“How should the knowledge that God is ______ change the way I live?”

Rather than rest in the immutability of God, we point to our own calcified sin patterns and declare ourselves unchanging and unchangeable.

Holiness can be defined as the sum of all moral excellency, “the antithesis of all moral blemish or defilement.”4 It carries the ideas of being set apart, sacred, separate, of possessing utter purity of character.