Spiritual Formation –
“Christlikeness is our goal.”
One of God’s clearest
objectives for all his adopted children is to transform
them into the likeness of his perfect Son (Rom. 8:29; Gal.
4:19; Eph. 4:11-16). That fact has been revealed to us so
we will cooperate with him by setting aside our lesser
goals and focusing on his
as committed
disciples of Jesus (Lk. 9:23; Phil. 3:12-14; 1 Tim.
4:15-16).
Seeing to each person’s steady growth is a responsibility
that belongs on every church’s short list of top
priorities. It should include:
•
regularly
highlighting and re-targeting Christlikeness (a.k.a. being
godly, mature, complete, "perfect", holy, sanctified) as
God’s will,
•
casting a vivid
vision of what it “looks like”,
•
urging people to
persevere in their pursuit of it,
•
encouraging them
when they’re doing well and correcting them when they’re
falling short,
•
providing
instruction to establish them in the fundamentals of
Christian beliefs and lifestyle,
•
reminding them to
conscientiously consider how they can “edify” each other
(Rom. 14:19; Eph. 4:29; Heb. 10:24), and
•
using our shared
commitment to spiritual formation as a filter for deciding
how best to use our times together.
TEACHING
IDEAS - To
help you present this "essential" to your group(s) so they
will adopt and apply it, click on this link:
Spiritual Formation.