A solid theological view that I have is that “Who and what we are in character the day we die or Jesus returns, is who and what we are for eternity, God isn’t going to fix us.” To say that He will fix us makes the purpose of life merely treading water. The admonition to pursue maturity has no purpose outside this life. There is no real motivation to sacrifice, be diligent, press on, take up our cross daily, and be faithful to the basic disciplines of the Christian life if it doesn’t matter. The reason so many Christians today are lukewarm is that there is no compelling reason not to be.

So, let’s say that I am right in this view, though more than a view, a major conviction of my life, you enter eternity as a baby, not physically, but in character, what does it matter. Heaven is still heaven, and freedom and joy from all the pain and hassle of life is still freedom and joy, so no big deal.

Let’s go back to the beginning, “Let Us make man in our image and in our likeness”, why? Part of the answer is in John 14:1-3, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” “WHERE I AM THERE YOU MAY BE ALSO.” God created us to be with a Him, to fellowship with Him, to dine with Him, to rule with Him, and to enjoy Him and Him us.

A basic fact of intimacy in relationship is that the more like each other we are the more we will enjoy each other’s company. The most basic purpose of man is to “Glorify God by enjoying Him Forever”. Enjoying God isn’t something we choose to do, it is something we do because of our relationship with Him, and our relationship is greatly influenced by our sameness in character.

While Jesus was on this earth as a man he had levels of relationship with those in His life. John was called the “beloved”, he was given responsibility to care for Mary, Jesus Mother, he was closer to Jesus than any other, Peter was an obvious favorite, as well as James. From there you have the remaining 8, (we will leave out Judas), then there was the 70 disciples that Jesus sent out in pairs, the 120 who were in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, invited there by Jesus, and then the 500 who saw Jesus after His resurrection.

When we get to heaven there will be those who are near Jesus, with Him, at His right hand, and there will be those who are not near. It has nothing to do with love, I loved each of my children when they were babies but I didn’t take them fishing with me until they could enjoy the experience, and I would enjoy their company.

The pursuit of character and maturity in this life is all about our relationship with Jesus forever, it is much more than just getting into heaven, it is how close we will be to Jesus when we get there.

The more we love Him the more we will want to be near Him, and the more mature our character the more capacity we will have to love Him.

The average Christian’s theology is pretty simple. “I believe in Jesus therefore I am going to heaven, and in the mean time I will try to be good. I don’t have to be good because I am saved by grace, but I will try because I am supposed to be good.” That pretty well sums up the theology of most believers. It not only is simple, it is woefully inadequate and incomplete. The result is that most people who call themselves Christians are continually trying harder, but continually failing to grow in character. Very few bear much fruit, that is influence others to become believers or do anything that results in changes and growth in the lives of others.

So a believer who lives their life with this theology dies, and stands before Jesus with very little character developed in their life because of this theology. The question now is, “Will Jesus fix them, will He zap them and make them perfect, does it matter that they enter heaven as a baby in character?” I would guess that about 90% of all those who call themselves Christians think that what they do in this life, what they accomplish, the fruit that they bear, the person they become on the inside doesn’t ultimately matter, because they are saved by grace and God will change everything about them when they step into glory.

I like to ask the question “Why?” as I read and study the Bible to help me understand it better. Let’s do that to a few passages.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;

Why? What was the purpose, the reason God decided to make man in the first place? I am sure it wasn’t simply a “good idea” or a whim, God always has a nobel purpose for all that He does, and the creation of man seems to be at the center of all that He created and did. Why?

Hebrews 6:1  Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity,

Why should we press on the maturity? What would motivate me to do that if it really doesn’t matter that much if I do, or I don’t. Pressing on to maturity takes effort and sacrifice and self-control so why should I make that sacrifice? It seems reasonable to me that God has a very good reason for giving that command other than just giving us something to do.

James 1:2–4  Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Why? I don’t like trials, problems, and tribulations so why should I rejoice when I experience them? Very few people do rejoice in the midst of a trial so most must feel the same way. It says in that passage that the end result is that we will “be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing”. That is describing a mature character that is grown up, and like that of Jesus. But if God is just going to fix me at the end anyway, why not just grumble and complain like everyone else when I go through a trial.

Most believers are greatly lacking in motivation to press on to maturity because there is no compelling reason to do it, and as long as they stick with their simple theology it will stay that way.  I am pretty sure that God doesn’t fix our “baby character” at the end of our life, but that we are stuck with it.

To be continued:

Principle #1 – God has a perfect will and plan for my life.

Principle #2 – Inside the realm of God’s sovereignty I can choose to live outside God’s perfect plan either because of pride, self-sufficiency, rebellion, or ignorance.

Principle #3 – I will be successful and bear much fruit inside the will of God for my life, and I will fail and be miserable outside the realm of God’s perfect will and plan for my life. It doesn’t take a highly intelligent person to understand that principle.

Principle #4 – God wants me to know His will and plan for my life more than I want to know it, and it usually takes failing before I am motivated to seek His will.

Principle #5 – God expects that I am going to seek His will diligently, I won’t find it if I don’t. My ignorance of exactly what His will and plan is for my life is generally a result of apathy and laziness in seeking it.

Principle # 6 – God communicates His will to the person who He knows will actually do it.

Principle # 7 – The wise man will most often figure out what God’s will is.

Principle # 8 – God will reveal his will for my life to me through others in my life if I am humble enough to seek it from them.

Principle # 9 – Get close to God and do what you want

Principle # 10 – writing is an amazingly powerful tool to capture our random, unfocused, and fleeting thoughts, to sort them out, and to figure out the source of them.

Principle # 11 – A goal is the expression of a desire that is in my heart that I believe was put there by God

Principle #12 – knowing what God’s perfect will and plan for my life is, is not all about me, it is about all those other people around me who are at the center of God’s will for me.

Principle #12 – knowing what God’s perfect will and plan for my life is, is not all about me, it is about all those other people around me who are at the center of God’s will for me.

Jesus said in John 4, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish the work that He gave Me to do”. That will and work was to die for the sins of the world so that that every person in the world could live in heaven forever. The will of the father for Jesus was for my sake.

So, in thinking through what God’s will is for my life I ask the question repeatedly, what difference will it make in the lives of others, what fruit will I bear, what changes will I make, and when I get to heaven will I see it in the lives of others who are there. Paul said in Philippians 1, “if I live on in the flesh this will mean fruitful labor for me”. That was the only reason Paul wanted to live, to do things that would result in the salvation and edification of others.

Finding God’s will for my life isn’t so that I can be more fulfilled, though I will be, it isn’t about being more happy, though I will definitely sense His pleasure in my life, it isn’t about my success, though nobody is as successful as the person who influences another person’s life for eternal change.

Our motive for what we do is so important to God. It determines how much power we will have, how much blessing from God we will have, and how many doors he will open or opportunities that He will give us. If our motive in knowing what God’s will is for us is all about us, we probably won’t have clue, but if our motive for discovering God’s perfect plan and will for our life is to save and edify others we will know exactly what it is.

Principle # 11 – A goal is the expression of a desire that is in my heart that I believe was put there by God.

A goal is a written down commitment to pursue diligently what I believe is the will of God for me.

A goal is a statement of faith of what I believe is my intended future.

A goal is not the expression of an obligation that I feel I have had given to me by God or others in my life. A goal is not rewriting the “Ten Commandments”. A goal is not a vow.

Goals are a “want to”, not a “have to“. Goals motivate, are exciting, and create passion, they are not supposed to make me feel demotivated, or discouraged. Goals create a strong sense of movement, and growth, not that of being a failure. Goals are a tool for training not a way of trying harder.

I wrote my first list of goals when I was 16 years old, and I wrote 16 of them. The fact that the number of goals and my age was the same was totally coincidental, and I didn’t even notice until I sat down to write my goals the next year and then decided to continue the trend and write 17 goals. I have been doing that ever since, and this year I have 71 goals.

When I am writing my goals, usually a month long process, with many hours of thinking, praying, writing and discarding, writing and discarding, writing and discarding, I am attempting to dredge up out of the recesses of my inner being the desires and dreams that God has placed there. When I get finished I feel like I have painted a beautiful picture of my future.

When I finish I declare to the Lord, “this is what I believe you have put in my heart, and I intend to pursue these diligently. As I move ahead I know I will gain new wisdom and insight, and I will make adjustments accordingly, but in the meantime I move full speed ahead.”

In order to be as motivational as possible I write my goals in a very measurable way, being as clear and precise as possible. I write grandpa goals, father goals, health goals, financial goals, ministry goals, fun goals, seek God goals, marriage goals, and for sure fishing and hunting goals. I read my goals every day in order to program my own brain on what the priorities of my life are. I keep good records on all goals where that is important in order to keep healthy pressure on myself. I share my goals with others and respond graciously and with humility to any and all accountability.

Because of my goals every day I live will mean fruitful labor for me with which I will glorify God and prove myself to be a disciple of Jesus.

Principle # 10 – writing is an amazingly powerful tool to capture our random, unfocused, and fleeting thoughts, to sort them out, and to figure out the source of them.

When I was 12 and 13 years of age we had about 4 cows that we milked by hand. We would then run the milk through a separator that we cranked by hand, and it would separate the skim milk from the cream. We would sell the cream to a creamery, mix the skim milk with whole grain, let it soak and sour for several weeks and then feed it to our pigs. As a kid I was always fascinated by that separators ability to pull the cream and the milk apart because they were completely mixed together. For years my Dad had a gold claim on the headwaters of North Myrtle Creek. For a couple of weeks every year we would go to that spot that was our claim, suck up sand and gravel from the bottom of the creek with a small gas powered dredge, run it through a sluice box and then pan what was caught in the riffles of the sluice box with a gold pan looking for gold. In the whole process we were separating what was gold from what was ordinary sand and gravel. What a dredge, sluice box and gold pan are for gold so writing is for our thoughts that are from God. What a milk separator is in separating cream from milk so writing is in separating our thoughts, the ones from God from those that come from our flesh, the devil, and the world.

Nehemiah 2:12 And I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. I did not tell anyone what my God was putting into my mind to do for Jerusalem

Psalms 16:7 I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.

1 Chronicles 28:12 and the plan of all that he had in mind, for the courts of the house of the Lord, and for all the surrounding rooms,

1 Chronicles 28:19 All this,” said David, “the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, all the details of this pattern.”

God created words and writing. He is the one who wrote the “Ten Commandments” on stone with His finger. He is the one who prompted men to write the books of the Bible, and preserved it in writing.

This particular principle in discovering the will of God for my life will be practiced by very few because it takes effort, time, and thought and most simply won’t do it. As with many things, that which is most difficult is also most important.

Principle # 9 – Get close to God and do what you want.

Back when I was struggling with knowing whether to be a pastor or not, I asked a missionary to the Philippines named David Yount for some counsel and advice. I asked him because whenever he came home on furlough and spoke at our church in Trout Lake, Washington, he always motivated me, convicted me, and taught me how to live for God. When we went out for lunch He gave me the simple little slogan, “Get close to God and do what you want”. At first I didn’t get it, and responded by saying, “I don’t want to do what I want, but what God wants”! He said to me, “If you are close with God, what you want is what He wants, because He put it in you”, he then quoted Psalms 37:3 to me, “Delight yourself in the Lord , and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

God puts His will for my life in my mind, but I have to dredge it out. Principle # 5 is important here, “You have to seek it diligently if you expect to find it.”

Psalms 16:7 “I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.”

God puts His perfect will for me in my mind and it will create in me a desire, a want, and a dream. The tricky part is sorting out what God put there as opposed to what my own flesh wants, what the world has brainwashed me into wanting, and what the devil puts into my mind as he masquerades as an angel of God. The desires of my flesh, the desires of the world, evil desires, and God’s desires are all running around in my head and my thinking. The person who thinks figuring out which one is from God is easy is naive and a fool.

Tomorrow I will write about principle 10, how to sort out the desires and wants in me to figure out which is from God.

Principle # 8 – God will reveal his will for my life to me through others in my life if I am humble enough to seek it from them.

The definition of Pride in the Bible is, “I can do it by myself, I don’t need you!” Obviously we would all acknowledge the fact that if we say or think that about God we would have a major pride problem, we definitely all desperately need God in our lives. But what many don’t realize is that same definition of pride applies to others around me. God has created us incapable of accomplishing much by ourselves without help from others. His will for us is that we developed healthy interdependent relationships so that we can become successful and grow in maturity. In the Bible He uses the physical body as an illustration of the church, and calls each person in the church a part of the body, a hand, foot, ear etc. Obviously no part in the body can survive cut off from the body, we must be connected to function properly and succeed in life.

Asking others in our life for counsel on things we should change and grow in, in our Christian life, for advice on decisions we need to make, and counsel on how to succeed in various areas of life like marriage, managing our money, raising our kids, and success in our jobs requires humility. A key, is to understand that this is how God works, when we choose to humble ourselves and ask others for guidance God will often prompt them on what to say to us, He will speak through them.

When I was struggling with whether to leave the farm and pastor at Jefferson Baptist Church or stay and do what I loved most in life, I decided to ask my Dad for his counsel. I decided to do this after reading Proverbs 23:22 which says,

“Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old.”

And also Proverbs 1:8 which says,

“Hear, my son, your father’s instruction And do not forsake your mother’s teaching”

I was 28 years old and I didn’t like it when my Dad told me what to do, which is probably true of most young men. So I think he was very surprised when I asked him to sit down with me at the kitchen table and give me some counsel about a decision I needed to make. Things at the time were going very good on the farm and also between us as we worked together, so he was surprised again when I told him I was considering leaving the farm and being a pastor in Jefferson, Oregon. I explained to him the history of my involvement in the church having helped start it while going to Bible college in Salem a few years earlier, and my struggle in knowing what to do in responding to the opportunity to become the Pastor of the church following the resignation of the founding pastor. He thought about it for a minute and then said, “Go do it for one year, and see what happens, it is hard to know for sure if you will be good at something and enjoy it unless you give it a shot.” Then he added this little tid bit, “What will probably happen is that the people in the church will be super critical of everything you do, you will be miserable, and then you can come back and farm with me.” The counsel resonated with me, so Patty and I, and our 1 year old daughter moved to Jefferson the next week, and we have been here for 43 years.

Proverbs 1:5 A wise man will hear and increase in learning, And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no guidance the people fall, But in abundance of counselors there is victory.

Proverbs 24:6 For by wise guidance you will wage war, And in abundance of counselors there is victory.

Principle # 7 – The wise man will most often figure out what God’s will is.

Proverbs 2:2-10 Make your ear attentive to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding; For if you cry for discernment, Lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will discern the fear of the Lord And discover the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom….Then you will discern righteousness and justice And equity and every good course. For wisdom will enter your heart

“You will discern every good course” because you sought for wisdom like gold and you found it.

We used to hide colored hard boiled eggs in our yard when our kids were young at Easter time, and they had a blast looking for them. We didn’t hide them to hard because we wanted them to find them. Check this cool verse out.

Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

God hides His perfect plan and will from me, He doesn’t hide it to hard, because He wants me to find it, and I will find it if I have wisdom. The main source of wisdom is reading, studying, and memorizing the wisdom of God, the Bible.

Psalms 119:97-100 O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts.

The person who wants to consistently know what the will of God is for his life in every detail will faithfully read the Bible. I read 12 chapters every single day, I memorize 4 new verses every week and review and meditate on all verses memorized every month. I am seeking a growing relationship with God and I am seeking for wisdom.

I have established a dozen principles that I have discovered in a careful study of the Bible on God’s guidance in our life. I wrote about the first 5 in yesterday’s blog and I will cover another one today. I did this study way back in 1975 when I was working on a dairy with my Dad and struggling with whether I should continue farming or go into the ministry, and I have been refining it ever since.

Principle # 6 – God communicates His will to the person who He knows will actually do it.

Every morning I begin the day with a prayer of dedication and commitment after the pattern of Romans 12:1-2, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Notice the promise given, “that you may prove what the will of God is”.

And notice the condition set, “Present your bodies a holy and living sacrifice”.

So my morning prayer of commitment begins with this, “Today, Lord Jesus, I will obey You, I will follow you, I will do whatever Your will is for my life no matter how difficult or how hard it may be.”

I haven’t missed my morning prayer of commitment and dedication for over 30 years. I include other commitments in my morning prayer, but the key part is “I will obey You”no matter what.

God’s will for our life is usually hard and we aren’t wired for hard. I think there are many Christians in the United States who really don’t want to know the will of God because they suspect that it might be hard. Until we are willing to do anything He asks, no matter how hard, we will never know God’s will for our life.