Warren opens this section called PURPOSE #3 You Are Created to Become Like Christ with chapter 22: Created to Become Like Christ by teaching that God created us in His image. We are called to make his image and his light shine in the world. We are similar to God in that we are spiritual, intellectual, and relational beings. All people are born with a moral conscience. Christ was sent to restore our image of God and to remind us why and how we were created. Christ is our connection to God. He is our model of how we seek to grow closer to becoming more like God. Understanding that we will never reach this destination does not mean that we do not aspire toward that path. Character development, not personality alteration, is God's ultimate goal. Knowing Christ's character traits helps us choose correctly. Considering the fruits of the spirit as the 9 qualities we should all demonstrate to be like Christ helps us make the right choices in life. God develops and ripens these fruits by allowing us to experience temptations in which we are faced with becoming more loving, patient, full of joy, grace, knowledge, self-control, etc., or growing in the opposite direction. Life is a choice and God uses circumstances to teach us what He needs us to learn. Joy is based on our relationship with God and should not be equated with happiness based on circumstances. The fruits of the spirit develop in us as we draw closer to Christ. Chaos and peace, lies and truth, irritation and patience, are all opposites and signs that we are moving closer to or further away from our Master's desire for us. Satan is predictable, wanting to trip us up and exploit our weaknesses. First, it uses a specific pattern to do this in our lives, and we need to be able to recognize it. It finds a desire within us, suggests to us with a thought to pursue it, it starts from the mind and reaches the heart. Satan will then try to make us doubt God's word and plan for us. Next, Satan will lie to us to make us believe that everything will be fine and will try to convince us that there are no real consequences. Ultimately, temptation leads us to disobedience and traps us in sin. To overcome temptation it is first necessary to refuse to be intimidated. Understanding that we will never overcome temptation helps us learn that it is a process of becoming strong against Satan. Satan's temptation is actually to be seen as a compliment because it is a sign that Satan hates those who are followers of Christ, is afraid of those who seek to make a difference for Christ, and is
tags