Galatians 4.19 comments, Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ’s life becomes visible in your lives?

The key phrase here is ‘until Christ’s life becomes visible in your lives.’ This is the goal of God in the development of our character. We are to bear the fruit of the Spirit, doing the work of Jesus, in the way of Jesus, for the glory of God and the welfare of humanity. What does this look like?

Jesus came not to do His own will but the will of the Father. Our life’s purpose is not our accumulation of increasing comfort and pleasure. Our purpose is to work where we are, with whom we know, to see God’s kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Some will extend this work beyond their immediate locale but most of us are to work daily at moving the people in our lives into a greater love for, and obedience to, Jesus. This is our work, our mission, our purpose, for it is the will of God that all come to be saved and for all to be conformed into His image.

How does this work get accomplished like Jesus did it? By sacrificing ourselves and serving people we build influence in order to win them to Jesus and help them grow into His image. As Jesus did not come to be served but to serve and to lay down His life as a sacrifice for many, so too we are to serve and not seek to be served, and we are to do all that we can to see as many as we can become all that they can for Jesus and in Jesus.

This view of the Christian life is not what most of us are thinking or living and it shows in the poverty of Christ-likeness in the church and in the culture, but it doesn’t need to continue. We can choose this day to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength by serving men so that men come to serve God.