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

By Jen Wilkin

INTRODUCTION: ASKING THE BETTER QUESTION

• If you’ve ever said, “I just want to know God’s will for my life,” this book is for you.

• Before we believed, we did what felt right or what seemed rational to our darkened minds. But now we know our feelings deceive us and our self-serving logic betrays us.

• Without meaning to, we can begin to regard our relationship with God primarily as a means toward better decision-making. We can slip into a conception of God as a cosmic Dear Abby, a benevolent advice columnist who fields our toughest questions about relationships and circumstances. Because we do not trust our judgment, we ask him who we should marry or which job we should take.

• These are not terrible kinds of questions to ask God. To some extent, they demonstrate a desire to answer the question “What is God’s will for my life?” They show a commendable desire to honor God in our daily doings. But they don’t get to the heart of what it means to follow God’s will for our lives. If we want our lives to align with God’s will, we will need to ask a better question than “What should I do?”

• But if Scripture teaches us anything, it is this: God is always more concerned with the decision-maker than he is with the decision itself.

• God can use the outcome of any decision for his glory and for our good.

• Often the answer to the question “What should I do?” could go either way.

• 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?”

• Perhaps you’ve known the frustration of hearing silence, or worse, of acting on a hunch or “leading” only to find later that you apparently had not heard the Lord’s will.

• Of course, the questions “What should I do?” and “Who should I be?” are not unrelated. But the order in which we ask them matters. 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.

• God created humankind and stamped us with his mark. He created us to bear his image, to be his representatives in our working and playing and worship.

• What is God’s will for your life? Put simply, that you would be like Christ. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). God’s will is that the cracks in the image we bear be repaired so that we represent him as we were created to do, so that we grow to look more and more like our brother, Christ, in whom form and function displayed themselves flawlessly.

• “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

• “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6). If we want to look like him, we will walk as he walked.

• So this is a book that intends to, once and for all, answer the question of God’s will for our lives. It intends to illuminate the narrow path for those of us who have grown forgetful of its existence or have wondered if it can be found.

• It shows itself to those whose deepest desire and dearest delight is to be remade—in his image.

CHAPTER 1: GOD MOST HOLY

• Repetition is the mother of learning. Roman proverb

• By paying attention to what the Bible repeats, we gain an understanding of what it most wants us to learn and remember.

• The Bible plainly answers the question “Who should I be?” with “Be like Jesus Christ, who perfectly images God in human form.” God’s will for our lives is that we conform to the image of Christ, whose incarnation shows us humanity perfectly conformed to the image of God.

• “How should the knowledge that God is [blank] change the way I live?”

• I have elsewhere explored the implications of ten of God’s incommunicable attributes that could fill that blank, those traits that are true of God alone. Only God is infinite, incomprehensible, self-existent, eternal, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and sovereign. When we strive to become like him in any of these traits, we set ourselves up as his rival. Human beings created to bear the image of God aspire instead to become like God. We reach for those attributes that are only true of God, those suited only to a limitless being. Rather than worship and trust in the omniscience of God, we desire omniscience for ourselves. Rather than celebrate and revere his omnipotence, we seek omnipotence in our own spheres of influence. Rather than rest in the immutability of God, we point to our own calcified sin patterns and declare ourselves unchanging and unchangeable. Like our father Adam and our mother Eve, we long for that which is only intended for God, rejecting our God-given limits and craving the limitlessness we foolishly believe we are capable of wielding and entitled to possess. To crave an incommunicable attribute is to listen to the Serpent’s lure, “You shall be like God.” It is the natural inclination of the sinful heart, but as those who have been given a new heart with new desires, we must learn to crave different attributes, those appropriate to a limited being, those that describe the abundant life Jesus came to give to us. We call these God’s communicable attributes, those of his traits that can become true of us, as well. God is holy, loving, just, good, merciful, gracious, faithful, truthful, patient, and wise. When we talk about being “conformed to the image of Christ,” this is the list we are describing. It is this list I intend to explore, ten attributes that show us how to reflect who God is as Christ did.

• If it’s true that we repeat what is most important, one attribute of God emerges clearly as belonging at the top of the list: holiness.

• No other attribute is joined to the name of God with greater frequency than holiness.

• I am no expert on angelic beings, but it seems likely that the first thing that comes to mind when they think about God is revealed in the one thing they repeat without ceasing: holy, holy, holy.

• The Bible presents holiness as both given to us and asked of us. It says, “In Christ, you are made holy. Now be holy.”

• For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. (Leviticus 11:44–45)

• You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. (Leviticus 20:26)

• We might be tempted to dismiss these instructions as just one more weird part of a weird Old Testament book, no longer applying to those under the new covenant. But the New Testament finds these words echoed on the lips of Jesus himself in the Sermon on the Mount.

• Peter repeats what had been repeated to him. Do not be conformed to who you were. Be re-formed to who you should be.

• If you are still wondering what God’s will is for your life, allow the apostle Paul to remove any lingering confusion: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7). Simply put, God’s will for your life is that you be holy. That you live a life of set-apartness. That, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you strive for utter purity of character (Hebrews 12:14).

• Every story of every figure in every corner of every book of the Bible is chanting this call. Be holy, for he is holy.

• Growing in holiness means growing in our hatred of sin. Growing in holiness means growing into being loving, just, good, merciful, gracious, faithful, truthful, patient, and wise.

• It means learning to think, speak, and act like Christ every hour of every day that God grants us to walk this earth as the redeemed.

• For this is the will of God, our sanctification.

CHAPTER 2: GOD MOST LOVING

• Of all his attributes, the love of God is perhaps the hardest to conceive apart from the lesser, human versions of love that shape our understanding. Human love, even in its finest moments, can only whisper of the pure and holy love of God.

• The Greek of Jesus’s day, which is also the language of the New Testament, distinguishes four different kinds of love, using a specific word for each. Becoming familiar with them helps us understand how the Bible describes God’s love, and can help clear up some of the cultural fog that has settled around our own conceptions of it.

• Eros is the word used to describe romantic love. Philia is the word used to describe brother-sisterly love shared between peers. Storge is the word used to describe a parent’s love for a child. Agape is the word used to describe the love of God.

• Whereas our common notion of love is that it is an emotion to be experienced, agape is an act of the will, “an intelligent, purposeful attitude of esteem and devotion; a selfless, purposeful, outgoing attitude that desires to do good to the one loved.” In other words, agape does not merely feel; it acts. Two hundred fifty-nine times the Bible describes a love that acts.

• “But agape your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” (Luke 6:35)

• Agape is patient and kind; agape does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Agape bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Agape never ends. What makes this passage beautiful for a wedding is the way it challenges the couple to transcend mere eros, or even philia, and to express toward one another the very kind of love that God has expressed toward them—unconditional, selfless, active, sacrificing, unflagging, unending agape.

• But agape is offered free of need, extended by a person whose greatest need has been met in Christ and originating in a God who has no needs whatsoever.

• But because agape is not bound by need, it can be given freely and lavishly, without any fear that it might be more wisely spent elsewhere. Second, earthly love covets reciprocity. We offer it on the basis that it will be returned. An earthly love that is not returned withers over time. Agape, on the other hand, is given with no requirement that it be returned. Certainly, we give it in the hope that it will bear witness to the agape of God toward sinners, but we extend it whether that is the outcome or not.

• It is most purely expressed when we give it to those from whom we have nothing to gain. When we show love to those who can do nothing for us, we reflect the love of God shown to us in Christ.

• “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love [agapao] the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love [agapao] your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:35–40)

• I refrain from murder, but do not do so out of love for God and others, I have not practiced true holiness. If I refrain from slander or covetousness, but do not do so out of love for God and others, I still sin.

• If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1–3)

• If I seek to be holy without agape, I add nothing, I am nothing, I gain nothing.

• Unless we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we will love ourselves and our neighbors inadequately. Right love of God is what enables right love of self and others.

• Agape transcends our feelings.

• When we encounter difficulty loving our neighbor, we often attempt to remedy the problem by trying harder at the task. Yet a deficit in our love of neighbor always points to a deficit in our love of God.

• Restoring the vertical relationship is the first step to righting the horizontal relationship. When I hesitate to show agape to my husband because he has hurt my feelings or disappointed me, I reveal that I believe agape is earned. Reminding myself of God’s unconditional, sacrificial love for me, I am stirred to love God more, and I am prompted to extend love to my husband freely, as I have received it freely from God.

• And what does right vertical relationship look like? It looks like the full deployment of our heart, soul, mind, and strength—the totality of our being—in the active love of God.

• But it is possible for us to love the love of God too much. We do this when we emphasize the love of God at the expense of his other attributes. Sin can cause us to love a version of God that is not accurate. This is the basic definition of idolatry, a disordered love.

• No longer can we parse our fellow humans into the categories of “lovable” and “unlovable.”

• When we begin to follow Christ, we resolve to love our neighbor even if it costs us. And it does cost us—it costs us our preferences, our time, our financial resources, our entitlement, our stereotypes. At times, it costs us our popularity, respect, and more. But in laying these aside, we learn the brokenness of the object of our love in a deeper way. We find increasing empathy, and as we mature, we resolve to love our neighbor no matter what it costs us.

• What is the will of God for your life? That you love as you have been loved. When faced with a decision, ask yourself: Which choice enables me to grow in agape for God and others? And then choose according to his will.

CHAPTER 3: GOD MOST GOOD

• The evidence of God’s attributes is waiting in Scripture, like so many gems to be unearthed as we read. Though the Bible is an obvious location to search for these treasures, we must excavate all the way to Genesis 18 to find the first explicit mention of God’s justice. We must dig to Genesis 24 to find the first explicit mention of God’s love. We must patiently mine to Exodus 22 for the first explicit mention of his compassion. But scarcely four verses into its opening chapter, the Bible eagerly places in plain sight for us the brilliant diamond of the goodness of God, no digging required: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. (Genesis 1:1–4) God sees that the light is good, not as an act of recognition, but as a reflection of his own goodness, originating in him and issuing from him. God is the source of all good and is himself wholly good.

• And the Bible can’t wait to tell us this. The Bible’s first chapter goes on to methodically reiterate the goodness of God as evidenced in the rest of what he creates. Sea, expanse, land—good. Plants—good. Sun, moon, stars—good. Fish, birds, beasts—good. Humans—good. “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Very good, exquisitely rendered from the hand of a very good God.

• Not only is God infinitely good, but he is immutably good, unchangingly good.

• The psalmist writes no less than five times: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good” (Palms 106:1; 107:1; 118:1, 29; 136:1).

• God’s goodness is a light that radiates through all his other attributes. It is the reason his omnipotence (possession of all power), omniscience (possession of all knowledge), and sovereignty (possession of all control) are a comfort instead of a terror. It is the reason we can dare to believe that he is able to work all things together for good as he has said (Romans 8:28).

• Perhaps we might fail to be amazed that the vestiges of a very good creation endure, even as it groans in the wake of its shattering. But let us marvel that even in our rebellious state, God’s goodness endures toward us in a thousand circumstances. He gives us daily bread, and often more than just that, though we are given to the habit of complaining for what we lack rather than contentment with what we possess. He gives us the joy of family and friends, though we are more prone to rage against him for the hard relationships than to thank him for the sweet ones. He grants us, on the whole, more days of joy than of sorrow, though our darkened hearts are more apt to curse him for the hard times than to bless him for the happy ones.

• Just as Christ radiates the goodness of God, so now should we. And according to him, that goodness should be evident in our lives.

• Be good. Be the person who seeks the welfare of others. Be the person who gives without counting the cost. Be the person who serves joyfully with no expectation of thanks or recognition. Be good employees, good next-door neighbors, good parents, good children, good musicians and public servants and artists and volunteers and caregivers and bankers. If you are, you’ll draw attention like a city on a hill at midnight in the desert.

• Paul encourages us that goodness may be wearying, but that it yields a harvest: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). The fight for goodness is one that will take time and effort. We may grow weary of our own internal resistance to growing in goodness, or we may grow weary of the resistance of others to our goodness lived out.

• What is the will of God for your life? That you would be good as he is good. That generosity would be your first impulse in the morning and your last thought at night. That you would walk in the light as he is in the light. There is no darkness in him and no room for it in us.

CHAPTER 4: GOD MOST JUST

• Those who do not cast themselves upon the perfect sacrifice of Christ will spend their lives attempting to make atonement by offering their own good works to a God of their own imagining.

• And though he disciplines in love, we may not immediately perceive it as loving.

• We have no need to self-justify. We need only confess our sins. Self-justification reveals a lack of understanding of the forgiveness we received through the cross. The cross of Christ means that the score is settled. The life of the believer who loves the justice of God will be marked not by scorekeeping, but by reverent obedience. It will be marked by a love of the moral law that reshapes our desires to reflect those of our heavenly Father. It will be marked by humble submission to where our good Governor sets the limits of what is right. The immediate effect of apprehending God’s justice will be an inward-facing desire to obey. The long-term effect will be an outward-facing desire to do justice for others.

• What is the will of God for your life? Hear the words of the prophet Micah: … and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

• Those of us who have any form of advantage must seek to use it to benefit our neighbors. Those of us who have more than our daily bread each day must have open eyes and open hands for those who are still awaiting theirs.

• What is the will of God for your life? That you be just as he is just, delighting in his law, extolling his good government, doing justice daily as children of your heavenly Father.

CHAPTER 5: GOD MOST MERCIFUL

• Justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting what we do not deserve.

• Though many conceive of the God of the Old Testament as a God of towering justice, absent of mercy, the Old Testament mentions his mercy more than four times as often as the New.

• “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Faithful and … just? Seeing God as faithful to forgive confessed sins seems intuitive, but it’s that reference to justice that confounded me when I slowed down to examine it. How can God’s forgiveness of our sins be just? Shouldn’t it say “faithful and merciful” not “faithful and just”? It took another failure to help me slow down and understand how this verse could be true.

• “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1).

• We must obey the will of God for our lives to “be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

• We must never forget that Jesus instituted a table of mercy on the night in which he was betrayed. On that night, he said of the bread, “This is my body.” On that night, he said of the wine, “This is my blood.”

CHAPTER 6: GOD MOST GRACIOUS

• ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved. John Newton

• God in his sovereignty extends grace to us before we can even contemplate its possibility or its worth.

• If grace is seen only as a free gift to cover our sins and not also as a means to growing in holiness, we will grow lax in our obedience.

• What is the will of God for your life? That you may have life, and that you may have it abundantly. That you may show preference to others, even as it has been shown to you in Christ. And that you would walk the narrow path, daily assured by the grace you received at the cross and daily strengthened by the grace you receive for every step forward toward holiness.

CHAPTER 7: GOD MOST FAITHFUL

• Trials bring us to our knees and remind us of our limits. They reorient us toward God. But they are not the only difficulty God uses to train us in righteousness. God also uses temptation to shape us. James reminds us that God does not tempt us and is himself unable to be tempted (James 1:13). This makes sense when we consider his omniscience.

• Like a muscle that gains strength over repeated workouts, so our ability to turn from temptation grows stronger with repeated practice. In order to lift a very heavy weight, a weightlifter starts with smaller weights and builds up strength over time. When we are faithful to God in smaller temptations, we build strength to face the bigger ones.

• We use our time faithfully, not squandering it as those who serve only themselves might do. We use our abilities faithfully, to bring glory to the One who gave them to us. We guard our thoughts faithfully, centering them on what is true, honest, just, pure, and lovely. We use our words faithfully, to edify and encourage, to exhort and rebuke, to pray without ceasing. We reflect on our reputation before others. Are we known as faithful in our marriages, our business dealings, our parenting, our volunteer commitments, our friendships, our charitable works?

• Ultimately, every act of faithfulness toward others is an act of faithfulness toward God himself.

• God’s will for your life is that you be faithful as he is faithful. Faithful to him. Faithful to others. Faithful in this moment. Faithful to the end. That which he wills, he also enables.

CHAPTER 8: GOD MOST PATIENT

• “Be patient. God isn’t finished with me yet.”

• The Perfect Patience of God When God first declares his character to Moses, he describes himself as slow to anger (Exodus 34:6), a trait that is then extolled in eight other Old Testament references.

• It is not surprising that the Bible gives ample indication that patience is the path of wisdom.

• Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. (Proverbs 14:29) A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (Proverbs 15:18) Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. (Proverbs 16:32) Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11)

• My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. (James 1:19–20 NIV)

• God’s will for our lives is that we would be patient as he is patient. He wills that we would follow the example of Christ’s patience and await the return of Christ patiently.

CHAPTER 9: GOD MOST TRUTHFUL

• Moral relativism, the idea that “what’s right for you may not be right for me,” is the product of finite minds. It is a way to accommodate the limited perspective that each of us necessarily operates from. Moral relativism asserts that personal truth is the highest form of truth we can possess, that no higher, absolute truth exists. The classic illustration of this idea is the story of the blind men and the elephant. Depending on what part of the elephant he is touching, each perceives it to be an animal of a certain kind: one finds it to be like a wall, another like a serpent, another like a spear, and so on. We are to conclude from this illustration that it is possible for all the men to be correct, albeit partially so.

• That would be the story of the Bible, the ultimate reality check for those wooed by moral relativism. The Bible declares that God himself is the benchmark for truth, the definer of reality, and that his creatures are subject to his definitions. Like the story of the elephant, it declares that people love darkness. But it also speaks of light coming into that darkness, resulting in the revelation of truth to those who were once blind. Like every belief system, Christianity asks and answers the existential questions all humans face: Origin: Where did I come from? Purpose: Why am I here? Problem: What’s wrong? Solution: What fixes what’s wrong? The way the Bible answers these questions frames the Christian worldview, the reality from which we operate: Origin: We are not a cosmic accident; we were created by God. Purpose: We exist to bring glory to God and to enjoy him forever. Problem: Like Adam and Eve, we exchanged the truth of God for a lie and rebelled against our Creator, rendering us spiritually dead. Solution: God sent his Son to redeem us from death to life.

• I am not a master of apologetics by any stretch, but the most compelling reason I have for believing the truthfulness of the Bible’s claims is that it answers the questions of where we came from, why we are here, what is wrong, and what fixes what is wrong in a more compelling way than any other belief system I have encountered. The way it describes sin is accurate. The solution it proposes for sin transcends human effort. The purpose it gives for human existence, if embraced, causes people to live sacrificially.

• Currently, the prevailing cultural message is “live your truth.” I do not mean to imply that culture has hatched a new darling idea. It has just labeled the same old, nothing-new-under-the-sun self-worshiping individualism with an updated turn of phrase. “Follow your heart,” “If it feels good, do it,” or even the words of Pilate to Jesus, “What is truth?” are all ways of saying that truth is in the eye of the beholder. You could substitute any of those phrases in place of the Serpent’s “You will not surely die,” and the story of the fall would be unaltered.

• To “live my truth” is to live in what feels normal to me, to walk in the way that seems right unto man (Proverbs 14:12). The problem with living my truth is that, above all else, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). It creates a false reality for me based on my natural preferences, a reality in which my preferences and desires tend to take precedence over those of others. Living my truth will inevitably prevent someone else from living theirs if our preferences are at odds with one another. Living my truth destroys my ability to live in community as I was intended, a community predicated not on actualizing all of my personal preferences, but on laying them down for the good of others. The problem with living my truth is that my truth is a lie. Instead of “living my truth,” may God direct me into living his, the only one there really is—the truth that rejects isolation instead of creating it. To do so is to plunge myself into the community that only a shared truth preserves.

• Even as those with spiritual eyes to recognize truth, we are sometimes selective in the truths we gaze upon. We can become too fixated on one part of the elephant, loving one part to the detriment of the whole. The believer is charged to seek and observe the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The full counsel of God’s Word is necessary to fulfilling this charge.

• What is the will of God for your life? His will is that you know the truth (John 8:32). That you walk in the truth (3 John 1:4). That you speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). That you be sanctified in truth (John 17:17). That you rejoice in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). That you rightly handle the truth (2 Timothy 2:15). That you obey the truth (1 Peter 1:22).

CHAPTER 10: GOD MOST WISE

• Knowledge is possessing the facts. Wisdom is the ability to achieve the best ends with the facts.

• Because God is not bound by time, he is able to determine the end from the beginning, acting within time with perfect awareness of all outcomes. Think, then, how much wisdom resides in the One who holds all knowledge. Because God holds all knowledge, he is able to choose perfect ends.

• It is possible to live a life of folly from start to finish. Because we are designed to live in community with others, a life spent in folly always affects more than just the individual who chooses it.

• For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” (1 Corinthians 3:18–20) We love to deceive ourselves that in choosing self, we have chosen rightly. And we love to deceive others that our choosing of self is actually not selfish. We become wise in our own eyes, as Proverbs says, giving the appearance of wisdom, but inwardly desiring the approval of others.

• By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:13–18)

• Worldly wisdom self-promotes. Godly wisdom elevates others. Worldly wisdom seeks the highest place. Godly wisdom seeks the lowest place. Worldly wisdom avoids the mirror of the Word. Godly wisdom submits to the mirror of the Word. Worldly wisdom trusts in earthly possessions. Godly wisdom trusts in treasures in heaven. Worldly wisdom boasts. Godly wisdom is slow to speak. Worldly wisdom says trials will crush you. Godly wisdom says trials will mature you. Worldly wisdom says temptation is no big deal. Godly wisdom says temptation indulged leads to death. Worldly wisdom says, “Seeing is believing.” Godly wisdom says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Worldly wisdom wields might. Godly wisdom works in meekness.

• Simply put, any thought, word, or deed that compromises our ability to love God and neighbor is folly. Utter foolishness.

• But the same writer who implores us to distinguish and avoid worldly wisdom is also eager for us to know how to possess Godly wisdom. James reminds us that it is ours for the asking: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). This is a stupendous statement. Lack wisdom? Just ask. God will give it.

• Having granted Solomon an internal framework for making decisions, Solomon does not ask for knowledge in the moment of the decision point. He uses the knowledge he has to make the best decision he can. Wisdom is a mark of spiritual maturity.

• They are transformed by the renewing of their minds, “that by testing [they] may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). I wish that the rest of Solomon’s story had followed the course of his early years. Later in his life, he wandered from the path of Godly wisdom onto the path of folly. The man who wrote that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10) traded the fear of the Lord for the fear of man, thereby trading wisdom for folly. He devoted himself to sensuality, wealth, and power. His story teaches us that there is no such thing as “once wise, always wise” for anyone but God. Like patience, mercy, and grace, we must remain constantly aware of our need for a sustaining supply of wisdom.

• In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples to “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8). We read these words and begin to make a list of the information or the possessions we would like to get from God. But I believe Jesus has a better request list in mind when he speaks these instructions. Jesus’s disciples, overwhelmed with the cost of following him, would not have heard his statement as an invitation to request new fishing boats or bigger houses. They would have heard them as an invitation to request spiritual resources—patience, courage, compassion, perhaps—or wisdom.

• The verb tense for ask, seek, and knock communicates not a one-time request but an ongoing one: keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. For those who understand the sorrow and destruction of a life of folly, no prayer request will be more urgent or more ongoing than the one for wisdom.

• The Word of God gives us discernment into what is arguably the area we need it most: the thoughts and intentions of our own hearts.

• The most basic act of wisdom is repentance.

• What is the will of God for your life? If any of you lack wisdom, ask.

CONCLUSION: ENGRAVED WITH HIS IMAGE

• By asking the better question of “Who should I be?” we find that the will of God for our lives is not hidden. The Bible is filled with exhortations for how we can reflect our Creator as we become increasingly like Christ. But in suggesting that we are to become better people, how do we avoid succumbing to something resembling a Christianized self-help program? How do we keep from slipping into a mind-set that accomplishes nothing more than behavior modification? Make no mistake, the Bible teaches us that behavior modification should absolutely follow salvation. But it occurs for a different reason than it does in the life of the unbeliever. There is a difference between self-help and sanctification, and that difference is the motive of the heart.

• The motive of sanctification is joy. Joy is both our motive and our reward. Jesus made this connection for his disciples: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:10–11).

• Fullness of joy results when we seek to reflect our Maker. It is what we were created to do. It is the very will of God for our lives.

• As we grow in holiness, love, goodness, justice, mercy, grace, faith, patience, truth, and wisdom, we look increasingly like Christ, who looks exactly like God.

• God’s will for our lives is that we be restored to mint condition.