“The ultimate goal of a Christian is to become more Christlike every day.”
Those were the words that met me upon visiting a new church near the end of summer break. The sermon itself was quite solid. Centered around Biblical truths about heaven, it brought up a lot of very serious and thought-provoking points in very memorable ways. Yet rather than bringing up evangelism or reaching the lost, the pastor ended with those words.
“The ultimate goal of a Christian is to become more Christlike every day.”
That morning was not the first time that I had heard a variation of that sentiment. Whether in other sermons, books, podcasts or whatever else, the idea of Christians needing to be better versions of themselves every day is one that I have encountered more and more over the years. So often, speakers talk about God meeting people where they are in order to work one-on-one to turn them into a better version of themselves. Even in my personal life, I recently had a family member advise me to never pray with a man I dated until we were engaged because a Christian’s relationship with God’s guidance for their life was so intimate and personal.
Intimate and personal.
Two more words that stuck with me. Again, it was not a sentiment I felt comfortable arguing. After all, I myself have experienced God in several very intimate and personal ways, but something about the phrasing of it gnawed at me. Something that I did not understand until I connected it with that sermon on heaven.
If we as a culture honestly believe that the greatest goal of a Christian is to be a better version of themselves every day, and we also believe that our faith is a personal thing between ourselves and God, have we made the gospel self-centered? What happens when we have allowed our own growth and betterment to become our driving motivator? What have we, as Christians, lost?
In pondering these questions, I ended up sitting down with Dr. Brian Hull, the associate dean of Asbury’s School of Christian Studies, who has spoken before in chapel on very similar issues.
“If we’re following in the way of Jesus, that way leads us to the cross,” said Dr. Hull. “That’s where He wound up. We often get so enamored with the resurrected and glorified Jesus [that] we forget there’s a way there… Looking at faith as self-help [and] very individualized has become really problematic because the Gospels actually call us to live in real community.”
I believe that the call to community has only become easier to overlook. The moment that God’s mission becomes about ‘me’ as an individual, I no longer need His people. I no longer need His church. All I need is to lean on Him and grow more like Him day by day.
Is that a beautiful sentiment? Of course it is, but being beautiful does not make it true. God created humans to be communal beings reaching toward Him together. Yet, on top of all of that, there is something even deeper that came to bother me from that first sermon on heaven; something that I have not been able to stop thinking about.
As a baptized born-again Christian, I have publicly dedicated my life to following Jesus wherever He may lead. If I believe that God’s ultimate goal is to make me a better person, that is a very easy trip, but Jesus did not spend His time on earth improving a single disciple. Instead, He traveled far and wide, seeking out the lost and the least to bring to Him. He went to the lost, and if I truly desire to follow Him, that is where I must go as well.
Human nature makes it easy for anything to turn self-centered. Even in our faith, it can be comforting to be surrounded by the message that God came to give us what we already want, but what if we stopped settling for that answer? As we enter this new school year, we have all been given a fresh chance to search out a church and community that does not just comfort us with coffee and fun music but grants us a community in which we can journey together in Christ’s footsteps toward the lost, and that is a chance worth cherishing.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
