It will aid the believer in Christ in the times of testing and trial if we will keep in mind what God’s goal is for our lives. It is a very ordered direction that God is taking us, and He has not withheld any information regarding His intention. Here it is: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom. 8:29) If we are saved, there is a purpose for it. That purpose is to conform us to Christ. The image of Christ is the object and the destination for our lives.

            “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” (Rom. 13:14). To be sure, Christianity is a matter of what you put off—the old man, with all his ways. “If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph. 4:21-24). 

            Notice that the old man is to be “put off.” The old man must go! He never did you any good in the first place, so to bid him farewell should be an occasion for joy if your spiritual faculties are attuned to the ways of God’s Spirit. The truth that “is in Jesus” tells you that with joy you may put the self-nature aside. All that is representative of “your former conduct” is to be “put off.” The old way of thinking and behaving must give way to something new. Therefore, as we put something off, in the same way we are to put something on. The “new man” is to be put on. This new man is the part of our spirits that is under a continuous influence of the Holy Spirit whereby we are being transformed into the image of Christ. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor. 3:18)

            God has predestined us to be changed into His image; therefore, the new man that we put on looks like Him. The image of Christ in all its perfection and glory arises within us as we continually yield more and more to the “new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Col. 3:10). The old man reflected the image of the world in all its horror and ugliness. But in Christ, all is made new (2 Cor. 5:17). Nothing from the past can haunt us any longer, for the old man has been put off. None of his wrongful decisions or woeful transgressions matter any longer, for he is gone. We must disown him and deny that we ever knew him! He does not think the way that the new man thinks; therefore, to try to reason with the old man who was dominated by the self-nature is an exercise in utter futility. Do not reason with him or try to change him. Do not even actively remember him. Put him off. Run from him! Consider him dead. The image of Jesus now is your focus. 

            Remember, the process begins with your putting something off and then putting something on. The new man who reflects the image of Jesus cannot live in your spirit with the old man.        

            Christ is the beginning and the end. He is the goal, the pattern, the objective. With Him, everything in life matters. Do not ever forget what your life is about: God is conforming you to Christ. That is your purpose because Christ is your life.

Bryan Dunaway

Grace and Peace Ministries

www.gandpministries.org