God will not make me like Christ against my will. How much I become like Christ depends on how much I cooperate with him. The good news is God will finish making me. He will make me like Christ, but this process is very long and slow, and will continue after I die. Just because I will be in paradise (with God) does not mean it’s all going to be a bed of roses. There will still be many things I need to repent of—sins I’m aware of, and sins I’m not yet aware of. I imagine it will be something like what is portrayed in the movie The Shack. No one will escape this. We must all pass through the fire. (We have all built some things of “wood, hay or straw.” See 1 Cor 3:12-15)
“The faithfulness of Jesus Christ is the cause of our salvation. Our faith is the result of it.” - Jeff Doles
Through God’s faithfulness all people eventually come to have perfect faith in Christ. How much we suffer in the process will depend on how clearly we see that God is good and that he seeks what is best for us. He must set us free from sin. He must make us brave, wise, grateful, honest, humble and kind. To be truly free we must become like Christ (see “The Truth in Jesus” by George MacDonald). This is the hard road that sooner or later we must all travel. See Is Hell Eternal?
The following four things are things I have found helpful.
Gratitude
Without gratitude, it's impossible to be happy.
It’s not how much we have, it’s how grateful we are for what we have that is the true measure of happiness. Poor people are often happier than rich people. Gratitude is a matter of perspective.
But how do you be grateful when you have been treated so badly?
If I believe I deserve better treatment, if I believe I do not deserve to suffer as much as I do, it will be very difficult for me to be grateful. But if I believe I deserve to suffer far worse than I have suffered, then I will endure suffering with patience and be grateful for the good things I receive.
The following is a lengthy quote from Solzhenitsyn’s book, The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn understood the key to gratitude.
“Yes, you have been imprisoned for nothing. You have nothing to repent of before the state and its laws.
But… before your own conscience? But… in relation to other individuals?
… Following an operation, I am lying in the surgical ward of a camp hospital. I cannot move. I am hot and feverish, but nonetheless my thoughts do not dissolve into delirium—and I am grateful to Dr. Boris Nikolayevich Kornfeld, who is sitting beside my cot and talking to me all evening. The light has been turned out—so it will not hurt my eyes. He and I—and there is no one else in the ward.
Fervently he tells me the long story of his conversion from Judaism to Christianity. This conversion was accomplished by an educated, cultivated person, one of his cellmates, some good-natured old fellow like Platon Karatayev. I am astonished at the conviction of the new convert, at the ardor of his words.
We know each other very slightly, and he was not the one responsible for my treatment, but there was simply no one here with whom he could share his feelings. He was a gentle and well-mannered person.
It is already late. All the hospital is asleep. Kornfeld is ending up his story thus:
“And on the whole, do you know, I have become convinced that there is no punishment that comes to us in this life on earth which is undeserved. Superficially it can have nothing to do with what we are guilty of in actual fact, but if you go over your life with a fine-tooth comb and ponder it deeply, you will always be able to hunt down that transgression of yours for which you have now received this blow.”
I cannot see his face. Through the window come only the scattered reflections of the lights of the perimeter outside. And the door from the corridor gleams in a yellow electrical glow. But there is such mystical knowledge in his voice that I shudder.
These were the last words of Boris Kornfeld. Noiselessly he went out into the nighttime corridor and into one of the nearby wards and there lay down to sleep. Everyone slept. And there was no one with whom he could speak even one word. And I went off to sleep myself.
And I was wakened in the morning by running about and tramping in the corridor; the orderlies were carrying Kornfeld’s body to the operating room. He had been dealt eight blows on the skull with a plasterer’s mallet while he still slept. (In our camp it was the custom to kill immediately after rising time, when the barracks were all unlocked and open and when no one yet had got up, when no one was stirring.) And he died on the operating table, without regaining consciousness.
And so it happened that Kornfeld’s prophetic words were his last words on earth. And, directed to me, they lay upon me as an inheritance. You cannot brush off that kind of inheritance by shrugging your shoulders.
But by that time I myself had matured to similar thoughts.
I would have been inclined to endow his words with the significance of a universal law of life. However, one can get all tangled up that way. One would have to admit that on that basis those who had been punished even more cruelly than with prison—those shot, burned at the stake—were some sort of super-evildoers. (And yet… the innocent are those who get punished most zealously of all.) And what would one then have to say about our so evident torturers: Why does not fate punish them? Why do they prosper?
(And the only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but… in the development of the soul. From that point of view our torturers have been punished most horribly of all: they are turning into swine, they are departing downward from humanity. From that point of view punishment is inflicted on those whose development… holds out hope.)
But there was something in Kornfeld’s last words that touched a sensitive chord, and that I accept quite completely for myself. And many will accept the same for themselves.
In the seventh year of my imprisonment I had gone over and re-examined my life quite enough and had come to understand why everything had happened to me: both prison and, as an additional piece of ballast, my malignant tumor. And I would not have murmured even if all that punishment had been considered inadequate.
Punishment? But … whose? Well, just think about that—whose?
I lay there a long time in that recovery room from which Kornfeld had gone forth to his death, and all alone during sleepless nights I pondered with astonishment my own life and the turns it had taken. In accordance with my established camp custom I set down my thoughts in rhymed verses—so as to remember them. And the most accurate thing is to cite them here—just as they came from the pillow of a hospital patient, when the hard-labor camp was still shuddering outside the windows in the wake of a revolt.
When was it that I completely
Scattered the good seeds, one and all?
For after all I spent my boyhood
In the bright singing of Thy temples.Bookish subtleties sparkled brightly,
Piercing my arrogant brain,
The secrets of the world were … in my grasp,
Life’s destiny … as pliable as wax.Blood seethed—and every swirl
Gleamed iridescently before me,
Without a rumble the building of my faith
Quietly crumbled within my heart.But passing here between being and nothingness,
Stumbling and clutching at the edge,
I look behind me with a grateful tremor
Upon the life that I have lived.Not with good judgment nor with desire
Are its twists and turns illumined.
But with the even glow of the Higher Meaning
Which became apparent to me only later on.And now with measuring cup returned to me,
Scooping up the living water,
God of the Universe! I believe again!
Though I renounced You, You were with me!Looking back, I saw that for my whole conscious life I had not understood either myself or my strivings. What had seemed for so long to be beneficial now turned out in actuality to be fatal, and I had been striving to go in the opposite direction to that which was truly necessary to me. But just as the waves of the sea knock the inexperienced swimmer off his feet and keep tossing him back onto the shore, so also was I painfully tossed back on dry land by the blows of misfortune. And it was only because of this that I was able to travel the path which I had always really wanted to travel.
It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.
Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.
And since that time I have come to understand the falsehood of all the revolutions in history: They destroy only those carriers of evil contemporary with them (and also fail, out of haste, to discriminate the carriers of good as well). And they then take to themselves as their heritage the actual evil itself, magnified still more.
The Nuremberg Trials have to be regarded as one of the special achievements of the twentieth century: they killed the very idea of evil, though they killed very few of the people who had been infected with it. (Of course, Stalin deserves no credit here. He would have preferred to explain less and shoot more.) And if by the twenty-first century humanity has not yet blown itself up and has not suffocated itself—perhaps it is this direction that will triumph?
Yes, and if it does not triumph—then all humanity’s history will have turned out to be an empty exercise in marking time, without the tiniest mite of meaning! Whither and to what end will we otherwise be moving? To beat the enemy over the head with a club—even cavemen knew that.
“Know thyself!” There is nothing that so aids and assists the awakening of omniscience within us as insistent thoughts about one’s own transgressions, errors, mistakes. After the difficult cycles of such ponderings over many years, whenever I mentioned the heartlessness of our highest-ranking bureaucrats, the cruelty of our executioners, I remember myself in my captain’s shoulder boards and the forward march of my battery through East Prussia, enshrouded in fire, and I say: “So were we any better?”
When people express vexation, in my presence, over the West’s tendency to crumble, its political shortsightedness, its divisiveness, its confusion—I recall too: “Were we, before passing through the Archipelago, more steadfast? Firmer in our thoughts?”
And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!”
Lev Tolstoi was right when he dreamed of being put in prison. At a certain moment that giant began to dry up. He actually needed prison as a drought needs a shower of rain!
All the writers who wrote about prison but who did not themselves serve time there considered it their duty to express sympathy for prisoners and to curse prison. I… have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation:
“Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!””
— The Gulag Archipelago: by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Despite deserving to suffer for all the people I have hurt, God loves me anyway and treats me far better than I deserve. See What is the Gospel?
But this is no easy thing, accepting that I deserve to suffer and then choosing to put Christ's words into practice. I can fight God, but in the end I must accept that He is God and I am not. This is what it means to wrestle with God. There is no getting around this.
Not only do I have to accept that I deserve to suffer more than I do, and then focus on doing what God wants me to do (see Hearing God’s Voice), I must also make an effort to choose to thank God for the good things—even in the worst of circumstances. When I do this, I rise above the circumstances and do what’s right no matter how I feel. If I do not, I become irritable and angry. I succumb to temptation because my goal shifts from coming close to God, to feeling better. Instead of rising above the circumstance, I become a victim of the circumstance. I become weak willed, instead of strong willed. I live as though I am a helpless victim who has no choice in the matter.1
If my goal is to avoid suffering, I will lack moral courage. I will not speak up when I should, because I will be afraid of what will happen if I do. But if I'm able to accept that I deserve far worse than I receive, it will help me to have the courage to do and say what is right. Whatever happens to me, it is not as bad as I deserve.
Even when thanking God feels fake to me, I try to do it anyway. I have to come to terms with things if I'm going to put Jesus words into practice. I have to count the cost. The more I get into this habit, the more grateful I become, and the happier I become. (If you feel like you can't thank God because you wonder what he has done for you, or you think he has given up on you, remember this, God become a man and died for you. Just before making my decision to follow Christ, the preacher said—from the pulpit mind you—"God became a man and died for a scumbag like you." And I remember thinking, "You don't have to tell me I'm a scumbag mate. I know I'm a scumbag."2 See Luke 17:7-10. We have to come to terms with who we are and who God is if we are to be free. See the movies Father Stu and The Shack. God never gives up on anyone. Love Conquers All)
Courage
Without courage, there can be no virtue.
Often, we experience fear and anxiety because we value and pursue the wrong kinds of things. This results in irrational and/or unproductive behaviour. The only way to really overcome this problem is to begin to put the following words of Jesus into practice.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” - Matt 6:19-21
We must choose to acknowledge and face our (irrational) fears. Without courage we will not become better people. Don’t give into peer group pressure. Set the example. Be the leader. Do what is right. Don’t follow them. They have to follow you. And if they won’t, go alone. (Only you won’t be alone. God will be with you.)3
Obedience
“Had he done as the Master told him, he would soon have come to understand. Obedience is the opener of eyes.” (Unspoken Sermons Vol 2, by George MacDonald)
Lots of things only begin to make sense after we begin to trust God and put Jesus words into practice. Don’t go against your conscience though. God gave you your sense of right and wrong. If you ignore your conscience you are ignoring God. See Conscience.
Prayer
“The impossibility of doing what we would as we would, drives us to look for help.”
This is how this little book on prayer by George MacDonald begins.
Prayer: Three "Unspoken Sermons" by the man who inspired C S Lewis (The three chapters are taken from Vol 2 of Unspoken Sermons.)
We are weak. We need all the help we can get.
G COP: Gratitude, Courage, Obedience, Prayer
In an age that mocks Christianity, it takes courage to talk about Jesus. When I do what he asks of me, and I speak freely regarding what I know is right, this is when I bring the most glory to God. Bringing glory to God has become the overarching goal of my life. The worse the situation, the greater the opportunity to bring glory to God by the way I behave.
I look forward to the day when God has finished making me. I look forward to the day when I’m like Christ. When I am that pure in heart, even what you or I would regard as relatively minor sin will disgust me. When I'm as honest, brave, and as kind as Jesus, I will not be able to bring myself to do an inconsiderate or selfish thing, no matter how small. But that day is a long way away. (One day I will be like the superman spoken about in this sermon. Becoming Superman.)
I do not deserve God’s love. He does not approve of many of the things I think, say, or do, but he loves me anyway. God loves us not because we are loveable, but because he is perfectly loving.
We belong to God. He made us, and he loves us. From God we came, and to God we will return. But is knowing that enough?
Knowing something about God is not the same as knowing him. The more we focus on how much purer in heart Jesus is than we are, the more we think about and meditate on how differently we would behave if we were like him, the more we will be humbled by just how much greater he is than we are. This will help us to want to be like him. It will help us to trust and obey him. And if we humbly trust and obey him we will really come to know him. But even then, how exactly can anyone truly know God? See Saving Knowledge
Choosing to follow Christ is not easy, but the alternative has problems of its own.
We always have a choice before us; we can choose to bring glory to God—this is the path that leads to hope—or we can choose to put our own needs (or rather, what we perceive to be our needs) before the needs of others—this is the path that leads to despair. Without hope, life is not worth living.
“...suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (Rom 5:3b, 4)
Should we therefore choose to suffer? Only if we have a choice between suffering while doing what is right, and not suffering and doing what is wrong.
Following Jesus is the hard narrow way—the way of self-denial—but it is the way that fills a person with a hope that cannot be destroyed. However, I do not regard following Jesus as self denial; if I did, I wouldn’t get far. Will an athlete train hard for many months on end, if every time he trains he thinks about all the fun things he could be doing with his friends? If every time he eats healthy food and gets to bed early he thinks about how he could be eating junk food and partying it won’t be long before he gives up. But if instead he thinks about what he is gaining and keeps before his mind his goal, he will be self-disciplined; he will be able to put his heart and soul into his training. He will not view such hard work as giving something up; he will view it is as the path to victory. (But do not mistake me, following Jesus is not simply a matter of will power. See temptation.)
If being like God, and near God is what we most desire, we will trust him by setting out to do his will. If we are not trusting and obeying Jesus we are atheists—we are living as if God does not exist. (Many people who call themselves Christians are atheists. They spend much of their time trying to convince themselves and others that they believe in Jesus (see Jer 17:9), but their personal choices betray them. Sooner or later they reap the despair that comes with disbelief.)
“You can't live on amusement. It is the froth on water - an inch deep and then the mud.” ~ George MacDonald
We must die to live.
“Christ died to save us, not from suffering, but from ourselves; not from injustice, far less from justice, but from being unjust. He died that we might live—but live as he lives, by dying as he died who died to himself that he might live unto God. If we do not die to ourselves, we cannot live to God, and he that does not live to God, is dead.” ~ George MacDonald
Christians would do well to ask themselves the following questions. What do I want more than anything else? Do I want God? Or do I just want something God can give? In other words, am I just using God to try and get something I want? Or am I trying to come near him?
Trusting and obeying Jesus is the only right kind of self-service. The more I trust and obey Jesus the closer I come to God. And the closer I come to God, the more my heart is filled with hope. (And hope increases the strength of my will.)
Jesus said that if we continue to obey him, we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free. Do not choose the path that leads to nowhere.
“Get up, and do something the Master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once.” ~ George MacDonald
"We must do the thing we must
Before the thing we may;
We are unfit for any trust
Till we can and do obey." (from the poem Willie's Question by George MacDonald)
My goal in life is to be intimate with God. God is all I need. Trusting and obeying Jesus leads to intimacy with God, and with people. (Not all people, but some. The more trustworthy I become, the more I will be trusted.) The more I trust God, the more I will love others, and the more some will love me.
“Love is the opener as well as closer of eyes.” ~ George MacDonald
We may seek power, meaning, or pleasure more than other things, but it is intimacy we truly desire.
“Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.” ~ George MacDonald
1. George MacDonald described being born again as having ones will born. The more like Christ I become, the stronger my will becomes. It is no easy thing putting Jesus words into practice. But the more like Christ I become, the more emotionally mature I become. Christ is the only true man. The more we become like him in character, the more we become true men and women. This seems to be something that the actor Denzil Washington has grasped. See "Denzel Washington gets BAPTIZED & Becomes Licensed Minister in COGIC Church! (2024)" on YouTube.
2. He wasn't singling me out. He may have said "scumbags."
3. Putting Jesus words into practice makes us emotionally mature. See the YouTube video "C.S. Lewis: Stay Quiet After Disrespect" by Wisdom Of Wins.