For the New Year: The Goal of the Image of Christ

Understandably, the most popular time in the year to set goals is the very end of the year or the very beginning. The beginning of the year is better than nothing, but the end of the year is the time someone can still do something about getting a jump start on the very beginning of the year.

It seems that it was Zig Ziglar that said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” “Aim” is a synonym for “goal,” a word not in the King James Version. The Apostle Paul uses that terminology in Philippians 3:14, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” “The mark” was his ultimate goal, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. One could call that an overarching goal.

Christ Jesus is the end, which fits what Paul says is the purpose in Romans 8:28-30, conforming to the image of Jesus Christ. How do we do that? Jesus started the church as a major instrument for accomplishing that task. The ultimate aim, which is certainly not nothing, is Jesus Christ. This reminds me of Hebrews 12:2, “Looking unto Jesus.”

Paul describes what occurs in 2 Corinthians 3:18, which is essentially the purpose of the New Covenant: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” In what glass does someone see the glory of Jesus Christ? James says that mirror is the Word of God, which Paul again calls “the Word of Christ” in Colossians 3:16. By looking into that image of Christ in His Words, the Holy Spirit changes someone into that image.