You become more like God by living as you believe him to be

Character: The part of your identity that you choose

Character is a word used more frequently than it is understood. Your character is what you do, why you do it, and how you feel about it. Your character is the composite of qualities that describe how and why you will think, feel, and act, under what circumstances.

Your character consists of the aspects of yourself that are your choice. Your character can be thought of as what distinguishes you from someone else in all the ways you could choose to be the same.

To understand and, ultimately, improve your character, you’ll have to be more careful and correct in the boundaries you place between what you can and can’t control than many modern people are. Every attribute you could change through choice forms a part of your character. Very few attributes are completely beyond the reach of your choices.

In addition to conflating personal qualities that can and can’t be changed, many people conflate who they are with what they have. Who you are is not defined by what you have.¹ Who you are is completely transferable to any situation, with or without any of your things.² Your family, your looks, your health, your friends, your reputation, your money, your career, and your hobbies do not define your character. In fact, your character could be defined as what would remain if everything external in your life were taken away,³ or even if life itself was taken away.⁴ Under this consideration, few people have very much character at all, and what they do have isn’t very good.

Character is built, destroyed, and changed through decisions

You get to choose what your character is. Your choices determine who you are. The choices you make determine your character, not the other way around. You can shape your character like a sculptor shapes clay. Your decisions from one moment to the next are what shape the trajectory of your character.

Character is cumulative and malleable. Character is built or destroyed through successive decisions. Every single thing you do matters. Your character is the summation of all the choices you have made in life to this point. Your character is the trend line of the quality of decisions you make in life. Good choices strengthen and improve your character. Character improvement takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of consistency. Poor choices weaken and degrade your character. Character degradation happens in an instant, is the easiest path, and takes only momentary weakness. Character is not something you can pick up when it is convenient and set down when it is not. Character takes a lifetime to build and a moment to destroy. While one good choice will not demonstrate good character, one terrible choice can demonstrate poor character. Even when you immediately repent, it takes time to demonstrate that you would not make the same poor choice if given another chance.

Whether you use this life to improve or degrade your character, and by how much, is up to you. Character is not something fixed from birth. No matter how your character is now, what it becomes is completely up to you. You can gain or remove anything you choose about what you do, why you do it, and how you feel about it. Who are you? Who do you want to be? What is the difference? No matter the size of the gap between who you are and who you want to be, it is just comprised of one thing: your own choices. As soon as you realize that your choices determine who you are, you can instantly shift who you are by making different decisions. You can design and adopt a completely different character by thinking about how you want to be and choosing according to how that person would.⁵

You become like God by making decisions as he would in your place, subject to your circumstance

Living according to the character of Jesus is not the same as reproducing his circumstances. When Jesus said that we should be as he is,⁶ he did not mean that we should time travel back 2,000 years, learn Aramaic, adopt ancient clothes, be raised as a Jew, or be crucified by them.

Character is not circumstantial. It is not defined by your surroundings, resources, advantages, or disadvantages, but rather by how you respond to what you can change. You can’t accurately predict how Jesus would live in your place without separating what you can and can’t change. The differences between you and God that lie outside of your control don’t excuse you from changing what lies within your control. The differences between you and God that you can control are limited to the differences in the choices you make when facing the same situation.

How Jesus would live in your situation, subject to your circumstances, is not the same as how he would live in his own. You have a host of advantages he did not have, including internet, hot showers, antibiotics, flushing toilets, clean water, abundant food, cars, and advanced language. He also had a host of advantages you do not have, including greater knowledge, wisdom, and power. In order to know how Jesus would live in your place, you have to adapt his example to the different circumstances you live in.

Jesus knows all things, and you do not. But what would he think, feel, and do if all he knew was what you presently know? He would do the best he could with what he knew, including doing all he could to learn more. Go and live likewise.

Jesus has power to do mighty miracles, and you do not. But what would he think, feel, and do if he didn’t have power to do mighty miracles? He would implement God’s will to the full extent of the power he had. Go and live likewise.

Notice that true limitations are never questions of choice. Suppose you believe that Jesus would always tell the truth. You cannot excuse yourself for doing anything less, because while you can’t decide to have perfect wisdom or miraculous power, you can decide to be honest.

Become more like Jesus, one decision at a time

Life presents an unending flow of situations which provide you opportunities to establish, develop, reinforce, or degrade your character. How you respond to life’s endless stream of situational stimuli will show who you are and determine who you become. Over time, your decisions will always close or extend the gap between you and God.

In every moment, you are choosing what your character will become through the decisions you make: what you do, why you do it, and how you feel about it. Can you make your very next decision exactly as Jesus would in your place? If not, can you make your next decision exactly as you sincerely believe Jesus would in your place? If not, can you at least indicate how you sincerely believe Jesus would make that decision? If you don’t know, could you find out?

The purpose of life is to provide all with the opportunity to make their character more like God’s through learning more about what he is like and living as he would.⁷ To know someone’s character perfectly is to be able to perfectly predict how they will act, why, and how they feel about it in any situation. You don’t know enough about God to accurately anticipate how he would act, why, and how he would feel in any situation. However, you do have an idea of these things and the ability to seek to learn more to increase the breadth, depth, and accuracy of that idea. As you make decisions as you believe Jesus would in your place, you will learn more about how he would actually live in your place.

Be ye perfect

No person can go in one step from how they are to how God is, and everyone seems to naturally know that well enough to balk at anyone who suggests that they can be perfect. You can’t be exactly as God is right now. You do not know what God knows, desire what he desires, or desire it as much as he does. In fact, you are so far from how he actually is that you can’t know how far you actually are.⁸ And yet, Jesus said very clearly: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) The key to this seeming contradiction lies in the idea that God’s definition of perfect is very different from how we use the word. In the ancient languages, perfect was not the description of an outcome so much as a process; a process that maximally flows and grows to the intended end. To be perfect in Christ is to progress as quickly as possible in your understanding of how he is by living exactly as you believe he would in your place given how you presently understand him to be.

While it is not possible to become how God actually is in a single step, the path towards him is composed of a long series of steps, each of which requires us to be exactly like him, so far as we presently perceive him to be. To be perfectly aligned with your present understanding of God, you have to forsake all things you believe he wouldn’t do in your place while unfailingly doing all things you believe he would do in your place:

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God. (Moroni 10:32)

Many erroneously consider submission to God as the process. Getting to know God is a process, but obedience is not. The gospel consists of events and processes. It is important to correctly recognize which is which. While learning more about God is a process, obeying him is a choice. Learning more about him is a process, but deciding to submit to him is an event. This event is called repentance. It entails forsaking everything you know of that is contrary to God, and embracing all things that align with him, with the understanding that he will incrementally teach you more and different information than your present understanding of him.

Progress towards God is not all at once with regard to the perfection of God, but it must be all at once with regard to how you understand the perfection of God to be. Our progress towards how God actually is always incremental, but our progress towards how we presently perceive God to be never is. You can’t give your whole soul to God in installments. You can’t sacrifice yourself completely a little at a time. You can’t work yourself up to loving God above all else. You either do or you don’t, and until you do, you don’t.

The gospel is meant to be a means to become more like Jesus

What is the intended outcome of Christianity? How are adherents to the faith meant to be different as a result of their faith? If the fruit of Christianity is to sometimes do something marginally better than you otherwise would, then it provides no benefit over what many nonChristians already enjoy. Christianity is meant to be so much more than this. Christianity, properly lived, provides the means for a person to continuously become more like Jesus Christ.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a mechanism to learn what he does, why he does it, and how he does it. The word “gospel” comes from two Old English words meaning “good” and “story.” These two words brilliantly encapsulate what the gospel is: what is good, how to do good, and why to do good. The “good story” is how Jesus is, how and why he became how he is, and how and why we are to become like him.

Common Christianity has lost the fact that the gospel is a mechanism to effect change in us. The gospel enables us to become and remain reconciled to how God would act in our place as we continue increasing in our understanding of how he is. To be a real Christian is to be a disciple of Christ—to learn and live according to how Jesus would in your place.

For far too many, the gospel is a list of things you do or don’t do. Most Christians place their focus on the presence or absence of specific outward actions. While such a low-information representation of the gospel may yield outcomes that are preferable to nothing at all, it is nonetheless woefully inadequate to yield anything near what God intends. The vast difference between the fruits of common Christianity and the historical gospel, as recorded in scripture, continually demonstrate this.

Christianity is not just about going to church. There will always be more Pharisees to fill the seats in church than there are disciples to fulfill the purpose of church. Church is meant to be a means to demonstrate how God is and persuade others to be like him.

Religious rites are not the gospel. They are invitations to become more like Christ, not magical spells that provide you with the blessings of being like him without requiring you to actually become that way. They are symbols demonstrating the requirements and the path to becoming as Christ is.

The gospel is not merely about studying the scriptures. God has enough scribes ready to recite his word, but very few disciples willing to live it. Christianity is not just about what you think about God, but principally how much you know about and act like him.

Disciples of Christ strive to become as much like Jesus as they can be, not as little like Jesus as they can get away with. While many professed Christians use their religion as an excuse for why they don’t have to actually be like Jesus, real Christians find in their religion all the power needed to live as he would in their place and every necessary reason to desire to do so.

Becoming like God is the point and intent of the gospel. The gospel is about who you are and who you become, not just what you do. Jesus Christ is not just a static set of words, actions, or even ideas, and —neither is his gospel. Rather, the gospel of Jesus Christ is a process a process that increases your understanding of who, what, and why Jesus Christ is. We are meant to be like Jesus. The Lord plainly taught that it is his desire and intent that we be like him:⁹ to feel how he feels, to think how he thinks, and to do what he does.

The gospel is the solution to the otherwise impossible puzzle of conveying the character of God: What is God like, why should we be the same way, and how do we accomplish it? The breadth and depth of differences between us and God¹⁰ present myriad obstacles that inhibit him from more fully revealing himself to us. In our default state, we are not like God, we do not know what God is like, we would not like him very much if we did, we do not know how to get to know him, and we would not want to even if we did. It is only through the mercy and merits of Christ¹¹ that this can be accomplished.

The gospel consists of the instruction and persuasive reasons necessary to learn and live the character of God.¹² The gospel of Jesus Christ conveys the content of his character and adequate reasons to adopt it. The gospel is a means of improving our beliefs, feelings, and actions through the incremental revelation of the character of Christ,¹³ which provides us a model of how he is and sufficient reasons to make the necessary changes to become that way ourselves.¹⁴ The gospel of Jesus Christ is the process by which God shows you more of how he is while providing you the opportunity, reasons, and capability to become the same way yourself. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a mechanism which yields greater access to, perception of, and acquisition of the character of God by his children. Every facet of the gospel yields greater understanding of how God is, facilitates our becoming more like him in some way, and enables us to help others do the same. By learning and living the gospel, we learn more about how he is and become that way ourselves.

Is it blasphemous to believe you can become like God?

The doctrine of completely emulating Jesus is very difficult for people to hear and believe. When Jesus had performed a cascade of public miracles, he accumulated many who were excited to hear his teachings. He quickly repelled them by teaching them that they must be like him in order to come to the Father:

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. 60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? (John 6)

Modern readers assume that those who heard this sermon had difficulty with it because of the imagery of eating the Lord’s flesh and drinking his blood, but it was actually because the Jews who heard him knew what he meant by this. Like many today, they believed that living their outward rules, showing up to religious events, and participating in religious rites entitled them to God’s blessings, but Jesus taught that they actually had to become like God. Like most Christians today, they were not interested in changing their desires or giving up the wicked things outside of the defined rules of their faith that they knew were wrong.

Some erroneously think that believing that a person can become like God somehow degrades God. Those who contend that a man could never be like God think they are making a statement about the baseness of human nature, not realizing they are simultaneously minimizing the power of God, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the efficacy of his gospel. The assertion that God is mighty enough to enable man to become more like him is not blasphemous—it is quite the opposite. It doesn’t demean God to believe that he has the power to make us more like he is. It actually glorifies him!¹⁵

Any increase in goodness in any person can only be from the Father through Christ. As such, any increase in goodness in any person glorifies rather than blasphemes God. God does not lose goodness when more of his goodness is adopted by his children.¹⁶

To believe that God is mighty enough to make it possible for anyone to choose to be more like him than they are is to believe he is much more powerful than most Christians believe. Given the utter default depravity of mankind, the willingness and ability of God to provide all things necessary to lead any who will follow him to become like him is the greatest possible testament to his power and goodness.

Belief in the divine potential of man is not a statement of the goodness of man, who is fallen, but a statement of the goodness of God, who in his endless mercy and tremendous power finds a way to make holy that which was once unclean.¹⁷ Do not repeat the mistake of Peter in calling unclean what God has cleaned in his own precious blood.¹⁸

It is not heresy to believe that we can become like God is. Those who deny that we can become like God directly contradict what Jesus taught and demonstrated. Remember, those who killed Jesus accused him of blasphemy for teaching that a person was capable of obtaining the character of the Father.¹⁹

People fight the idea that we can grow towards God in order to gratify their pride, not because it denigrates God. Those who fight the idea that we can become like God pretend that they are protecting God’s reputation, but they are actually motivated by a desire to protect their own. God being willing to exalt sinners magnifies his glory, but also removes the self-righteousness of those who refuse his gift. Those who continue to sin willfully even though they profess to believe in Jesus are indicted by the idea that their continued sin is due to their own rejection of God and not God’s inability to make them holy.

We glorify the Father by thinking, feeling, and acting like him

God’s glory is not limited to God; it can be experienced by and obtained by those who know him, as far as they do. God’s glory comes from what he does, why he does it, and how he does it. So does yours. The only way to gain more of God’s glory is to learn more of what he does, why he does it, and how he does it, and to do the same.

All of God’s creations can experience and possess some measure of his glory. Of all God’s creations, only humankind possesses a form capable of coming up to the understanding and implementation of how he is. Man was not created to be a lesser example of something sort of like God, but to actually become like him. We are not types and shadows of God,²⁰ but “made in his image,”²¹ or made in the likeness of God, with the same potential he has. To be made in the image of God means that a path from how we are to how he is exists. God is the demonstration of our ultimate divine potential.²² Human potential is denominated in God’s actuality.²³ Our potential is defined by how God is, not how we presently are. He cannot reveal anything about himself to us without simultaneously giving us power to believe, do, and become more than we would have before.

Every aspect of our being is susceptible to improvement toward how God is in that aspect. Improvement is the root mechanism of all miracles in the body, advancement in the mind, and accomplishment in the world. Everything about us tends toward God if we but believe it is possible.

As you learn more about and live more like Jesus, you will increasingly glorify him by demonstrating his goodness more fully to others. To glorify God is to make the divine qualities or their effects more apparent or to bestow them upon someone or something more fully. You cannot glorify God except through thinking, feeling, and acting more like him, or helping others to do the same. Nothing glorifies God more than a person who becomes like him.

God’s glory is demonstrated by men who rise up to become more like him. Jesus lived so fully in emulation of the Father that he said if people knew him, they knew the Father. He commanded us to live in the same way!²⁴ Jesus said that while he remained on earth, he was the light of the world, but after he was gone, his disciples would be the light of the world.²⁵ He charges us to be as he would be in our place, to demonstrate to others what he would do if he were here.²⁶ None of us are interchangeable with Jesus, but all of us can live so that we become indistinguishable from him to those who are less like him than us.²⁷

It is not sinful to strive to be like God—it is the very purpose of God, the reason for which he gave himself for us, and a necessary prerequisite for others to learn more about him than they presently know.