As I shared in the last issue of the article, the first step in the process of becoming holy is to recognize your own personal uniqueness. In recognizing this uniqueness you recognize that God has called you into existence for the express purpose of completing His creation at this present time. It means that you realize that God created you as you are. Your unique weaknesses and strengths are ordered so that you might spiritually grow in His image and likeness.

The second step in this process is to develop a true desire to grow in God’s image and likeness. You have to want, with all that is within you, to develop into the person that God intended you to become through your experience as a human here on earth. The desire has to be strong enough that you actually give first priority to your spiritual development and hold nothing else as more important.

This, I know, is not always easy. Living in this world can be challenging, distracting and confusing. We, as human beings, can be easily distracted from the essential goal of life, namely, becoming who God intended when He created us. We can only become the person God intended if we desire to become holy. This means, of course, that we believe that there is a meaning and purpose to life. We do not just randomly come into existence and then, when the time comes, just disappear into nothingness. While I know that some people do believe this, I refuse to believe this because, as I look at creation, I see purpose, design and intelligence at work. I find it difficult to believe, when I look at creation, that creation came into existence as a random accident or event.

So if there is an intelligence behind creation, I believe that this intelligence has also infused into creation a true meaning and purpose. I believe that intelligence is the Person I call our Triune God. I also believe that the Person Jesus is God Himself in human form Who came into His creation to model how to live in order to derive the most out of this earthly experience – to learn how to come to a full understanding that I have been created in His image and likeness, which I know has been a gift and which assures me that I am immortal.

Each of us has a choice what we believe. I, for one, believe God has a plan and I desire to live by His plan.