Move On… Towards Christlikeness! A Call to Young Missionaries!!

Vasanthi Isaiah, M.A.

A New Phase in Your Life!

A new phase in your life is about to burst forth! The day you’ve been looking forward to, has arrived. We congratulate you on this day for all the hard work you put in. Your trainers like me have been involved with you on a day-to-day basis, and so I would like to share with you all a few thoughts as a reminder on the subject that we all have taught you.

Character Development

Daniel’s life is a ‘show case’ model, which you know so well. The Bible talks about Excellent Spirit or Christ-like character that every Christian ought to develop. Christ-likeness is “being conformed to the image of the Father.” We may see Excellent Spirit to belike a multifaceted diamond with its various dimensions such as the one Daniel 4:9 and 6:3 talk about – “the Spirit of the holy gods.”

Let me point out something from Daniel.

Sides of the Diamond

Each side of the diamond is not the diamond by the sum of the whole is. Excellent spirit is like that and is even so important for the following reasons.

1. Success and fame can easily intoxicate many Christians and leaders in this world, which is actually a deception.
2. Intoxicated by worldly success, such as fame, popularity, money, education, degrees, power, etc.
3. Outward advancement may sometime led to character collapse and inward decline.
4. Though they seem to have started well in the race of life, leaders sometimes, along the way, get tempted to turn aside and get distracted to gather the golden apples of this worldly fame and fortune.

The Result

The result is fall. Excellent Spirit is Christlikeness, which is being conformed to the image of the Father.

What exactly is the image of the Father? The image of the Father is the free will to choose to follow God and to be like Him and become instrumental in bringing God’s love to the world. Since Satan has destroyed and separated us from God’s love, we are being trained to bring this love of God to such people.

Allow God

It is important to note that before we can do so we must allow God to develop an excellent spirit within us by growing in His grace and maturity on a daily basis (2 Peter 3:18). The world is looking for men and women who can be role models to radiate and reflect the love of God.

It is in this context that we can see Excellent Spirit as a multidimensional diamond. We can only develop an excellent spirit by growing in Christlikeness each day in every are of our lives. We may well ask ourselves this question, “Am I more Christlike today than yesterday?”

Lesson from Daniel

In the case of Daniel and his three friends, we see a startling testimony. When everything seemed against them, they determined that they would turn to God and be obedient to his will regardless of the cost. So, today, lives that really count are not those that merely go along with the crowd, but those who are determined to stand for Christ regardless of what the crowd does.

Daniel’s life reveals that he was:

1. An undaunted courageous young man.
2. A man of rich character.
3. A man who was exalted by God.
4. A man who was made the chief above everyone else.
5. A man who distinguished himself above everyone in the entire kingdom of Babylon amidst the pagans.

Daniel’s work was supernaturally anointed because he sought to hear the voice of God in every situation. As a result there was victory and anointing in everything that he did. Highly impressed by Daniel’s sagacity and rich character, the kind immediately appointed Daniel to a position of great trust.

The reason for this is explained in Daniel 6:3 – because of his excellent spirit, that is, the working of the Holy Spirit in Daniel’s life was manifest to all.

What Shall We Do, Then?

To all young missionary candidates and missionaries I have this to say: Make a choice to remain undefiled. We are bound to face many ministry challenges, many temptations in the areas of power and money and even opposite sex. Daniel’s life reminds us that we can choose to remain undefiled.

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