The company that tests before it employs

Let us return to the company illustration. Imagine that a company has a very specific culture. It values honesty, teamwork, respect, service and integrity, and it values people who accept responsibility. Now imagine someone applying for a position who says: “I don’t believe in honesty. I don’t like working with other people. I refuse to accept correction. I will do whatever benefits me. I don’t care about the values of this company.” Would the company be wise to employ that person simply because their qualifications were impressive?

Of course not. The problem is not their lack of ability. The problem is character incompatibility.

Now take the illustration into eternity. Suppose a person spends seventy years cultivating pride, selfishness, hatred, dishonesty, bitterness, greed and rebellion against God. Imagine that, without allowing Christ to transform the heart, such a person were simply brought into a kingdom whose very atmosphere is love, humility, purity, selflessness, holiness and perfect trust in God. Would changing their location change their character? No. A change of environment does not automatically produce a change of heart.

That is why the gospel is so much bigger than the promise “One day you will go to heaven.” The gospel is God’s work of transforming the sinner. Paul expresses the goal with remarkable clarity:

My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.

Notice the words “until Christ is formed in you.” That is the goal. Not merely religious behaviour, outward conformity, membership, knowing Bible verses, attending church or calling ourselves Christians. Christ formed in us. That is character transformation. Paul calls it the very heart of the message: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

Perhaps this is where many Christians have misunderstood the purpose of the Christian life. We can become so focused on whether we are going to heaven that we forget to ask whether heaven is being formed in us. We can become obsessed with the destination while ignoring the preparation. God is interested in both. He wants to save us, to forgive us, to justify us, to sanctify us and to restore us. He wants to reproduce the character of Christ in us, and ultimately He wants a people who will be completely at home in His kingdom.

Jacob: a man God would not leave unchanged

Jacob shows us how patient and persistent this work can be. God had given him a great promise at Bethel (Genesis 28:13-15), yet Jacob was a man who schemed. He had bargained for his brother’s birthright and deceived his father to take his brother’s blessing (Genesis 25:29-34; 27:1-40). The promise was real, but his character was not yet fit to carry it. Years in Laban’s household, where Jacob himself was deceived and exploited, were part of the work.

Then, on the night before he met Esau again, Jacob was left alone and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak. At the end of the struggle, he was given a new name:

And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Scripture adds a quiet detail: “And as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip” (Genesis 32:31). The encounter left a mark. And look at the Jacob who meets Esau the next day. The man who once took what was not his now bows to the ground seven times, calls Esau “my lord,” and presses on him a gift (Genesis 33:3-11). God did not simply keep His promise and carry Jacob to its fulfilment. He changed the man who was to inherit it.

Invited and prepared

Jesus told a parable about a king who held a wedding feast for his son and sent his servants to invite guests, both good and bad, until the hall was full. Then something happens that is easy to miss:

But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless.

Many Christians read the garment as the righteousness that Christ provides, and others stress the readiness of the heart. Whichever way we read it, the parable teaches that being present at the celebration and being ready for it are not the same thing. The invitation is wide, and the king’s concern is with the person standing in front of him.

Paul’s confidence is not in our ability to prepare ourselves, but in the One who began the work: “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

A question to carry through this book

As you read the chapters that follow, I want you to keep one question in front of you. Not “Am I good enough?” That question will always lead to despair. Not “Have I done enough?” We can never do enough to purchase salvation. Instead ask: What is Christ doing in me? Is He making me more loving? More patient? More forgiving, honest, humble, faithful and self-controlled? More willing to serve, to obey and to surrender my own will? More like Jesus?

The Christian life is not merely about receiving a ticket to heaven. It is about becoming the kind of person who belongs to the kingdom of heaven. And that transformation is not something we accomplish by ourselves. It is the work of Christ in the surrendered heart. The question, therefore, is not simply “What will you take to heaven?” The deeper question is: What are you allowing Christ to make you into before you get there?