May 22, 2025
God has revealed His moral will to us through Scripture, which teaches us how we ought to believe and live. He makes it clear that some things are morally wrong, and thus are sin. Through God’s grace and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we endeavor to avoid sin and to take on specific traits, characteristics, and attitudes that reflect and imitate the nature and characteristics of God.1
We are called to “be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1–2). We are likewise called to emulate God’s forgiveness: “Forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13).
Jesus commanded us to “be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). He taught us to extend kindness, even to enemies, and to “do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:35).
Through these and numerous other examples throughout the Bible, we are instructed on how to live in a way that aligns with God’s moral will. We are called to keep His teachings, to make them our own, and to use them as a compass throughout the course of our lives. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
Becoming God’s children through faith in Jesus has made us new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), those who are to “be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29), who have “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10). Part of the process of being renewed in His likeness is conforming our lives to His moral will. We align our external behavior and actions as well as our motives and attitudes with His Word.
From His Word we learn which attitudes and actions are right or wrong, what is sin and what is not, what pleases God and what doesn’t, and what reflects His character and what doesn’t. We know this as a result of reading, studying, meditating on, accepting, and applying God’s Word. Accepting what God says means that when we read of God censuring some actions, desires, and attitudes, we accept that they fall outside the circle of His moral will, and thus are wrong and sin. For example, when we read in Ephesians that we aren’t to steal or let corrupting talk come out of our mouths, or in Colossians that we’re to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander and obscene talk, evil desire, lust, and covetousness, then we are to understand that these things fall outside of God’s moral will and thus are sinful and displeasing to God (Ephesians 4:28–29; Colossians 3:8, 5).
Of course, every command of God’s moral will is an expression of the greatest command of all: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself (Mark 12:30–31). We are called to act in love toward others: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
These teachings of Jesus summarize all the teachings about sin, and when we make our love for God and others our guiding principle—when our actions, thoughts, and attitudes are based on the premise of a heart that fully loves God with all of our being, and has the same love for others as we have for ourselves—then we will avoid sinning.
As fallen human beings, we are sometimes inclined to justify our actions as being loving when in fact they are not. Or we may think some action is loving, and therefore not sinful, without fully exploring all of the potential ramifications of our actions, which can end up being unloving toward others. Clearly, it’s important that we have a good understanding of what is and isn’t included within God’s moral will, which comes through reading, studying, and meditating on what the Bible teaches.
It is easy to develop an attitude that sin doesn’t matter so much, since we have salvation and our sins are already forgiven, but such an attitude shows a lack of understanding of what the Bible teaches about sin and its effects. Scripture tells us that sin is an offense to God, including the sin of a Christian. Being forgiven is a wonderful gift of God; but as believers, we are in relationship with Him—a relationship which suffers damage when we sin. While our sins are forgiven, there can still be consequences in our lives or in the lives of others due to our sin.
As pursuers of Christlikeness, we must face the fact of sin in our lives and respond to it appropriately. God has given us a conscience, the inborn ability to discern the difference between right and wrong, which helps us judge whether or not an act we have planned or have already carried out is moral. As Christians, we fine-tune our conscience as we align it with God’s moral will, when we agree with what God has revealed in Scripture about what is right and wrong, what is godly, what actions reflect His nature and being. We are called to follow our Scripture-informed conscience, to avoid sin, in order to remain in close relationship with our Father.
Because we are human, we will sin; but because we are Christians, we are to put effort into not damaging our relationship with God by doing our best not to sin. We’re told to “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24).
Of course, no matter how much we try not to sin, we do. And when we do, if we have the right understanding of sin, we feel guilt and sorrow. We damage our relationship with God, and repairing that relationship starts with acknowledging and confessing our sins to Him. First John teaches that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Besides confessing, another element is repentance—change of attitude, turning away and going the opposite direction. Repentance calls for change in our behavior, a commitment to stop committing the sins we have been committing.
This isn’t easy, especially when we have made a habit of some sins or have accepted some sinful behavior as part of our personality, such as impatience, lack of self-control, being judgmental, anger, selfishness, pride, anxiety, sins of the tongue, addictions, etc. It can be a struggle to accept that because Scripture calls these things sins, we are expected to change and stop doing them, by God’s grace. His Word tells us that by God’s grace, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
If we want to become more like Jesus, we have to face our sins. We can’t simply look at them as personality traits or excuse them as “this is the way I am, I can’t change”; nor can we justify sinning by thinking, “this is just a small sin, so it doesn’t matter much.” Part of Christlikeness is accepting what Scripture says is sin, recognizing our sins, confessing our sins, and crying out to the Lord for His help to overcome them. Then we have to make a conscious effort and commitment to overcome them.
Our goal is not perfection. We aren’t trying to robotically obey every jot and tittle of Scripture, with the goal of being sin-free—that’s impossible. Our goal is to respond to God’s declared moral will in a manner that is a genuine expression of the reality of our saved soul, from a heart full of gratitude.
We obey Him because we love Him. We love Him because of who He is—our Creator and Savior. We desire to imitate Him because He is pure love, pure goodness, and pure holiness. We want to emulate Him both inwardly and outwardly. God is the standard of godliness, and since He has revealed what He is like and what He approves and disapproves of, as we seek to be like Him, we will take these things to heart.
He has revealed His moral will through the Bible, and His will, as presented through Scripture, is an expression of His character. If we desire to be more like Jesus, we will aim to live in a way which expresses God’s character. This means making a conscious effort to align our thoughts, desires, attitudes, and actions with godliness and with the guidance provided through Scripture.
God is perfect good, perfect love, holiness, and righteousness. He is an example to us of moral and ethical perfection. While we can’t attain perfection, we are called to internalize God’s standards and live by them, to do our best to reflect Him and to grow in Christlikeness. “And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Originally published October 2016. Adapted and republished May 2025. Read by Reuben Ruchevsky.
1 This article is based on key points from the book Decision Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2004).
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