Piper on Christ-likeness

This is an excerpt of a paper written by Tom Steller that can be found here...http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1985/483_We_Shall_Be_Like_Him/


"And well it should be. Nothing can be more comforting. But too often we fail to ask what the "good" is that God is working all things toward? The next verse explains the good: "For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren." The "good" which God is working all things together toward is our conformity to the likeness of Christ. That is what he is aiming at in our lives. Not health, or wealth, or earthly success, but Christlikeness. If you love God and are called according to his purpose, then everything that has come your way and will come your way is designed by God to shape you more into the likeness of Jesus. Good things shape us, hard things shape us, successes shape us, failures shape us. All things work together to shape us into the likeness of Jesus.
So Paul and John agree that one day, we shall be like Jesus. That is our destiny."