Who do you want to be like in 40 years? Go ahead, calculate. How old will you be in 40 years? Who do you know and admire who’s that age? (If that puts you over 100 years old you can ask, “Who do I want to be when I’m 97?”)
Throughout the Bible we are asked to look at the end of life and see where a life of wisdom and godliness leads and contrast that with a life of sin and foolishness. And then ask ourselves, “Which path to I want to walk on?”
Paul gives us a list of good works that mark women who have lived lives devoted to Jesus:
Let a widow be enrolled [to be provided for by the church] if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.
1 Timothy 5:9-10
But here the thing: no one wake us one morning and discovers that their resume includes this nice list. It was uncomfortable when she knelt to wash the feet of the saints. She was probably pregnant and tired when she welcomed guests into her home. It was inconvenient and dirty to care for the afflicted when she already had enough on her plate with her own family.
This is a list of work. Hard work. And these good works don’t always feel spiritual the way studying the life of Jesus does. But this is the claim of the gospels: when we know God, we become like him. And our good deeds — our hard work — is actually the Holy Spirit in us making us more like our Savior.