Growing More Like Christ

In review of Ephesians 4:15 it says, “God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love — like Christ in everything”

Bottom Line:

Grow to know and tell the whole truth in love, like Christ.

What this means to me:

God wants me to grow up and know and tell the truth. I am to grow in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

Today's passage comes from Ephesians chapter 4, where Paul is speaking of unity in the body. He explains the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. It is their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work and build up the body of Christ, the church. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ who is our leader. Christ is the one who makes the body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

So the point is that God wants me to no longer remain as a child, but rather grow up, “God wants you to grow up: “We are not meant to remain as children” (Ephesians 4:14a Phillips).

God the Father’s goal for me is to mature and develop the characteristics of Jesus Christ, living a life of love and humble service. Sadly, if I don’t get this, I can grow older but never really mature to this point, I’ll be stuck in a perpetual spiritual infancy. Spiritual growth is not automatic; it takes an intentional commitment on my part. I must consciously decide to grow, make an effort to grow, and persist in growing.

Discipleship is the process of becoming like Christ, and it begins with a decision: “‘Follow me and be my disciple,’ Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him” (Matthew 9:9b NLT).

As I have learned, when the first disciples chose to follow Jesus, they didn’t understand all the implications of their decision. They simply responded to Jesus’ invitation.

Today, I will consider how I want God to work in my life to make me more and more like Christ.  I will ask God to grow me in what I identify and for trust and patience as he does it, in his timing.