Greetings, Friends!

In Ephesians 4:13-16, Paul says that when we live in unity with one another, we will grow in a very specific way: we will become like Jesus.

“This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. 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” (vv. 13-14).

The church is a maturing community. In love, in compassion, in truth, in spiritual depth and knowledge, in all ways “measuring up to the full stature of Christ,” we are not supposed to remain static. We are to grow.

If you look at a family’s photo album, you can see how they all have grown over the years. Some people start scrapbooks as soon as their children are born, and continue them through high school or college. As you flip through the pages, you can see how the child has grown and matured at each stage along the way from infant to young adult.

If we could somehow take a spiritual snapshot of ourselves as a church, how would we look compared to last year? Five years ago? Ten years ago? Would we look more mature . . . which, in Paul’s understanding, means looking more and more like Christ . . . or would we look the same? Five years from now, do we expect to measure up even more to the full stature of Christ?

One way toward insuring that we do is to recognize, use, and develop the gifts God has given us.

“Measuring up to the full stature of Christ” isn’t just about reading the Bible more, or praying more, or sounding more pious. It’s about getting out there and getting your hands dirty, loving the people no one else wants to love, showing compassion to those who won’t return it, putting yourself at risk of being used or taken advantage of, and taking risks on others. It’s about sacrificing yourself more and more for the benefit of others. It’s about using your gifts and letting God work through you in the very special way that he wants to work through you, and only you.

C.S. Lewis said that becoming more and more like Christ everyday “is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity.”

Becoming more and more like Jesus is what it’s all about.

Pastor Rich