{"id":21382,"date":"2017-05-11T00:10:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T07:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=10781"},"modified":"2017-05-11T00:10:53","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T07:10:53","slug":"may-11-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/05\/11\/may-11-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"May 11, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201c\u2026till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children\u2026 but\u2026 may grow up in all things into Him who is the head\u2014Christ\u2026\u201d<\/em>
\nEphesians 4:13-15<\/span><\/p>\n

The Marks on the Door<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

When my children were growing up, we marked their height on each birthday. We stood them against the inside of the closet door, took a pencil, and drew a line where the top of their head reached. Eventually, I had to stand on a chair to measure those who far surpassed my height. We continued this tradition until they graduated from high school, and now they love to look at that door, marveling at the fact that they were ever little children.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often wished I had some way of marking growth in the Lord\u2014some visual mark on the door so I could easily see progress. I\u2019d want the lines to be differentiated in various aspects of maturity: lines for growth in grace, in knowledge of truth, in intimacy with Christ, in awe for God, in submission, in fruit-bearing, and so forth.<\/span><\/p>\n

We should see growth over the years. The Holy Spirit has worked in us faithfully, and we\u2019ve grown to the extent that we\u2019ve submitted to our lessons. Perhaps, as with our children, we can\u2019t see daily growth (although we should see frequent victories over the flesh.) When we put our little ones to bed at night, we may think to ourselves, \u201cHe seems bigger and older than yesterday,\u201d but we don\u2019t always know it is true until their ankles stick out from under their pantlegs and their wrists show at the end of their jackets.<\/span><\/p>\n

We must not measure ourselves against our peers. If I put on your clothing and it is too small, that is no gauge of my own growth; it is only when I put on my own old clothes that I can see growth. Comparisons to peers may make us feel we\u2019ll never measure up\u2014or, worse, we may think we have excelled beyond someone else, and then be filled with pride. No\u2014we must measure our growth in Jesus Christ, looking into the very Word of God as a mirror that tells the truth about us. The stature of His fullness is our only measuring stick.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is not to say we don\u2019t have examples to emulate, both in Scripture and in our lives. The lives of people in the Bible are there for our learning, and we certainly are called to learn from people God brings into our lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But as for measuring growth, we are to be like Him when we are fully grown\u2014to have His heart, His love, His grace, His purpose, His will. \u201cA disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher\u201d<\/em> (Luke 6:40).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFather, teach us to measure ourselves against the stature of the fullness of Christ, to always set Him before us as our highest example, that we may be perfectly trained. Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5yS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}