EPHESIANS 4:13

“until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

I bet a lot of you had a door frame somewhere in your house where your parents recorded yours and your siblings’ (if you had any) heights as you grew. I know some people who actually removed that part of the door frame when they moved to maintain that history. Seeing your gain in height each year was kind of cool. It’s too bad we don’t have the same kind of measuring rod for our spiritual growth. Oh wait, we do!

In today’s verse, Paul gives us that measuring rod. We are measured against the “stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Of course, Paul wasn’t referring to Christ’s physical stature. He was pointing us towards His spiritual maturity, which is perfect. He was telling the Ephesians and is telling us that our goal in our spiritual life is to be more like Jesus. That’s a pretty lofty goal, but we should always aim high.

APPLICATION

This same Greek word for “stature” is used in John 9 when the blind man was healed by Jesus. Remember when the Pharisees questioned his parents about his blindness and how he was healed they told them to ask their son because “he is of age.” That is the same word. Their son was mature. He was a grown man. They were not referring to his spiritual growth. After all, he had just been introduced to Jesus. He knew Jesus was a miracle worker, but he had so much more to learn.

Have you ever thought about all those people whom Jesus healed or raised? We only know of the results surrounding Mary Magdalene and Lazarus. All the others could have been healed miraculously and never grown spiritually. I guess we’ll find out one day in heaven. I want to meet that leper he healed, if he is there. I want to meet the slave of the Centurion who was healed, if they are there. I want to meet that thief on the cross. I know he’ll be there.

The length of our physical life has nothing to do with our spiritual growth. There are a lot of old people who are still on the bottle spiritually, and there are a lot of teenagers who are chewing on solid food and are discipling others. What is your stature in Christ? How do you measure up. If Jesus put you up against the door frame to measure you spiritually, would you have grown since last year?

God, I want to grow and be more like you each and every day.