Cleaning up outside with a little help... 😊Use the right measure stick

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.”

This is a great statement. Because we are being told what the end and the goal of God is.

Most of us would say that the goal of the church is the Great commission.

Now please listen carefully because I don’t want to be accused of saying I don’t believe that evangelism is important! I strongly believe that the Great Commission is essential and must be accomplished.

However, the paramount thing, the thing God is after above everything else.

is for us to mature in Christ.

And to fulfill what God had in mind when he made mankind in the first place.

Which is to be mature, to grow up as responsible, well-adjusted, wholehearted people, as God intended us to be.

Deep down at the deepest level of our heart, isn’t that what each of us desire?

To be a whole person, to mature in Christ. To fulfill what God has put into us.

Yet, we all have a mental image of ourselves… we like to think of ourselves as mature. Much more mature than we really are.

You see, we have an innate ability to deceive ourselves. To help prove my point - at times we can be brutally honest and even describe ourselves as stubborn and foolish. But then have someone affirm or tell us that we are stubborn and foolish, and let’s see what our reaction is.

You see, we all have this inner belief that we’re mature, or we’re approaching maturity, because that is what we so desperately want, that is what we are basically made for.

But notice that our verse says, “to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

We have the wrong measuring stick!  

We are using the worlds measuring stick, and it is totally wrong.

When we use their measuring stick we find that we’re able to measure up pretty good because the measuring stick of the world is measuring ourselves to each another.

And how often will we consider someone else that’s less mature then ourselves and think, "Well, at least I'm not like so-and-so,"

But we are using the wrong measuring stick.

While I was preparing this devotion, I read a story about a little boy that went to his mother and said, "Guess what! I'm 8 feet 4 inches tall!"

His mother, was surprised… and questioned him on it, and found that he was using a 6-inch ruler; he was actually 4 feet 2 inches.

That is our problem. We measure ourselves by one another yet if we read 2 Corinthians 10 verse 12, we’re told - when we measure ourselves by one another and compare ourselves with one another, we are without understanding.

For there is only one accurate measuring stick.

There is only one standard by which we will ultimately be measured and that is the measuring stick of Christ…  again, as our verse says, "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;" 

Jesus is whom God measures us by, and the one in whom we are to measure ourselves by.

And I know that when we measure ourselves by Christ, it can be a little discouraging. Yet this is the only realistic measure we can go by.

You see, as we read the Gospels and gaze at this Man Jesus Christ… the picture will become clear of what maturity in Christ is intended to be. Because He is the measurement of our maturity.

We cannot know Jesus Christ until we follow Him. And we will never know Him if we fail to follow Him. For growth [in Christ] is a process. 

As we’re told in Verse 15: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15 ESV)