I Choose
To
(9-5-04)
Heb.12:1-4
“…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Heb.12:1b)
I choose to grow up. Well and good, but what is the mark
and measure of success in that choice? In the flesh there are mile markers in a persons life that speak to their growing older
and growing up. Becoming a teenager. Getting a drivers license. (sweet 16) Getting to vote. Buying alcohol. Graduating high
school or college. Getting married. Having a child. A grandchild. Turning 50. Each of these is some kind of measurement of
relative success in its own field.
What are the mile markers of our Christian journey?
1st communion, maybe. Getting baptized, maybe.
Leading your 1st prayer or song or serving the table for the 1st time or even preaching your 1st
sermon, of course many of these things tend to be very male dominate, sorry. As we can see in the list of markers in life,
they do not all require effort to accomplish, just time and presence. A person might become old enough to vote and have no
more of a clue as to whom to rightly vote for than I do. Being old enough doesn’t mean smart enough.
How can we judge growth and maturity in the church? Am I
who and what I should be after 30 years in the kingdom? (NO!) We might ask: what hinders my hinder from being farther along
in its walk and wobble? The writer of Hebrews speaks right when he says ‘let
us throw off everything that hinders and sin that…’ Not everything
that hinders is sinful, its just not beneficial or productive. Kind of like the food we eat, so much filler but not all nutritious.
Here are some scriptures that speak of growth stoppers –
Eph.4:22-24; 1Tim.6:9-10ff; 2Tim.2:4-7; 1Pet.2:1-5;
Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus
that they would grow up in Christ, pray for us too Paul. (Eph.3:16-19) What we may need, and thousands like us, are moments
of understanding and healing from our life in a world that is driven made by sin. We each day have to work through dozens
of potentially spiritually harmful circumstances without getting nicked, cut or bruised.
When we look at the adult world around us we can easily see
grown up people but being over 21 does not make anyone a benefit to the rest of humanity and fruitful in what they do. Most
humans live out their lives never being of any particular value to anyone except themselves and their own wants and desires.
Tragic. We face the same problem in the church; helping grow its people to a fruit bearing potential that brings God glory.
Leadership plays a tremendous role in this growth cycle.
Paul indicates this in Eph.4:11ff. It is the purpose of and the calling of the leadership to nurture the local church bodies
into healthy, productive, mature, Christian living.
Look to Jesus who demonstrated the highest and best of qualities
for us to see and come to understand what maturity and fruitfulness is all about. (Heb.12:2-3) If we each truly desire to
reach a higher potential of our own self worth, then we must first be willing
to be lead forward into the summer pasturelands. Is your heart willing to grow?
