Growing Toward Christ
Today’s devotional
Change accompanies every human life. We learn, take on responsibilities, revise familiar habits, and sometimes lose abilities we once relied upon. These changes raise a question beyond how much we can do: what kind of life are our abilities and practices helping us live?
Luke tells us that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people. Genuine human growth belongs within the life of the incarnate Son. We, too, need time, relationships, and help as we learn.
Greater capacity alone does not settle the direction of a life. Knowledge can serve truth or make deception more convincing. Influence can protect a neighbor or make control easier. Christian formation asks how God's grace is shaping what we notice, love, and do.
Ephesians places our response within grace. Salvation is God's gift, received through faith. Good works follow within the life God renews in Christ. We participate because grace has met us; our efforts cannot purchase it.
The same letter describes maturity through the image of a body growing together in Christ. Members need one another. Truth is spoken in love, and gifts serve the building up of the whole community. A community's maturity becomes visible in how it cares for members whose abilities or needs differ.
Over these five days, we have considered dignity, gift, calling, embodiment, and growth. These belong to one human life before God. Becoming fully human means learning to live faithfully within the life we have received, through the grace of Jesus Christ.
Choose one small response for today: speak truth gently, receive needed help, or offer someone unhurried attention. Bring that response to God in prayer. Your life already matters. His grace invites you to grow in love.
Adapted from chapter 5, “Created to Become,” in Becoming Fully Human by Dr. R. C. Titus.
Read the Scripture
Open each passage and read slowly. Notice a word, question, or invitation that asks for your attention.
Luke 2:52 · WEBU
52And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
Ephesians 2:8-10 · WEBU
8for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9not of works, that no one would boast.
10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
Ephesians 4:11-16 · WEBU
11He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers;
12for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ,
13until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;
15but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ,
16from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part, makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love.
Pause and respond
For reflection
Which practice could help me respond more faithfully to Christ's grace in the relationships and responsibilities I already have?
A practice for today
Choose one small practice that turns you toward Christ’s truth and love. Begin it today without making successful performance a verdict on your worth.
A prayer
Lord Jesus, shape my life through your grace. Help me receive others with patience, use my gifts in love, and trust your faithfulness as I grow and change. Amen.
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