Grow Up

Often when an adult does or says a childish thing someone will say, “Ahw, will you grow up!” There is a time to grow up and that time is now.

Paul’s life experience was in ways like ours when he wrote, “when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”   (I Corinthians 13: 11 – 13)

Maturity doesn’t automatically come with age. The more you mature, the more you realize how much you must grow in your quest to become more like Jesus. That is the standard set in the Bible for us. Quit comparing yourself to others, that will merely distract you and distort the likeness of Jesus in you. You will never become like Jesus, our prototype, but you can enjoy becoming more like Him. It is a worthy lifelong quest. Why focus on those from whom you will not get your ultimate reward rather than the one you inevitably will. When you compare yourself to others you become vulnerable to one of two sins, false pride or low self-esteem both of which are defeating. Admit you are not perfect, admit you have not yet become, admit you are going to strive to become more like Jesus. 

Remember, God does not require that we be the best at anything, but He expects us to do our best at everything. Therefore, “…whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. (Colossians 3: 23)

Paul compared life to a race and wrote, “I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phlippians 3:14)

A runner can’t concentrate on the part of the race already run, but on the challenge of that yet to be run, “forgetting those that are behind.” Successes and failures are behind you. Don’t live there. If you do, your failures, which we all have, will definitely influence the race yet to be run. Put them behind you by committing them to Jesus, asking His forgiveness. Once you have done that, don’t look back on them.

Pick the best and burn the rest.

A measuring standard is offered in Galatians 6: 3, 4 “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.”

“For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” (II Corinthians 10:12)

Don’t assume you have a magic mirror into which you are at liberty to look and ask, “Who is the fairest of them all.”

Bottom line is don’t define yourself by others, but refine yourself by having Jesus as your challenging standard. Then there is one thing in which we must not fail to boast: “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6: 14)

Now go do some boasting; not about you, but about Him.