Grow, Grow, Grow
GROW, GROW, GROW
Read Luke 2:42-52.
“Will you measure me, Danielle?” Jeff asked his older sister.
“I just measured you yesterday,” protested Danielle. At his pleading look, she gave in. “Well, all right. Stand straight.”
“Have I grown any?” Jeff asked anxiously.
“Nope, you’re still the same height,” said Danielle. Jeff looked puzzled.
In Sunday school the next day, Jeff really didn’t want to sing one of the songs. He joined in, but the words seemed to stick in his throat. “Read your Bible, pray every day . . . and you’ll grow, grow, grow,” went the words of the song. It’s not true, thought Jeff. I’ve read my Bible every day, but I haven’t grown at all. He was tempted to quit reading, but what if the other verse of the song was true? It went, “Neglect your Bible, forget to pray . . . and you’ll shrink, shrink, shrink.”
That afternoon Jeff and his parents visited his great-grandmother at the nursing home. “Jeff, you’re growing to be more like your father every day,” Grandma Owens said. “You talk like him.”
Jeff thought about that on the way home. Maybe there were more ways to grow than just getting taller. His great-grandma had said he was growing to be more like his father. Maybe the words in the song meant growing in another way. He decided to ask his parents. Mom answered, “Reading the Bible and praying makes a person grow more like Jesus.”
Jeff thought, This week I’ll measure myself in a different way. I’ll see if I’ve grown to be more like Jesus.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
How much have you grown this year? It’s fun to get measured and see how much you’ve grown physically, but have you checked to see if you’ve grown in your Christian life?
TO MEMORIZE:
We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.
Ephesians 4:15
CHECK YOUR SPIRITUAL GROWTH.
From the book
