Ephesians 4:15

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Ephesians 4:11-16, NIV

Here at LoveINC, one of our core values is maturing in the work we do of connecting local churches to the needs of the community. This aligns well with our verse this month, where Paul writes to the Ephesians about how Christ set up His church to grow in their faith. 

Just as Paul says here, we are to grow and mature in our faith. This idea is discussed elsewhere, such as in Hebrews 5 & 6. Ultimately, we are to become further formed into the image of Christ as we come to know Him better. We are not to remain stagnant in our faith, simply accepting Christ into our life and then moving on as if nothing has changed. Our lives are to be continually formed more into His image. This means our lifestyle must continue to transform over time, and we have never fully arrived in our faith. This is the process of sanctification, where God continues to shape us to be more like Him. 

In our work of loving our neighbors, we must also continue maturing in our love for others. We must learn to recognize in everyone a neighbor whom we are called to love. Those who we may identify as an enemy due to a belief, action, or anything else, we must come to see how Christ our Savior also longs for us to be united to them in love. We must learn to love our neighbors with a deep love that is willing to pour out everything on behalf of the other. I say this as one who is needing to mature in this as well.

In our work on seeing the community transformed by the church, we recognize the need to continue growing in what we do and how we support our neighbors. Our help for our neighbors should be maturing over time and offering more longer lasting solutions to their needs. In addition, our work of mobilizing the local church also needs to mature and deepen. It should become more than just simply connecting neighbors in need to churches who can help, but working through local churches to provide more wholistic support to our neighbors, through a network of churches that can meet many needs.

May we all come to love more deeply as we are formed ever further into the image of Christ:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!¹

¹Philippians 2:6-8