Are You Becoming Complete?
God has a wonderful idea of who you can become. If you want to discover what He has in mind you will need to follow God’s plan. The Apostle Paul outlines such a plan in Ephesians 3:14-19.
The first step, found in verse 16, is that God must strengthen the individual inwardly. Recognizing this can reduce the amount of stress we place on ourselves for not measuring up. Maybe life has become more than you can handle well by yourself. We can blame our circumstances, other people or ourselves for not being able to handle it, but it is more productive to turn to God and his people instead. Ask someone to pray for you asking God to give you the inner strength through His Holy Spirit.
The second step is to invite Christ to live in your heart by trusting Him as he leads you. This is seen in verse 17. Sometimes people have the idea that when we invite Jesus into our hearts, we invite him in as our guest. Guests are not supposed to stay too long, but owners are. Jesus wants to come in as the Great Shepherd. Jesus always does a good job even if He doesn’t do what we expect. In Psalm 23 we can see that Jesus sometimes leads His sheep to things they like. Green pastures and cool waters are those kinds of things. However, Jesus also leads His sheep to what they won’t like. These are things like discipline, medicine and being asked to eat meals with people they don’t like. In Matthew 16:24 Jesus even goes further. There He expects His sheep to pick up their crosses and follow Him. Picking up something that is meant to kill you is not what most people expect from Jesus. However, Jesus knows it is necessary if we are to reach God’s goal for us. (see Romans 8:29)
Our third step involves sending our roots down into God’s love. Doing this keeps us strong. We send our roots down into God’s love by praying and obeying. We send our roots into God’s love when we look to Him for the answers we need in life. We also send our roots into His love when we do what He asks because we believe that He knows what is best.
Taking our dog for a walk on a leash can be unnerving when another dog growls, snarls and barks viciously at us. We know the other dog is chained up. Our dog is learning to walk right next to us instead of pulling at the leash trying to get into a fight. I think he has also discovered that as he listens to us tell him he is a good dog while we walk by the danger there is a special treat for him. He also acts more confident as we walk away from vicious, but tied up dog. He knows he is free with the master. We too will experience the same when we obey walking closely by our Master.
The fourth step occurs as we begin to understand what God’s love for us and all people means. John 3:16 can help us understand this. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”(NIV) When we begin to understand those simple words personally in a way that is significant to us, that is one of the ways we move toward becoming what God wants for us. An example is the way a man shared a recent thought he had. It came to him that a way to understand God’s love was to compare it to a father who has to send his son away to war afraid that he won’t come home. Coming to grips with how much God loves us like this helps us progress toward becoming complete in God.
This understanding is more than a logical decision. It is a spiritual understanding that changes us from the inside. To do this we need God’s help to be able to see it. We can see this need for God’s help in the words “power” (verse 18) and “inner strength” (verse 16). God must give us that power or the ability to understand. Otherwise God’s love only remains an idea instead of a life changing truth.
Ephesians 3:14-19 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (NLT) |
Our fifth step is to experience Christ’s love for ourselves. The idea that we can’t fully understand the love of Christ as we experience it should not keep us from believing in God. All of us experience the benefits of electricity in our homes. Very few people, however, fully understand how electricity works. This is especially true when we look at how the energy flows from atom to atom. When we accept Jesus into our lives we begin to experience His love firsthand. Our lack of understanding doesn’t get in the way of our faith unless we let it get in the way. Just as a person can turn on a light switch and enjoy the light that comes from the bulb, so a person can accept Jesus and enjoy His presence without understanding anything more.
Sometimes it is that act that people can’t understand that draws them to Jesus in the first place. They experience Christ’s love in a second hand way as it radiates from one of Jesus’ followers. They don’t understand how normal people can be so loving in such a harsh world. It is this experience of love that baffles them and attracts them to Jesus.
Our last step is made complete as God pours Himself into us. The important part here is God, not us. We are like bottles into which God pours his life and power. The bottle simply needs to be clean and willing to accept God. Jesus makes us clean and it is up to us to accept God’s presence in our lives as these steps describe.
What step are you taking today? Step 1: asking others to pray that God would infuse you with his power. Step 2: trusting Jesus as he leads you. Step 3: sinking your roots down into God’s love. Step 4: finding that you understand God’s loves on a personal level. Step 5: experiencing Christ’s love daily. And step 6: finding your completeness as you are filled up with God.
Blessings, Pastor Randy
