Faithfulness. Thats what God has taught me about himself. I love this word: faith=fullness. Fullness of peace, joy, and perseverence. Fullness of God. All because of faith.
The Lord proved his faithfulness to me this weekend. As I was starting to plan on moving out west, I got onto craigslist and searched rentals. Long story short, I found an ad for a home in Wheaton, and the family are missionaries in Nigeria where my dad grew up. They have been praying for the right tenant, and when I told them who I was they prayed about it and decided to rent their home to me for only $725 a month, utilities included. WOW! God is faithful. We will move in the first week in January. I am so excited! I won't have to leave this place that has become home to me. This house is exactly the confirmation I needed. Praise the Lord!
What are some areas in your life where you have felt full? Fullness in your relationships? Fullness in your career? Fullness in your home? Fullness in your church body? I think fullness is primarily an emotion, but I think it can also be a state of mind. For example the emotion of fullness would include a sense of well being, happiness and joy. The state of mind of fullness would be more like hope, contentment, and trust. Having fullness as a mindset would mean tapping into the plumbline of God's infinite love, grace, and goodness. Because of Him we are full. I think the mindset is more reliable than the emotion, even if the emotion seems more tangible. I also think that we can choose our mindsets, we can't always choose our emotions. Emotion is raw. Mindsets are calculated emotion. Its a honing in of all the best, most powerful parts of emotion into a focus that ultimately benefits. Take anger. It is a powerful emotion. It can produce vice or virtue. For example, anger on Maury is probably going to lead to vive or sin (if it hasn't already). But anger in terms of an unprotected or starving child could very well elicit virtue. A mindset of calculated anger would be more like a hidden drive or ambition. Abviously it can be a positive in terms of helping a child, or it could be deadly by provoking to sin. Fullness as a mindset could lead to the desire to retain the fullness, or a satisfaction that results in apathy (sin of omission).
Is your fullness a mindset or an emotion? As an emotion, if tastes good only while the causes of it are present. If your fullness comes from anything besides the plumbline to Jesus, its like drinking the water in Voldemort's horcrux that does not quench your thirst but only increases it. Whereas fullness in Christ both satiates you and gives the ability to hold more as more is dispensed. Fullness in Christ overflows. You pour out to others so you are poured back into. Its completely worth it. Because God is faithful to pour into you as long as you are willing to receive!
Ephesians 3:17-21
"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen"
