[I pray] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, and I love to pray it for myself and for those I love. There is so much depth in these words, but today, I want to focus on the last part.
What does it mean to be filled with all the fullness of God? I’m sure there are a lot of theologians who could take this line apart word by word and write a great summation of its meaning. But for me, I just asked the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart and bring to my mind a simple understanding of being “filled with all the fullness of God.” I felt a stirring in my being as I felt the Lord expanding the “knowing” in my heart and mind.
All the presence, power, life, energy and rule of God are available to us as His children. All that a person can have of God and still be human—that’s what’s available to us. That’s the measure.
Though Jesus was God, He emptied himself of His godship while on earth and chose to walk through life as a human, not tapping into His divinity, but showing us how to use faith, trust and the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the flesh. He also showed us how to put down things like greed, lust, selfish ambition and all the other worldly things that fill our hearts and pull us away from all He has for us. Because Jesus was not filled with all these kinds of things, He always had an open channel to the Father.
It seems like we get so bogged down with everyday life, and we are so filled with our own worries and desires that we really don’t have room for His fullness. We say we have Him in our heart, and we do, but it seems to me that much of the time, we only give Him a small part of us. We can live that way but we can’t have the fullness that way.
In order to be filled with the fullness of God, we need to make some adjustments. We need to get rid of any evil we might still have in us, as it states in Eph. 4:31. But we also need to get rid of the things that are not in themselves evil, but they are taking up too much room in our lives.
Jesus understands what it’s like to be human, and the Holy Spirit has given us everything we need to manifest His fullness as we walk through life.
I want the full measure of God working in me, and I believe it’s available. The key to getting filled is getting empty. Make room today; get rid of anything that is holding you back from the fullness of God working in you. {eoa}
Reprinted with permission from Dustin Smith Ministries: Here Be Lions. Diana Trout, with her husband Tom, has over 30 years of experience pastoring churches. They both serve local churches by traveling as a part of Dustin Smith Ministries, teaching and speaking all over the nation.
This article originally appeared at herebelions.org
